Best first-person POV camera

9:47 AM

In this Gimbal Guru article I explain why 360° cameras are the best option, if you want to create amazing POV Shots!

Check out the full video on Youtube:

Every owner of an actioncam tried at least once to shoot a video in the point of view (POV), also kown as first-person view perspective.
The user has many options for mounting the camera on the body. The two most popular options are the Head- Strap and the Chest- Mount.
Everyone who has already tried this, knows the problems that can arise:

  • It can happen that your GoPro was not balanced horizontally and you get a crooked picture as a result.
  • or the actioncamera tilt alignment was set incorrectly and you are not filming the desired image section that you actually wanted.
  • it can also happen, that you want to take a larger image section but the wide angle of your action camera is not sufficient.
  • another issue is the electronic image stabilization of actioncams. When you activate the image stabilization, the video is cropped automatically. You lose valuable image details and wide angle view, which is mostly desired for POV shots! 
All these problems can be solved easily with one type of camera. The keyword is: “360 cameras”.  You can attach your 360 cam easily like any other actioncamera on the head- or chest- mount, but this time you don't have to worry if the camera is set perfectly horizontal or the perspective is set 100% correctly.
Here is a Gimbal Guru Tipp:
Make sure the stiching line is not right in the center of your recording. So you avoid weird stiching artefacts in your final video.
Because of the 360 sperical video recording you have full control of all your perspective parameters in post procuction.
The horizontal balance is done automatically by the 360 camera if you activate the electronic image stabilization. You also can fine tune your perspective parameter in post production. You are able to change the rotation, the tilting and panning. It’s also possible to change to zoom value. You can go from narrow to ultrawide, only by changing the reframing values of your software. Also keep in mind that’s possible to change the view completely. This gives you the possibility to add additional dynamic movements into your shot.
Really cool is the electronic image stabilization of 360 cameras. They don’t crop the picture and the stabilization result is better, than normal action cams. 

Summarized, a 360 camera is really powerful and in my opinion, nearly perfect for POV Shots. 

However, there is one disadvantage. The video quality at this point not as good as with standard action cameras. For example the Insta360 ONE R, which I used in this video records 360 Videos in 5,7K. But you have to consider that the resolution refers to the entire 360 room and most of the time you reframe only a certain part of the picture.
The quality is good, but at this point not as good as for example a GoPro which can record in 4K or higher. But in my opinion the quality is good enough and combined with all the listed points, I would prefer a 360 camera in every aspect.

I can definitely recommend you the Insta360 ONE R*. Through the modular system this camera provides you both: A normal action & a 360 camera. Check out the *LINK* and get your Insta360 ONE R* now, to be able to create amazing POV shots!

If you enjoyed the article and video, subscribe to my Gimbal Guru Youtbe-Channel and look forward to more videos about 360 cameras, actioncams, video editing and gimbals!

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