and why 360° photography almost freaked me out.

Welcome to the world of 360° photography and videography. You’ll be learning photo editing and video editing techniques totally different from those you’ve always used. Such was the journey I took with the Ricoh Theta Z1 – flagship of their 360° camera line. 

Elegantly simple, The Theta Z1 exudes quality with its solid build and non-slip textured surface.

But, when your initial RAW image comes out looking like this, you know you are in for an exciting journey.

So much of the 360° community is devoted to virtual walkthroughs and action cam videos, that I had trouble finding people using the camera for the specifics I wanted to shoot. My main use cases revolved around architectural interiors in panoramic mode for the printed page and for a new way to enjoy landscape photography. 

So, what’s different?

Everything.  End of conversation.  Well, not really, but that was my first impression. 

I’m used to shooting with a DSLR camera that has a dozen buttons and dials, all relatively explanatory. There’s a small LCD atop showing results of what you’ve set and a large LCD screen on the reverse to look at your images after you’ve taken a photo or video.

Granted, the more you know about photography, the better pictures you’ll probably take; but, after 50 years of shooting, you really know what everything is supposed to do and how to make it perform.

Now, consider the compact, high-end Z1 360° camera with no room for all those dials and screens.  Panic.

Step one, find the power button – no problem. The familiar power symbol was right there atop three other function buttons. Right below it was a button with the universal Wi-Fi and Bluetooth symbols. Next was a Mode button and then a Function button.  Under the lens is a shutter button, but that’s it.

Spoiler alert: the real power of the Z1 is much easier to appreciate if you connect it to your smartphone and make the changes you want there. I discovered that in short order.

Having read the manual (who still does that?) I knew there were dozens of shooting modes and special plugins to take advantage of, but unless using a smartphone, they all required a series of “push this button twice and then that button three times and then this button one more time” kind of combinations.  Combine that with understanding the color of the status lamp and what it indicated, and you’re on your way to some crazy cool photography.

Start with this image from the camera,

Tweak it in Lightroom, and get this kind of flat 360° view.

Or set up your Z1 like I did on this thin lightstand,

go hide, and take a panoramic with the remote shutter from your smartphone, and end up with this view upstream and downstream, all at once.

or crop in a little and get this from the same shot

or crop even more and get this.

The choice is yours when you are shooting hi-res 360s. You’ve got more than 6.700 pixels in width to play with, so crop away.

High-quality specs mean high-quality images

The Z1 is a top-of-the-line camera with more capabilities than any of their other (easier to comprehend) cameras.  But, if you’ve got the desire to get the best images, this is the one you’ll want.

Specs:  1.0” Sensor size (x2) for great detail and low light shooting

                20 MP front and 20 MP rear shooting

                ISO 80 to 6400

                19 GB of onboard storage – no card slots

4K Video 3840×1920 / 56 Mbps (awesome for post editing)

                Live stream up to 3840 x 1920 at 120 Mbps and 30 fps

                Still photos 6720 x 3360 in either JPEG or RAW DNG or Both

                300 Stills per battery charge

                40 – 130 minutes of video per charge (depending on resolution)

Add to those impressive specs, the ability to add plugins that increase the capabilities of the camera and the incredibly diverse amount of images that can be processed from a  360° image, and your head quickly begins to spin.

For example, all these animations were produced in the Theta+ software (on my smartphone) from the same still image.

When you switch to video, you’ve got even more possibilities. Just consider, if you had ten camerapeople all video taping in a different direction, and then you could take the best parts from each to make your video. Well, in essense, that’s what we are talking about, but with just one piece of video from the Theta Z1.

Just like I did above with multiple animations made from one still, the two videos below were made from the same video, but emphasizing different aspects of the woods. In the first, I wanted to emphasize how the leaves were actively falling as we walked through the woods.

In the next, I wanted to emphasize how many leaves had already fallen. (BTW, the zooming was all done in post – there is no zoom function on the Z1.)

In the next video, I merely clamped the Z1 to my bike’s handlebars and went for a ride. After starting the camera, I never touched it again. All the panning left and right or up and down was all done in my editing software after the fact.

Especially impressive, note how stable the video is, clamped to a handlebar, on a less than smooth bike path.

And while we are on the topic of motion, you can easily turn any of your videos into animated gifs as well.

You can also post 360’s on the Theta360.com website and get a shareable link which people can then drag around or scroll to their hearts content.

And for the last of the video examples, this quick video (5 sec.) is nothing special, however, notice how well the Z1 balances exposure both outside the car as well as inside where I was holding the Theta Z1 on the dash. The 1″ sensor is truly amazing.

Back to business

As I mentioned, I was primarily interested in 2-D images that could be used editorially in Properties Magazine, where I write about architecture, construction and design in commercial real estate.  From experimenting, I can say not every interior lends itself to a 3-D camera, but here are some where I think it really worked.

This first is the result of the picture at the beginning of this article. I like how the camera was able to balance the exposure of the kitchen and the outdoor deck at night.

Picture of a recently completed middle school on a very cold winter day.

This next one was taken just before sunrise, and handheld on top of a 12′ painter’s pole. The white glow is where the sun rose about 5 minutes later.

Later that same morning…

Another series of shots taken late in the evening in downtown Cleveland. I love how little noise there is in these shots. It’s that great 1″ sensor behind each of the lenses.

And finally a series of shots of a new apartment project that was just being completed:

For anyone seriously considering 360° photography, if you’d like full res versions of any of these shots to examine, drop me a note and I’ll be happy to share them with you.

At $999.95 MSRP, the Z1 is the top of the Ricoh Theta line, but it enables you to shoot in RAW and with various apertures from f2.1 to f5.6. That makes this the top choice today for serious 360° shooters.