360 Camera News and Info

Ricoh Theta 4K sample revealed; my observations

Sample video from Theta 4K
Sample video from Theta 4K

Ricoh has just posted the first public sample video from the Theta 4K!

The Theta 4K is of course an upcoming version of the most popular 360 camera on the market, the Ricoh Theta S, with 4K video.

The sample video is just a short clip but it looks very impressive! Here is the sample video clip:

New THETA 4K sample video – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

Here are my observations:
1. It is very sharp and detailed, especially near the middle of the lenses, with no excessive sharpening.

Theta 4K sample video - crop
Theta 4K sample video – crop
Theta 4K sample video - crop
Theta 4K sample video – crop

They may have changed the lens design, because the current Theta S and previous versions of the Theta had been soft toward the stitch line. This sample shows edge to edge sharpness.

You can read the text on the t-shirt
You can read the text on the t-shirt

2. Stitching is excellent but not perfect.

slight parallax stitching errors
slight parallax stitching errors
parallax stitching error
parallax stitching error; purple fringing

3. Much less purple fringing / chromatic aberration. The current and past Thetas were susceptible to purple fringing and chromatic aberration. The sample video here seems to show some purple fringing, near the stitch line (most noticeable with the pickup truck parked across the ladies) but much reduced compared to the current and past versions of the Theta.

4. The dynamic range is decent, with seemingly improved detail in the shadows, at the expense of highlight detail.  It’s hard to tell because I don’t know the actual ambient conditions.

Overall, this sample from the Theta 4K looks very promising and might end up having the best image quality among consumer 360 cameras in its price range.

Thank you very much to Ben Claremont (Life in 360) for bringing this to my attention!

 

About the author

Mic Ty

2 Comments

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  • Hi,

    Would like to know what video hosting are you using for the test video above ? The sharpness is indeed good. Looks very promising.

    I saw the available function on the video to zoom in an out which is really good.

    • Hi Ray. That video was posted by Ricoh, not me. They posted it to the official Ricoh site.

      Best regards,
      Mic