As an early adopter of 360 photography, I have been enjoying the format for over twenty (20!) years. When I had RICHO Theta “one shot” 360 cameras, all reviews said they had superior image quality compared to the Insta360 ONE X era cameras. But I ended up getting an Insta360 ONE X2 anyway, once I saw all the cool things you could do with their app.

Being able to “do cool stuff” was more important than going less cool stuff that looked better. (IYKYK)

I remember being blown away by some of the things you could do with the Insta360 software. Ever see any demos of the “paper airplane” mode that lets you fly though things in an impossible way? If not, here is on from five years ago that demonstrates it right at the start, followed by an explanation on how it is done.

MIND BLOWING the first time you see something like that because “you can’t do that with a normal camera.”

The next mind blowing thing I saw was the older Bullet Time, which Insta360 introduced with their first Insta360 ONE camera, which I’d never even heard of until I was researching for this post. Here’s a promo about it:

And of course, Tiny Planet was really cool, too! It can create some weird photos (and videos):

But in the years that followed, a lot of the gimmicks just kind of disappeared. They were still there, in the app, waiting for newbies to play with them. They where like the 360 video version of the Star Wipe or Comic Sans – use them, and folks will make fun of you ;-)

But I still think they are neat.

Now that we have gotten used to things…

But now that we have gotten used to things, I seem to see the same tutorials over and over and over again. Fake drone shots by using a long selfie stick. Giant stepping over things by placing the camera low to the ground. Stuff flying or falling by mounting a leaf or paper airplane or whatever to the camera. Over and over and over. And all the big vloggers seem to have run out of things to tutor us on, as they inevitably post a new version of the same tutorial they showed us on last year’s camera model.

What will the next big video revolution be? For me, I still use my 360 camera mostly for preservation – capturing an area so someone can go back later and see “everything” — not just what I pointed my camera to. Did I walk by something that is now gone, and never take a photo of it or shoot video of it? 360 captured it — and even if not properly framed or lit, “crappy video is better than no video.”

My question for you is … do you ever seen these videos? Or do I only see them because I started following 360 “creators” and also sharing 360 video of my own? Or maybe you have seen the results of 360 video “reframed” down to a normal video, doing neat special effects you think took hours, but in reality it was just because they hit a button in an app using a 360 camera…

I do like Fly Lapse mode…

And doing a panning timelapse with a full stationary camera is cool…

And of course I like the Sky Replacement feature. Here is a clip from the Silver Dollar City’s Showboat in Branson, Missouri, with fake fireworks added with “one click” in the app.

You know, take back what I just wrote. I forgot how much fun these things are. But I think I have more fun making my own videos than looking at influencers do their version of something another influencer did, based on something an influencer did last year.

Until next time…