Sigmawit has now confirmed that the amazing photo posted by Nick Zhou is from Sigmawit SW-5, an advanced prototype 360 camera for prosumers!
OK so last week I posted this really amazing 360 photo with incredible resolution and dynamic range, and impossibly smooth stitching. It had no optical weaknesses and besides the very high saturation and a few mysterious stitching artifacts, looked practically perfect.
I tried to pin down which camera it was from, and was told that it’s from the SW-4. When I asked Sigmawit for more samples from the SW4, I was disappointed because of the difference in image quality.
It turns out that there was just a miscommunication, which has now been cleared up. Here’s the good news: Sigmawit confirmed that the photo is real. It’s not from a DSLR panorama. It’s from a prototype of the Sigmawit SW-5.
Unlike Sigmawit’s existing entry-level 360 cameras, the SW-5 will be an advanced model for prosumers. It won’t be a low-cost camera.
Sigmawit doesn’t have any specifications for the SW-5 yet because it’s still a long way from being released (Mr. Zhou estimates that it won’t be released until 2018). So far, the CG renders show that it is a somewhat slim camera, and the lenses are offset like the Insta360 4K beta and Insta360 Nano, instead of being back-to-back like most other 360 cameras. There’s a button to switch between photo and video, and the power button seems to have another function that could be wi-fi. There’s a USB port at the base. The shutter button says “magnet.” This may mean that it has a bluetooth remote that can be magnetically attached to the camera, which would be a cool feature.
I’m glad companies like Sigmawit are developing high end 360 cameras, not just entry-level cameras. Assuming the Sigmawit SW5 is truly capable of amazing photos like the ones Mr. Zhou has posted thus far, this looks like a very promising camera that I’m very much looking forward to.
told ya ! haha.. what res though ? cos i could zoom in massively before i could see the pixels.. ???
Mental note not to disagree with Tony in the future…. :)) Yes I agree the level of detail was crazy. Nick didn’t want to say though about the specs, and didn’t want to send me a copy of the picture. But he said he would send samples in the future. Best regards, Mic
yeah that’s one thing going for facebook’s 360 stills I guess, I haven’t worked out a way to save the entire image at all.. it seems to load in sections where you look, most notable on this still as I zoomed in I had to wait a few seconds for facebook to load in the super clear image.
guess it’s the ultimate way of stopping peeps stealing your images eh ?!
Looks like example image is shot in some kind of HDR mode – see the “ghost” kid screenshot in the comment on FB.
Yes it does seem like it. There is another “ghost” image in the shot too. https://360rumors.com/2017/08/youll-never-guess-new-360-camera-used-amazing-360-photo.html