Insta360

[adri]

Forum Sponsor

The thing with GoPros...they tend to fail a lot... it's a complaint that i hear a lot. You get the perfect footage and then something gets corrupted or they overheat (say faster than what the dji action cams).
Or something gets bricked and your camera becomes unusable. Now if you expect it and pay for that membership (yay another subscription), youll be fine. But most people who get it for the one vacation will be crushed.

And yes, footage is underwhelming "as is" and requires to be massaged. For shutter speed, iso, frame rate, nd filters...its "easy" once you figure out what settings to use but if more editing is required (colour grading, etc) you lose a lot of people over that ahahah. Its a fun skill to work with/on but not worth it for the common folk


Due to the nature of action cams, and the hits they take and damage and finickiness that might come with them, a lot of people stay away.

Then the used market is ALL OVER THE PLACE. I still see gopro 8 (5 versions behind) being sold for 200-250... while go pro 10 are in the 200-300 range... it's BONKER considering you can get the newest one at costco for $400
If you live on marketplace/kijiji you might find good reasonable prices...but it's a labour of LOVE ahhaah
Also if you're willing to take it apart and take say 2 broken go pros to make one functioning one, you can save a lot of money but that's a whole other level of tinkering.

I wasn't recommending a GoPro as much as I was illustrating how greasy Insta360 is as a company, by showing the difference between the chinese brand's after sales support (complete lack of) vs the american brand's after sales support (will do anything for you).

Re: GoPro lack of stability, I think a lot of that had to do with people like me were being cheap and trying to make do with our old stuff, that the new Hero 9+ GoPros werent' designed to run on.

Long story short, GoPros became more demanding around Hero 9 and up I think. Older GoPros were fine with weaker batteries and slower memory cards. Newer GoPros suddenly started needing higher output batteries and faster memory cards, but our old stuff all fit so we just put it in and suffered problems.

The first time I spoke to GoPro support they said, yeah, just get a faster card, and that eliminated half my problems. The second time they said "Stop using the blue batteries from your old units, we'll send you a free white battery", and that eliminated the other half of my problems.

It's almost like if I had read the freakin manual I wouldn't have had any problems. I should really start doing that one of these days.




Nah.

 

[adri]

PS: Yes, GoPro does still have the odd glitch, but I mean, I think it let me down maybe twice over a 25 day cross country road trip. I probably turned the thing on and off a half dozen times a day. That's a 1.5% failure rate, to a 98.5% success rate. Not bad for a tiny box that can capture hundreds of frames every second for hours a day out in the rain and still not die.

 

[LePhillou]

PS: Yes, GoPro does still have the odd glitch, but I mean, I think it let me down maybe twice over a 25 day cross country road trip. I probably turned the thing on and off a half dozen times a day. That's a 1.5% failure rate, to a 98.5% success rate. Not bad for a tiny box that can capture hundreds of frames every second for hours a day out in the rain and still not die.

true that insta360 might be not great for customer service but i heard great things about DJI and the DJI refresh thing which is similarish to gopro, and entitles you to x-number of replacement for y-time period

for cameras or drones like privatepilot has...can be quite useful
mind you i also use gopros as well

 

[adri]

On that note... DJI's Osmo Action 4 is only $299 right now. It's not their latest action camera, but at that price I'm honestly tempted to buy one just to try it. Love my DJI drone.

 

[LePhillou]

On that note... DJI's Osmo Action 4 is only $299 right now. It's not their latest action camera, but at that price I'm honestly tempted to buy one just to try it. Love my DJI drone.

i got the Osmo Action 3 for $280ish in february and love it. Using it 98% of the time as a dashcam and the rest for other fun things

So i dont think you can go wrong with the 4 unless you want better low light (which the 5 pro has)

 

[Fuzzbuster]

On that note... DJI's Osmo Action 4 is only $299 right now. It's not their latest action camera, but at that price I'm honestly tempted to buy one just to try it. Love my DJI drone.

I just saw that too!

 

[PrivatePilot]

This thread has admittedly kind of piqued my interest in the whole 360 camera thing. Looking at the used market I see a number of older models. Is an old one like this even worth buying anymore or are we talking potato quality videos and no support because of the age now?

 

[Aens]

I tried my hand in moto vlogging early on. 2 things.

Ontario roads suck when you look at it on a timeline. When you sit there staring wondering how much footage you should keep and realize the 'Smiles per mile' is atrociously low. And, you can only film so many times the same road if you are doing it as 'content'. Also, unless you are going really ******* fast, you will always look really really slow.

