Samsung Gear 360 2017 - UK Version

These cameras are great. They shoot 4k 360 degree video and stills, a d used to sell for around 10x the current price. So what's the catch? Well, Samsung stopped supporting them on android and IOS a few years back, so the associated phone app is hard to find, and doesn't fully work with recent phone versions. More importantly the camera shoots dual 190 degree overlapping fish eye images, rather than the more common equirectangular images that most current 360 degree cameras and software use today. So.... If you are hoping to just use the camera out of the box and stream live 360 video, you are out of luck. To be fair this particular seller does acknowledge this and provides a postage free return envelope for buyers caught out by this. I bought this in full knowledge of the limitations, because I spent a bit of time researching tools that will work with the camera for windows, Mac, Linux and Android. There are plenty out there. Sadly Amazon prevents me from posting links,but Google is your friend here. Look out for firmware modsfor the camera and desktop and phone apps that can process the dual fisheye images. Be a little cautious of android apps from sources outside of the play store, but those provided with open source code on GitHub are usually a fairly safe bet as they are open to scrutiny by the wider developer community. The bottom line is that this is a really ace camera, if you are prepared to put in the time and effort learning a few new tools to get the best from it. If however you want a point and click solution that just works with your phone, look elsewhere.

DON'T BUY. BRILLIANT CAMERA. PICTURES NOT ALWAYS PERFECT, BUT DAVID BAILEY I AM NOT. I JUST WANT TO CAPTURE MEMORIES. GREAT THAT YOU CAN TAKE A PICTURE AT ANYTIME WITHOUT THE FAFF. UNFORTUNATELY THE APP IS NO LONGER SUPPOTED BY GOOGLE I WAS TOLD BY SAMSUNG SUPPORT. WHY SAMSUNG DON'T DO AN APP FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS IS BAFFLING. THIS IS NOW AN EXPESIIVE ORNAMENT, WHICH I USED TO LOVE, BUT NOW HATE WITH PASSION. MY DEVICE IS AN S20+. I CAN TAKE PICTURES, BUT CANNOT OPEN OR SAVE THEM POOR SAMSUNG. POOR. AS A DEVOTED SUPPORTER OF ALL THINGS SAMSUNG, I AM PARTICULARLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THIS. I BOUGHT A NUMBER OF ACCESSORIES TOO! I HAVE HAD THIS CAMERA SINCE THEY WERE FIRST RELEASED.

For just £27 this Samsung Gear 360 2017 camera seemed to be too good to be true. What was the catch? Well, you have to factor in the cost of a speedy and large capacity microSD card before you can use the camera, it is also 6 years since it's initial release, so it will soon become yesterday's gadget. Google found multiple posts about problems charging the battery and lack of support by Samsung for the mobile phone app and PC software required to stitch the dual camera footage together for photos and videos. The battery seems to be fine, the Android phone app "Gear 360 File Access & Stitcher" installed on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (similar age phone to the camera!) but was unable to load any files from the camera despite saying it was connected. The PC software Gear 360 Action Director downloaded from the Samsung website so far works on my retro Windows 7 Professional installation I made purely for this purpose and stitches videos and encodes the file with the necessary 3D information. The files are large with a 16 minute clip using 4.8Gb of storage, and this is on the 2nd best quality setting of 2560 x 1280 at 30fps. The quality is decent without being really sharp or crisp, and being able to constantly move around the POV video image while watching in VLC or online in YouTube is fascinating and wonderful. So far I have been able to stitch photos using an online website, I cannot see how to do it using the Gear 360 Action Director software, it always outputs still picture mp4 videos?! Even with the possible issues handicapping processing of full 360 degree dual lens footage it's perfectly fine to use either of the camera lenses on their own for photos or video and process them as normal photos and video footage but very wide angle, 180 degrees, to capture large scenes or for house images - useful for estate agents perhaps! The quality of the device seems good with it being weighty in the hand and the lenses looking clear and bright, there is a convenient standard mounting thread in the base of the camera as shown in my photos. This great for tripods or selfie sticks, etc. In the box a wrist strap and a rubber ring are included, the ring is meant to be used as a stand around the base of the camera but I found it useless and more inclined to make the camera fall over. Overall at the purchase price I have no regrets and will be able to use the camera for 360 photos and videos, or just standard single lens wide angle.

An excellent introduction to 360 photography and videography, whilst the non-mandatory editing and control software will only work with Samsung Phones, it is very straight forward to use over wi-fi connection to the device, also allows for rendering the photo/video space to any wrapping format imaginable, and any field of view you care to try. Very interesting and fun devices. Image capture quality and noise levels are useably decent for non-critical applications, and absolutely fine even for casual professional use. Time lapse feature is also very fun, leave it on a slimline tripod and capture the clouds/crowds rolling by at breakneck speed, and move your playback viewing position to anywhere in the captured sphere. Definitely recommended to anyone who wants to get an introduction to 360 video/photo work ..and possibly more than enough for most folks actual needs.

Generally I'm happy to use it. Just the problem is lack of app. Anyways I'm using in my PC and it's working well there

Doesn't work with any phone even if used outsourcing apk.. And low video quality even if used the best settings

Veloci e Seri

Superbe caméra 360 fait de très belles photos très facile à manier pratique à recommander

No se cuanto tiempo habra estado la bateria vacia, pero por ahora a cargado bien