Theta S stick

Supporting the little Ricoh 36-degree movie camera has its own challenge. What you tend to want is a support which has the smallest footprint and so is not a hideous distraction to your 360-dgree stills and movies. In short, you want your 360s to appear as iff they are magically floating in space with no glaringly obvious means of support!

So, most Theta S owners go to reasonable lengths to conceal their supports, or at least make them as 'low profile' as they can. And here is my solution to this issue...

It's a very simple solution (to a simple problem) and consists of a cheap selfie stick and the three-foot stand from my video monopod. The key is that the selfie stick must have a screw mount at the bottom to fix it to the monopod stand, and you will also  (perhaps) need a bush mount adapter to convert the large screw mount (1/4" thread) of the stand to the small screw (3/8" thread) mount of the selfie stick.

This results into a compact stand 'kit' that can be quickly put together to make a telescopic stand which is about three and a half feet tall. Enough to lift the Theta S camera up for to get a decent and steady 360 view without you being in the picture.

Here's a screenshot of the visual 'footprint' you will see using this minimalistic stand...

Looking straight down in your 360 still or video, you will only see this small
hint that you are using a stand. You could hide this further by adding a 'disc'
logo if you want.

A further benefit of this system is that it folds down to make a very compact kit...

If you join one of the Ricoh Theta S online community forums - like the Theta S Facebook group - you will see other alternatives to this solution. Being a member of a group like this is an ideal way to pick up handy tips like this.

Yongnuo YN 50mm lens test

Managed to finally find time to do a very quick test of my new Yongnuo YN 50mm lens (for my Canon 700D DSLR). I also wanted to do a couple of exposure tests for a location that I would be using in some interviews soon...

For a first attempt, I am pretty pleased with the sharpness and the exposures. Believe it or not, this is actually a great improvement over the old video camera I had been using for interviews!

I stuck to manual settings, I didn't try auto-tracking focus using the Yongnuo's auto-focus as this is the weakest feature in the lens. To be honest, the auto-focus on this lens is horrendously noisy!

But that's not all...
As well as trying out my cheap Yongnuo lens I got to play with a couple of other items of equipment while shooting this short test. The first item of note was my Rode Smartlav+ Lavalier Microphone and the other bit of kit in use for the first time was a 52mm ND2 Neutral Density Filter.

I've never used a Lavalier (or lapel) mic before and had no idea what to expect from it. In the past, I have used a pretty expensive shotgun mic which plugged directly into my video camera via an XLR plug. To be honest, the lav mic was a little noisy compared to a full sized shotgun mic, and it gave me a bit f hiss. But this may have been due to my inexperience. We shall see.

The Neutral Density Filter is a small bit of kit but quite important. Simply put, it is like having sunglasses for your lens!

I have been quite amazed at the low light abilities of my DSLR and it's lens (particularly the 50mm f1.8), but this performance comes at a cost - particularly if you want to shoot on bright sunny days. The lens actually lets in too much light (never thought I'd complain about that) and so you have to bang on an ND filter to turn down the amount of light you let in for particular exposure and shutter settings.

Without the ND filter, my test subjects would have been grossly over-exposed!

(Big thank you to Katey for helping me out with my sound test!)

360 Theta stills test

The 360-degree video option available from the Ricoh Theta S isn't always required, particularly when you just want to highlight a single location of a limited size. In these situations, a 360-degree 'still' photo is probably a more appropriate approach...

Post from RICOH THETA. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

There are limitations using the Theta S for this sort of photography. The resolution of the image isn't quite high enough should the viewer want to zoom in on particular objects in the room. However, the ease of use and medium quality that the camera produces is enough to give the viewer a '360 snapshot' of the location.

Ricoh Theta S 360 degree video test

My latest toy. And I use my language carefully as this basic 360 video camera is little more than a 'technology tester' in my opinion. I fully expect that within a year there will be cameras of far better quality and resolution on the market (for the same or money as the £300 price tag of the Ricoh).

I was lucky, I persuaded my work that they should buy this camera to try out elementary 360-degree photography and video to gauge whether there was interest in the format. Specifically, we are interested in virtual guided tours of our facilities which would be hosted on our website.

The Theta S couldn't be more simpler. It a very basic compact (fixed focus) digital camera system with a lens at the front and a lens at the back. These two lenses record footage in sync to produce a 360 effect...Though, it's not quite as simple as that, as you will see.

But before we get into the nitty-gritty, here's a preview of the very first go I had with the Theta S. But I warn you - turn the volume down as it was a very windy trip and so the audio is terribly distorted.



Results - the not so bad, bad, and downright horrible!
Well, as you can see, it looks like an SD quality video from about 5 years ago! The reason for this is - although the marketing advertises that the camera can shoot in 1080p HD, that resolution is spread across the whole 360 degree of vision supplied by the two lenses. So, in effect, you don't really achieve 1080p quality at all - it's more like 1080HD stretched which results in a 640SD quality look!

A bit of a cheat - from a marketing point of view- and it has led to the greatest number of complaints by users, who are - understandably - a little disappointed with the quality that they are getting.

Add to this the awful software and upload system that Ricoh has cobbled together and it means that getting the best out of your Theta S is something of a grueling challenge! I have experimented with several ways to get the best out of the camera and it's MPEG4 footage, and my conclusion is that you cannot afford to drop quality in edit/conversion one iota as the quality of the original footage is only just adequate in the first place.

Here's a useful introduction which explains the Theta S workflow by Tony Cece...

(I'm looking into buying Apple's 'Compressor' app for FCPX so I can edit then output lossless MP4 files. We shall see.)

Anyway, all technicalities and gripes aside the camera is what it is - it's the first (as far as I am aware) consumer entry level 60-degree video (and stills) camera on the market. Things will undoubtedly improve, but the Theta S gives you a very useful first experience of shooting and deploying 360-degree video. And I've no doubt that this will be a more mainstream activity as the technology (and software) improves.

Stay tuned.