Second thing, to get the 360 shot, you gotta put the camera in such a stupid position behind you. Find the longest selfie stick and have it diagonally back as high and far as you can go. You really look like a knob to everyone.

Do not buy a new camera if you don't have another hobby to use it for.

edit: The best shots I got, were when I was filming for the person in front or behind me. The behind shots were actually the best.

 

[LePhillou]

This thread has admittedly kind of piqued my interest in the whole 360 camera thing. Looking at the used market I see a number of older models. Is an old one like this even worth buying anymore or are we talking potato quality videos and no support because of the age now?

View attachment 71655

I wouldnt go past the x3 at this point in time
in terms of bugs, picture quality, etc

 

[Ash]

This thread has admittedly kind of piqued my interest in the whole 360 camera thing. Looking at the used market I see a number of older models. Is an old one like this even worth buying anymore or are we talking potato quality videos and no support because of the age now?

That's the model that I have. I wouldn't recommend it these days unless you find one for $50 and just want to play around. There are a few listed on eBay for $200+ which is ridiculous, because that's what I paid for a used one over 6 years ago, and you can get a used camera that is 2 or 3 generations newer for a few dollars more.

It's still 100% supported in the latest software, so no worries there. But it has a non-swappable internal battery, no water resistance, and the video resolution really shows its age. I'm not sure what camera was used for this video, but the footage from mine looks very similar:

 

[Fuzzbuster]

I tried my hand in moto vlogging early on. 2 things.

Ontario roads suck when you look at it on a timeline. When you sit there staring wondering how much footage you should keep and realize the 'Smiles per mile' is atrociously low. And, you can only film so many times the same road if you are doing it as 'content'. Also, unless you are going really ******* fast, you will always look really really slow.

Second thing, to get the 360 shot, you gotta put the camera in such a stupid position behind you. Find the longest selfie stick and have it diagonally back as high and far as you can go. You really look like a knob to everyone.

Do not buy a new camera if you don't have another hobby to use it for.

edit: The best shots I got, were when I was filming for the person in front or behind me. The behind shots were actually the best.

This guy just uses it hand held!

 

[PrivatePilot]

That's the model that I have. I wouldn't recommend it these days unless you find one for $50 and just want to play around. There are a few listed on eBay for $200+ which is ridiculous, because that's what I paid for a used one over 6 years ago, and you can get a used camera that is 2 or 3 generations newer for a few dollars more.

It's still 100% supported in the latest software, so no worries there. But it has a non-swappable internal battery, no water resistance, and the video resolution really shows its age. I'm not sure what camera was used for this video, but the footage from mine looks very similar:

Thanks. Maybe I'll keep an eye out for a really cheap one. I like the premise, but I also suspect that like I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'll just end up with terabytes more of video that I'll rarely use - but it does make for some neat video. I certainly don't need a brand new one though for just being an occasional toy. As for the battery, my bet is it's replaceable if you're handy. And I'm pretty handy.

Watching that sample video I forgot for a second that you need to click on the screen and move the video around to see the other angles.

There was a few boat review videos that I found while looking for videos of my sister and BIL's new boat (from this thread) that were filmed in 360 and it was actually really awesome in this application as you weren't limited to the angle the camera was pointed while the guy blabbed, but could spin the angle around by just clicking and dragging around the video (link below) to see different things and areas which were otherwise not visible in almost every other video we looked at.

 

[adri]

I tried my hand in moto vlogging early on. 2 things.

Ontario roads suck when you look at it on a timeline. When you sit there staring wondering how much footage you should keep and realize the 'Smiles per mile' is atrociously low. And, you can only film so many times the same road if you are doing it as 'content'. Also, unless you are going really ******* fast, you will always look really really slow.

This is why 70% of my videos are shot in my garage.

And 20% are shot inside my house.

And maybe only 10% are actually shot out there *gestures vaguely at the long boring straight line roads*

 

[adri]

Thanks. Maybe I'll keep an eye out for a really cheap one. I like the premise, but I also suspect that like I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'll just end up with terabytes more of video that I'll rarely use - but it does make for some neat video. I certainly don't need a brand new one though for just being an occasional toy. As for the battery, my bet is it's replaceable if you're handy. And I'm pretty handy.

Watching that sample video I forgot for a second that you need to click on the screen and move the video around to see the other angles.

