Kodak Pixpro Orbit360 4K Review - Review 2022

JK Imaging (the licensee behind the Kodak photographic camera make) got into the 360-degree photographic camera game early, albeit with unmarried-lens models. The Kodak Pixpro Orbit360 4K ($499.99) is its first dual-lens camera, and so it can capture the entire world that surrounds information technology. But seams from stitching are conspicuously visible in video, and the quality of the two lenses is not identical. For the price, you're better off with the Nikon KeyMission 360, a fully waterproof camera that stitches its highest quality video as it records. Our favorite 360 photographic camera, the Samsung Gear 360, is a lot less expensive, and is your best bet if you own a uniform phone.

Design

The Orbit360 ($141.69 at Amazon) is a squat, squarish device with two lenses, each protected by a removable dome. Construction is plastic, finished in white. The photographic camera measures 2.ii past 2.ii by two.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.5 ounces. There'due south a standard tripod socket on the bottom, and the device itself is protected from grit and splashes, but won't survive being submerged in water.

There are a few control buttons on the photographic camera itself. On peak you'll observe Ability and Record, along with a pocket-sized monochrome LCD. Wi-Fi and Menu buttons are on the side. At that place'south enough information shown on the top LCD so that you tin use the camera without an app, but information technology's easier to modify modes and adjust settings using your smartphone. I call back the camera would be simpler to use if it had split up buttons for video and nonetheless capture, as it's a bit of a pain to change modes on the fly.

A locking side door covers the removable battery and ports. There's micro USB, for data transfer and charging, as well every bit a microSD card slot, a micro HDMI output port, and a 3.5mm microphone jack. The bombardment is good for virtually 25 minutes of 360-degree recording.

Software Support

To control the camera with your telephone, download the Pixpro360VR app for Android and iOS. It shows a alive view on your phone's screen, and delivers full control over the camera. You can change shooting modes, start and terminate recording or snap photos, and set up white rest and exposure compensation.

Kodak Pixpro Orbit360 4K : App

The app also supports transfer of images and video to your phone. Information technology takes nigh four minutes to transfer a minute of 4K 360-caste video to an iPhone 8 Plus. That's not bad, but if you're shooting at 4K 24fps the video isn't stitched. (In-camera stitching is available at 15fps in 4K, which is choppy, or at 960p, which doesn't offer nearly enough resolution for the spherical format.) The Orbit saves video in a unmarried file, but with each lens shown as its own circle. To put it in a format that can be shared and viewed in 360 degrees, you need to stitch information technology together into an equirectangular projection.

The app does that, merely you need to be certain you select the right format for conversion—by default it merely extracts a sixteen:9 frame. That's useful in some situations, merely near users shooting in 360 volition want to share in 360.

The app requires about 6.v minutes to sew together a minute of video—information technology can't handle conversions longer than that, and then yous'll demand to keep clips brusque or catechumen longer videos piecemeal. Merely there's a big problem with the app—if your phone's screen turns off, or if you go into another app, the stitching stops and has to exist started over again fresh. Considering of this I found myself tapping my phone's screen every few seconds while using information technology to convert video into a format that tin can exist uploaded to Facebook and YouTube.

Kodak Pixpro Orbit360 4K : App

If you need to catechumen a clip longer than a infinitesimal, you need to use a figurer to convert video. Desktop software is bachelor for macOS and Windows. The same minute-long clip took about four minutes to stitch on a 2022 MacBook Pro. The software is pretty bones, without an editing timeline, just information technology does allow you trim clips and upload them to Facebook or YouTube.

Video and Image Quality

Other dual-lens 360 cameras use identical lenses. That's not the case with the Orbit. Its front end lens is noticeably shorter than its rear, and covers a narrower (155-degree) field of view; the rear lens captures a huge 235-caste swath, broad enough to see behind itself.

There's some logic behind the choice. In addition to full spherical video, the Orbit uses the front lens by itself to capture flat 16:9 video at a 135-degree bending of view, similar to what you become with an action cam. The rear lens tin can be used on its own likewise. Unfortunately, the blueprint has a detrimental effect on video quality.

Allow's talk about 4K offset. The Orbit is a 4K photographic camera, simply it's also a 360-caste photographic camera. Instead of constraining the pixels to a relatively narrow 16:ix frame, they're stretched out across a full sphere. Fifty-fifty the all-time 4K 360 cameras record video that is softer than traditional 1080p footage.

But the Orbit doesn't capture anywhere nigh the best 360 footage we've seen. Y'all can encounter the seams where the two lenses meet very clearly, fifty-fifty with subjects in the distance. Information technology's exacerbated past a noticeable departure in sharpness. Take a look at the hedges in the altitude in the starting time scene of our test footage—y'all can make out details to the left, but to the right you just get mistiness. The blurriness extends across the entirety of that half of the scene. There's also a difference in exposure, which certainly doesn't aid things.

Not surprisingly, the sharper footage is captured by the tighter, front photographic camera. Both lenses are backed by a 20MP sensor, so it looks like the optics are only improve with the less aggressive half lens. This ways you should put information technology toward the more than of import portion of action when recording video.

When recording 360 footage at 4K the frame rate is limited to 24fps or 15fps. Let'southward ignore 15fps—it's also choppy to be considered useable. Shooting at 24fps is great if you want a cinematic look, but more action-oriented videographers will want a 30 or 60fps option. You lot need to drop the resolution in half, to 960p, to get 30fps with both lenses. Right now, considering of the processing ability needed for 360 video, we haven't seen affordable 4K models that shoot at 60fps, but there are some out there that support 30fps.

Other frame rates are available if you don't use both lenses simultaneously. The front end lens can shoot 16:ix 4K at 30fps and 1080p or 720p at 60fps. The rear dome lens rolls 2880p at 24fps, but can become to 30fps at 2K 1920p. Nonetheless capture is available in all iii modes besides—you go 27MP images using both lenses, 8MP shots using the front camera, and 13MP images with the rear lens.

The Orbit360 doesn't do a bang-up job nether indoor lighting. Our outdoor exam footage doesn't evidence any noise—and it shouldn't—but a prune captured in the relatively brightly lit interior of a bowling aisle shows more racket than expected. And you shouldn't plan to get useable footage in a dim bar; it's only not going to happen.

Conclusions

The Kodak Pixpro Orbit360 4K has also many marks against information technology to recommend that you buy information technology. Video quality is the biggest consequence. The 360-degree footage shows seams and only i one-half of the frame is reasonably crisp. And, while the mobile software is fine for remote control, information technology's simply inexplainable that the app goes to sleep and cancels stitching if your phone's screen turns off. Strike three is the price. For $500 you lot can become the Nikon KeyMission 360, which is fully waterproof and stitches footage in photographic camera—the downside is that it doesn't let you lot switch to unmarried-lens operation as you tin can with the Kodak.

Our Editors' Choice is the 2022 version of the Samsung Gear 360. It costs a lot less (and often sells well under its $230 list price), supports dual- and single-lens capture, and does a much better job with stitching. It has its ain limitations—its mobile app simply works with Samsung Android handsets and iPhones—and you do need to sew video either with your telephone or with a computer. But it'due south a more polished, consumer-fix product than the Orbit360.