I have seen a few folks (Quadrocopter, Freefly?) playing around with the Ricoh Theta S VR Camera and I'm wondering what people's opinions of it are. It's dramatically less expensive than most of the other options on the market, and for a simple VR application for use with Oculus and/or Facebook 360° video it seems like a good first step. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
While at a tradeshow this past week, my Panasonic table was next to the Ricoh table. I got to play a bit with the Theta and, more importantly, look at some of the footage the rep had shot with his. I was very underwhelmed. I had said to him that it would be fun to fly on my Octoccopter and even he said, 'Probably not worth it.' The footage is really pixelated past subjects in the near foreground. So once you get up off the ground stuff in the distance would look pretty terrible.
The video quality from the Theta S is pretty terrible as Duane mentioned. However, it is pretty good when it comes to stills. You're far better off with a custom 2 GoPro rig with 220 lenses, or with one of the newer setups like the Kodak 360SP 4K or Samsung Gear VR camera. That said, I've played with mounting the Theta on the back of my Inspire a couple times and it's makes for some super fun footage, just nothing I would ever sell or give to a client. I have flown 10 camera GoPro rigs off my S1000 a few times now with great results, far better than any of the other rigs I mentioned. It's quite expensive by comparison though, and it can get a bit heavy which limits flight time.
we have the THETA S. I back what Philip said the movies are pretty terrible stills are ok. I am yet to to strap to the heli she how it turns out
The resolution is low, which is no surprise if you realise that the complete stitched image is saved as 2 circles in a 1080p videofile. It's fun to play and experiment with VR without investing a small capital, but it will yield low res video.