Technabob » panorama

Spinner 360 Lomo Camera: Capture 360 Panoramic Shots, Low-Tech Style

Range — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:00:15 +0000

The Spinner 360 is a Lomo camera that allows you to take 360 degree panoramic shots, in complete low-tech style. The camera spins around, thanks to a handy drawstring, capturing one long image. Now, why didn’t I think of that? It’s an interesting addition to any lomographer’s arsenal.

The Spinner 360 uses 35mm film and spins its lens around, thanks to the aforementioned drawstring. You can decide whether to use 1/125 or 1/250 of a second or release it slower so that you can capture longer exposure footage, all in 360 degrees on a single strip of film. It even allows you to capture vertical panoramas. This low-tech approach to panoramas is certainly something uncanny, especially when you see the results.

Spinner 360 sells from Lomography.com starting at just $99 (USD). Pictured here is the special edition, covered in Italian toledo leather – which currently goes for $149.

[via designboom]

Throwable Panoramic Ball Cam Gives You a 360 Degree View

Conner Flynn — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:00:35 +0000

Smartphones are great for snapping pictures, but what if you want the shot from more than one angle? Well, that’s what the Panoramic Ball Cam is for. It has 36 mobile phone cameras built in, so you can just throw it in to the air and capture 360-degree panoramic photographs.

Just throw it up and once it reaches its highest point, all 36 cameras take a pic and all you need to do is catch it. Maybe in the future, all sports will have camera balls like this so we can see instant replays and other stuff from every angle.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

After you take the pics, just download them to a computer and it stitches them together into a panorama. The Panoramic Ball Cam was created by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel and Marc Alexa. It was programmed using C, C++, QT, and OpenCV, and the pictures that it takes are pretty impressive. No word on if or when this gadget might hit the market, but I’m sure it won’t be cheap.

[via SlashGear via Geeky Gadgets]

Bubblescope Smartphone Lens Shoots 360º Pictures and Videos, Make Your Own Street View

Lambert Varias — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:52:23 +0000

Want to take panoramic photos with a single click? How about a video of your surroundings without having to sweep your camera around like a fool? Soon that may be possible, and not because of a fancy new digital camera case. If inventor Tom Lawton gets his way, his BubbleScope concept will let us do just that and more using only our smartphones.

The most important part of the BubbleScope – which looks a lot like a Move controller – is a pop-up curved mirror. When attached to a smartphone via a complementary case, the lens of the smartphone will then capture what’s reflected on the mirror – 360 degrees horizontally and 120 vertically. A custom app lets you view and share the captured “Bubbles”. There will also be an online community to make it easier for people to share and view Bubbles posted by members.

Above is a sample shot taken with a smartphone and a pre-production BubbleScope. Lawton says that the final product – if it goes to production – will result in better picture and video quality. The BubbleScope isn’t the first such 360-degree lens/case for smartphones, but this one is unique that it will work with other phones besides the iPhone. Here he is to explain more about the inspiration behind the BubbleScope:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can support the development of the BubbleScope at Crowdfunder; pledges start at £20 (~$32 USD). If the BubbleScope becomes a real product, Lawton reckons it’ll cost £50 (~$80), while the cases will go for £15 (~$24). I think it’s unfortunate that the case is sold separately since the BubbleScope is useless without it. I understand that different smartphones need different cases, but perhaps the BubbleScope should come with one free case.

Overall I’m not entirely sold on the concept yet, but I don’t regularly take pictures or video either. I do think the BubbleScope will be useful in certain situations – Lawton also mentioned a possible app that could calculate the distance of objects within a captured bubble. I’m just not sure if it’ll be useful or fun enough for normal people to spend more than $100 on it. The one thing that I think regular folks could find handy with the BubbleScope is in taking group pictures and videos. That being said the sample images are significantly warped and don’t look good when viewed as a flat picture. Check out the official BubbleScope website for more info as well as more sample shots.

[via Pocket-lint]

Kogeto’s Dot Panoramic iPhone Lens: i360 Degrees

Range — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:14:12 +0000

Many people are using their iPhones as their go-to point-and-shoot camera. It’s normal then that we’ve seen a few different lens add-ons. Taking a slightly different design approach from the previously announced GoPano micro lens, the Dot lens is supposed to be able to snatch impressive 360-degree panoramic videos.

Dot is made by the New York-based company Kogeto and the device attaches itself to the iPhone. Users can then navigate 360-degrees through the video on their iPhone, and share them on Facebook or Twitter. The add-on weighs about half an ounce and doesn’t require additional battery, beyond what it will get directly from the iPhone.

Kogeto will offer a free iPhone app named Looker to help shoot, view, and share the videos. Looker can also link different videos from different iPhones together, allowing people to jump from one perspective to another. The device will be launched in June and full production is expected sometime in August.

You can pre-order it through Kogeto’s Kickstarter page. To get the add-on, you’ll have to pledge at least $98 (USD). The initial $20,000 goal has already been surpassed by about $4,000.

[via Crave]

Sony Wx1 Digi-Cam Snaps Panoramic Photos for a Good Cause

Technabob — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:05:23 +0000

So the guys over at Sony were kind enough to provide us with one of their nifty DSC-WX1 digital cameras so we could go out and shoot some cool panoramic pics – with the goal of putting some of these high-tech wonders in the hands of school kids.

Sony asked a number of us bloggers to snap photos using the camera’s unique sweep panorama feature – then enter them into a competition. The winner will get to send 10 of these wonderful little digital cameras to the school of their choice. If I end up winning, I’d like to pledge mine to Carl Schurz High School, a diverse public institution which emphasizes math, creative arts, science and technology right here in my neighborhood in Chicago.

So back to the camera… the WX1 can shoot seamless horizontal or vertical panoramas with a simple sweeping motion of the camera. As the camera is moved from side-to-side or up-and-down, it snaps numerous photos in rapid succesion and automatically stitches them together into a panorama. As an added bonus, this pocket-size 10-megapixel camera can also capture 720p HD video.

The photo contest runs until December 18th, and the winning school will be awarded their prize on December 22nd. All you’ve got to do is head on over to the photo contest page over on we say, and vote for your favorite photos. I can’t tell you which ones are mine, but there are lots of cool panoramas up there already, and every vote you make will help a school get a welcome holiday gift.

Dynascan: 360-Degree LED Television

Technabob — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:05:26 +0000

Designed primarily for commercial installations such as in shopping malls and at special events, these LED-based televisions can display 360-degree panoramic video.

Dynascan’s systems display video all the way across the surface of a cylindrical fixture, using thousands or super-bright LEDs to produce an image. Dynascan developed a proprietary technology which spins LEDs around a drum to produces all light colors at the same pixel location, rather than using clusters of adjacent red, green and blue LEDs, which is typical in large color LED systems. The result is a much finer level of detail and better color accuracy than could be achieved with a standard grid of LEDs.

The displays have already been featured in aiports and malls all around the world, so it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing these all over the place.