360 degrees video rigs

[Trojan26]

I'm just wondering what 360 degrees rigs people are diving with and what their experiences are with them.

I'm still new to scubadiving and underwater videography so I'm not quite ready to go 360Heros with 6+ GoPro's just yet. I got a single Hero4 Silver mounted on a Hollis M3 mask.

I've been looking at the Kodak SP360 and SP3604K, but I'd need two to get full 360 spherical view and they require the waterproof protective case.

The new Nikon KeyMission 360 got two lenses and the videos look good, but underwater ones got a black band where the footage from the two lenses meet.

For now, I'm primarily interested in 360 vids for documenting my dives, not really for professsional purpose.

Cheers,

Tommy

 

[3D diver]

Don't get the original SP360---the resolution is too low. The SP360 4K is much better...but... The battery life is short---45 to 60 minutes tops in cold water. I ended up getting two pairs of 4K's and switch from one pair to the next when the battery gets low. I use their free stitching software and edit the stitched clips in Sony Vegas. There are some Vegas specific tricks needed to make that work.

Here is a link to my 360 view playlist. All of the early videos (Dives 429 through 435) were shot using the original SP360s, the newer ones (Dive 436 on) are from the 4K's:

360 view - YouTube

By the way, the KeyMission, and new Kodak camera, that were recently announced are limited to 24FPS in 4K, which the 360 & VR folks seem to sneer at on the forums I participate in.

 

[DiverLaura]

This was shot with a samsung gear360 in a home-brew housing

 

[tsuyoshi]

How do people deal with color correction for 360 underwater videos?

 

[DiverLaura]

Fix it in post, 360 generally needs a few things done to it in post to optimize it for head mounted display viewing. If using a GoPro rig, shoot in RAW color, flat (protune on) as opposed to gopro color and auto white balance. Crush the blacks and boost the saturation in post. This evens things a lot. Programs such as autopano do a good job blending the cameras, and you can select one to "anchor" (tells program to make everything look like -that-one)