With Facebook, YouTube, and WordPress all rolling out 360 video capabilities in the past two years and VR headsets becoming more common, 360 videos are being seen less as a niche party trick and finding what many think is their place at the center of future VR tech.
While the uses of 360 video are endless, the market for 360 cameras is fairly bimodal. On one end are point-and-shoot cameras that for a couple hundred dollars offer accessible but low-quality 360 video—great for the average hobbyist. On the other end are high-resolution, professional options such as the Nokia Ozo, though for $45,000 (recently discounted from $60,000!) it’s laughably out of reach for most users. The gold standard, Jaunt, isn't even available through retail (but, don't worry, you can rent it for about $4,500 per day).
With these excessively expensive options dominating the field, Rockville, Md.-based company Bonsai saw a need in the market for a quality, mid-range 360 camera.
Introducing Excalibur, which Bonsai Founders Braum Katz, Charles Blatz and the rest of the team unveiled Monday night at the DC Virtual Reality meetup. It tightly rigs together four Sony a7S II Mirrorless Cameras, each with a Rokinon 8mm Fisheye lens, to deliver DLSR-quality images and control at a fraction of the cost of ultra-professional options.
In other words, it's not a 360 camera Porsche, per say, but a Lexus—maybe.
"On Monday, the dark days come to an end because Excalibur is gonna be released," Katz told DC Inno prior to this week's release. "It's America's first affordable, professional-level 360 camera system."
It's America's first affordable, professional-level 360 camera system.
With a backgrounds in film, Katz and Blatz were frustrated with the lack of control offered to videographers by point-and-shoot systems like GoPro's. Excalibur instead allows users to modify the exposure aspects necessary for vibrant, cinematic picture quality like white balance and shutter speed.
The Bonsai team considered other common problems faced by 360 camera users. For instance, Excalibur comes with a single remote to start all four cameras at once. Also included is Bonsai's own Arborist file handling software, which syncs the footage from the four cameras' separate SD cards—an otherwise painful task, Katz says. Bonsai also plans to release a single battery system in April for Excalibur, so users won't have to charge and insert four separate camera batteries before use.
Excalibur isn't the only DSLR-quality 360 camera system on the market, but Katz says it's the combination of all these features that sets them apart.
"It's not just the rig [that's important], it's the entire system," he said.
While Excalibur is a fraction of the cost of other professional 360 camera, the full package costs $15,099 (including a remote, the four cameras, four lenses, the rig and the Arborist software). Most of the expense is in the four Sony cameras, which cost about $2,700 each (so, ya know, almost $11,000 total). The package without the cameras costs $3,199, and the rig alone will cost $499. Right now, though, Bonsai is offering the rig for $299 to the first 15 people to purchase the set.
While presenting at the DCVR meetup Monday night, the Bonsai team screened a video they created called, "Love letter to the DMV"– a video filmed on Excalibur and what they believe is the first 6k resolution, 360 video ever shot of Washington D.C.
Katz said shooting in 6k-resolution is no problem for Excalibur. "Excalibur eats 4k for breakfast," he says.
See Excalibur in action:
Images courtesy of Bonsai
