Samsung Enters 360-Degree Camera Market With Gear 360

Nosotros're very early on into 2022, simply we've already seen the announcement of ii competitors to Ricoh's Theta S spherical camera. The start, announced at CES, was the Nikon KeyMission 360, a ruggedized model with 4K video capabilities. The 2nd is existence announced today. The Samsung Gear 360 has a squat design, just similar the Nikon, merely it's not a fully ruggedized shooting solution.

The Gear 360 is spherical in shape, but with a flat lesser that houses the standard tripod thread. Dual lenses sit down at the forepart and rear, each capturing a 195-degree field of view. The camera stitches images together, resulting in 30-megapixel stills—roughly twice that of the Theta S. Those extra pixels come into play when zooming in on photos to try and middle more detail and when viewing images on a screen or VR headset.

Each lens has a fixed f/2 aperture—I wasn't able to confirm if focus is stock-still likewise, simply that'south usually the case with cameras of this type. Video is recorded at three,840 by one,920 resolution—that's the same width every bit 4K footage. It doesn't quite match it in terms of vertical resolution, but at that place'southward not a huge difference between 1,920 lines and the two,160 lines that you lot get with traditional 16:ix 4K footage.

The extra resolution is especially key for video. In my experience, 1080p spherical footage is rather soft—closer in look to standard definition than Hard disk. Moving to 4K should go a long way to convalesce that soft look. It'southward especially an consequence when recording 360-caste video from the air or when capturing vast landscapes.

You'll need to convert video to a format that tin be uploaded to YouTube, either via your telephone or via desktop software. The procedure takes a little while on the S7—the video first has to transfer, so the video must be converted using the phone'southward processor. You can use a companion app for your phone to preview a scene, and showtime and stop recording, or take a moving picture. The device also houses a concrete record button, an data display, and a Menu button to alter settings.

Samsung made information technology very articulate that the Gear 360, which features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless communication, will piece of work with the S7 and S7 Border, simply it's non articulate what other Android phones will back up the product, or if it volition work at iOS devices. Information technology does have a removable battery and a microSD slot for storage.

The Gear 360 doesn't have a house release engagement or price. Samsung expects it to ship quondam in the 2nd quarter of this year.