There was a few boat review videos that I found while looking for videos of my sister and BIL's new boat (from this thread) that were filmed in 360 and it was actually really awesome in this application as you weren't limited to the angle the camera was pointed while the guy blabbed, but could spin the angle around by just clicking and dragging around the video (link below) to see different things and areas which were otherwise not visible in almost every other video we looked at.

That's a great example of what I meant by the quality is low. Watch that boat video at 4K quality and try to find what's sharp and in focus in the video.

Hint: The answer is nothing. Nothing is sharp or in focus lol

 

[PrivatePilot]

That's a great example of what I meant by the quality is low. Watch that boat video at 4K quality and try to find what's sharp and in focus in the video.

Hint: The answer is nothing. Nothing is sharp or in focus lol

Indeed, probably filmed on an older 360 camera for sure, but I do kind of like the versatility. We were for example able to find the location of a few of the AC vents and service/access ports using that video because it captured angles that nobody ever else ever apparently photographed on that particular model boat.

I'm sure a newer camera would provide much better quality video though.

 

[Ash]

As for the battery, my bet is it's replaceable if you're handy. And I'm pretty handy.

Disassembly would be a real pain, but it would likely be possible. I mentioned the internal battery more for the everyday usage though: even brand new I think it only lasted 30 or 40 minutes tops while recording and then takes a couple of hours to recharge. Just something to check if you're looking at older models, because internal batteries were fairly common at the time. I run a USB cable to power mine while recording.

The Insta360 Go cameras (180⁰ instead of 360⁰) are similar in that respect. They're tiny so they could be used in some truly novel applications, but the internal battery significantly limits their recording time. Some of the older ones even have arbitrary limits on the length of videos beyond the limits of the battery or memory card.

 

[Relax]

This may be a dumb question, but I use my iPhone as a GPS, so it's already mounted on my bars with a view of the road. I haven't tried, but I suppose it could record a ride if I wanted to. What are the additional benefits of a dedicated action cam? Is it mainly the longer recording time because of the removable media?

 

[Lightcycle]

This may be a dumb question, but I use my iPhone as a GPS, so it's already mounted on my bars with a view of the road. I haven't tried, but I suppose it could record a ride if I wanted to. What are the additional benefits of a dedicated action cam? Is it mainly the longer recording time because of the removable media?

Both have their pros and cons.

The action cams are vibration proof and resistant to damage from jolts and falls. Plenty of warnings from Apple about mounting iPhones without dampers, lest they destroy the motors and stabilizers inside the iPhone camera.

Speaking of which, the iPhone is better for adjusting focal length because of these delicate parts, so you get better depth of field, whereas the fixed, smaller aperture on an action camera is designed to keep everything in focus, which is better for speed and movement.

Action cameras tend to be smaller and have dedicated mounts for chin, chest, helmets, at the end of long sticks, etc. Whereas the handheld form factor on a smartphone makes it a bit awkward to mount on different surfaces.

Some of the action cameras also have dual lenses which allow for 360 capture and editing, so you can follow specific objects while in motion and do so in the editing room well after the fact. With a smartphone, if your subject escapes your camera's FOV, it's gone and irrecoverable. These 360 cameras tend to be better for... action.

Personally, I have lots of important information on my phone that I don't want lost if it's hanging out in the wind on my dirtbike...

Did I mention I crash A LOT?

 

[PrivatePilot]

Plenty of warnings from Apple about mounting iPhones without dampers, lest they destroy the motors and stabilizers inside the iPhone camera.

This happens with all phones with moving parts/stabilizers in their cameras, not just Apple.

But FWIW I've ridden a few hundred thousand KM's now with various iPhones attached to my handlebars using only an oldschool Ram X-Grip and never had a single camera problem.



I think the key is not activating the camera while you're riding - that activates all those little motors and sensors and stuff and then yeah, they go crazy trying to compensate for the vibration of the motorcycle. I just make sure that the camera app is always closed/killed before putting my phone in the mount and never have any issues.

 

[Ash]

I'm not sure what mobile phones are capable of these days, but the claim to fame for recent action cams (especially 360⁰ cams) is that they offer astounding image stabilization. Rather than doing this with expensive mechanical elements like gimbals, they simply record a very wide angle. Then when you view or export the video, the software can rapidly move a smaller viewport (16:9 or whatever) around in that wide-angle footage to cancel out any bumps or vibrations that the camera experienced at recording time.

Forum Sponsor