A couple of follow up questions about the camera. I'm watching the video again and notice in a number of shots that there's a cable that runs over the handlebars and then "disappears" (I've attached a screen shot). Is this a control cable for the camera that s/w makes invisible? Also, I noticed a number of times where the view in the camera changes and yet it appears both of your hands are on the grips. How is this done?
The reason I'm being such a pest about the camera is I've always carried one on long brevets and I never use it - never. I carried one all through London Edinburgh London and took exactly one picture - at the start. When I'm riding, I'll see something and think "that'd make a good picture" but either I'm moving fast enough that by the time I'd get the camera out I'd be past it and don't want to turn around or I don't want to stop. I'd really like to have more pictures from my long brevets and am trying to find a better solution than carrying a camera in a pocket or tank bag as I've done in the past.
It's cool that you're showing such an interest in the 360 camera. I think it's such a paradigm shift, and I'm happy to elaborate.
The cable is simply a USB cable for charging. The one thing that's not great on the Insta360 One X is the battery life. The camera has two fisheye lenses, one on each side. The camera actually produces two video files, one for each lens. The software (Windows, Mac, iOS or Android) stitches the two images together. Each lens covers slightly more than 180 degrees, so there is sufficient overlap for stitching, as well as for actually cancelling out pretty much all of the camera body from the image. But the stitching isn't perfect, and you'll sometimes see this in the video. For example if one lens is directed toward the sun, the two streams will not have exact exposure, and you'll see the seam somewhere in the sky. You will also sometimes see that the boom or the handlebar on the bike appears cut in two. In the image above, you see it just to the right of the camera bracket. And the reason the cable seems to disappear is that it enters that area where the two streams overlap, so the software is able to make it invisible.
Now, how do I change the view? Keep in mind that the camera isn't filming in any particular direction, it captures everything. Now I
could use that to post a 360 video to YouTube, where you could pan the picture around yourself. But nobody wants to do that. Instead I can use the software to point at whatever I want to show, and then export a traditional video. This means I'm actually throwing away data, but the nice thing is that I have everything that happened around me available to put into the video.
This all means I don't have to spend time composing the picture while I'm riding. All I'm doing is, when I see something that I think would be nice to include in the video, I turn on the camera and start recording. Then I stop it again before long. The flipside is that I have to spend all that time in front of my PC instead, but at least getting the footage is no big deal at all.
I don't use the camera for photos, only for videos. You could certainly use it for photos, but then I think the fisheye lenses become a problem. You would typically want to zoom in on something, and as soon as you do, you throw away more data and end up with a low resolution image. Plus, it's almost impossible to get a good picture without part of me or my bike in it. It's great for selfies, though. Actually, I can show you, because I accidentally took a few photos when I meant to start recording.
This is the kind of wide-angle shot I can get:
If I wanted something that's not so wide angle, I could do this:
But if for some reason I wanted to zoom in on the cars behind, this is as good as it gets:
