There are more and more 360 video cameras coming to market, how do they compare?

By invitation from the University of Hawaii, I was recently in Honolulu doing a series of workshops and talks about virtual reality and journalism.

I brought a ton of my gear and cameras: Insta360 Nano, Ricoh Theta S, Samsung Gear 360 and Kodak SP360 4K, among others.

While touring the island, I decided to pull over to a small park around the corner from Mike’s Huli Chicken (where I had lunch) and setup the cameras for a video shootout to compare how they match with each other.

Keep in mind that I set up the cameras one-at-a-time over the course of an hour or two.

Also keep in mind that it was windy, cloudy and at one point rainy… this makes the lighting conditions unpredictably varied among the cameras.

Lastly, YouTube crunches the video and reduces the quality after being uploaded. They look much better than what is on the video site.

That said, you do get a decent sense of how the cameras do.

They are listed in alphabetical order, but the chronological order I shot was Samsung Gear 360, Ricoh Theta S, Insta360 Nano and (about 30 minutes later) Kodak SP360 4K.

I hope this helps!

Insta360 Nano

Kodak SP360 4K

Ricoh Theta S

Samsung Gear 360*

*Thanks to a colleague, we realized that the footage by Samsung was not set to 4K for some reason. Here is image the resolution.

What camera do you like best? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

This shootout comparison would not be possible without a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation grant that funds and support my work of with USC Annenberg students to produce immersive journalism experiences under the name JOVRNALISM.

You can learn more about Knight and Google News Lab’s partnership, Journalism 360, here: https://medium.com/journalism360/introducing-journalism-360-d58b9e72e2e#.r6ybqfb5k