CREATE 360 PANORAMA VIDEO VR FULL

This captures two hemispherical images, which are then merged to produce the final 360-degree image. The sensors are ordinary ‘flat’ types, but the key is in the lenses, which are extreme fisheyes capable of capturing a 180-degree view, placed back to back. That’s essentially what 360-degree cameras do – place you in the centre of a sphere, and use extreme wide-angle lenses to capture everything around that point. When visualizing how 360-degree images are captured, imagine someone photographing a sphere from the inside, making sure they get every contour of its inner surface. While it wasn’t and isn’t quite as smooth as contemporary marketing material liked to make out, it still works pretty well and expands the usefulness of the Fusion. Its “Over-capture” functionality – rebranded to “Reframe” on the Max – is still useful, allowing you to select parts of 360-degree footage to convert to a more conventionally viewable high-resolution video. While it’s been pretty much eclipsed by the GoPro Max (opens in new tab), which is a superior 360 camera in most ways worth mentioning, the GoPro Fusion is still widely available and can be found at significantly cheaper prices than a couple of years ago, meaning it’s worth considering if you want a high-quality product for a budget price. Read our Hands on: Ricoh Theta Z1 review (opens in new tab) It’s expensive, but this is definitely an option worth considering. Its sensors are slightly larger than are usually found on cameras of this type, which improves dynamic range and arguably makes up for the fact that some other cameras edge it out in raw resolution terms.

It’s not as rough and ready as some other cameras on this list, without waterproofing or a protective shell, but it’s got a smooth design that’s comfortable to hold and intuitive to use.

The Ricoh Theta Z1 produces impressively high-quality 360-degree video – as you’d hope at this price. It’s worth double-checking which one you’re getting before clicking the “Buy” button. Since then, not much has changed, save for a slightly revamped version launched more recently (opens in new tab), boasting 51GB of storage rather than the original's rather limiting 19GB. The first Ricoh Theta Z1 (opens in new tab) was announced and released in 2019 – back when a 360-degree camera was still at least something of a novelty.

CREATE 360 PANORAMA VIDEO VR FULL

Read our full Ricoh Theta X review (opens in new tab) When combined with its excellent coloring and low-light abilities the Theta X’s ability to shoot stills in 11K resolution lifts it above the competition, but its lack of RAW capture slightly undermines that option. However, we think photographers looking for a 360° camera with core quality will love the Theta X. So who is the Theta X actually for? With so many built-in and convenient features we’re sure the Theta X will be a good purchase for anyone after an easy-to-use, versatile, and high-quality 360º camera, though at this high price it’s a serious investment. Vloggers should also look at the Theta X with suspicion purely because you can’t use an external microphone with it. If you're looking at this 360° camera as an alternative to a GoPro action camera, then bear in mind that its image stabilization – despite working on higher resolutions than on a GoPro – just isn’t as good.

Whether the Ricoh Theta X is going to appeal to you will depend on what kind of content creator you are. Read our full GoPro Max review (opens in new tab) However, the Max just has that GoPro polish that makes it the best 360-degree camera experience you can buy right now. It's a fairly pricey option and lacks a dedicated 4K video capture that you'll find on some rivals like those from Insta360 (which you'll meet shortly). As we noted in our full review, the Max also has impressive specs elsewhere – with a six-mic setup, its highly credible vlogging camera, and the 1600mAh battery means you'll have enough charge for a day's shooting. The smooth app lets you edit clips from 360 footage pretty much seamlessly, meaning you can get great images no matter where the camera is pointed, and swap effortlessly between them. Granted, the image and video quality of the GoPro Max are good enough that they could get it here by themselves, but the GoPro Max also offers a swathe of intuitive features that mean pretty much anyone gets loads out of it, even if they have little interest in 360-degree imaging. This 360-degree action camera hits our #1 spot for a number of different reasons.

Create 360 panorama video vr