Ricoh - Theta S 360 Degree Digital Camera - Black

I bought the Ricoh Theta after having extensively used the Kodak SP360 models. The Kodak was the first virtual reality, 360-photography and videography experience I’d ever had, and I jumped on the Theta when it was released to see if Ricoh had improved on the technology. Short answer: they sure did. I am a hardcore adventurer and I put any camera through its paces. I drive a team of Huskies on streets and trails from Baltimore to California, riding on a cart and recording all our journeys. Mushing without a sled is called urban mushing, since the dogs can pull my cart down any street in any weather, and some of the environments we’ve explored have been really exciting. A good camera will capture my dogs’ enthusiasm, my passion for dog driving, and the beautiful earth we race over. I’m called the WooFDriver, and if you search “WooFDriver Reviews” you’ll find my detailed opinions on lots of other cameras (specifically, the Kodak SP360 and the Nikon KeyMission, if you’re shopping for 360-degree cameras). Even better, you’ll see TONS of examples of video and photo footage that I’ve taken from the field, and you can compare the quality of each camera to help you decide what to buy for yourself. The Theta was the first all-in-one VR camera that I knew of – it stitched the images together for me, rather than the Kodak which required me to do it myself. At first I was worried that I had no control over the stitching when using the Theta but I quickly stopped worrying. The Theta doesn’t need my control. Its stitching ability is amazing. Right out of the box, the Theta was felt comfortable in my hands and was user-friendly to figure out. I struggled with its connectivity for a little while – the directions were not super clear regarding a Wi-Fi password, but I figured it out. The Theta connects to a tablet or a smart phone for several reasons: 1) to control the scene capture, and 2) to upload footage to your connected device, which you can either simply save or post online. I started right away. The Theta, my Huskies, and I all took to the trail and I recorded everything we did. I was bummed that the Theta only has 8 GB of storage, which equals an hour and a half of video footage (I actually found it to be a little bit less) with no ability to pop in a new memory card. My only option to keep filming past 90 minutes was to upload my footage to my smart phone, clear the Theta’s memory, then keep on rolling. Not the end of the world, but, I do wish the camera had removable storage. My dogs will go go go, and running out of storage at a breathtaking moment is a bummer. I am also glad I thought to bring along some battery packs. The Theta’s battery is limited to its 90-minute life (and as with the 90-minute video storage, I found it to actually come in at a little less than that). The battery isn’t removable, but it does take a USB to a portable battery pack the way a smart phone will. Those battery packs come in all sizes – I have a pretty big one (and big means, still only the size of a smart phone) which will power the Theta all day if I need it to. So, with that workaround, the Theta’s built-in and limited battery became a non-issue. And I encourage you to use the same workaround, because the quality you’ll get with the Theta’s photos and vidoes is just gorgeous. The Nikon, more recently, came out with the KeyMission 360 which boasts a higher resolution photo than the Theta, but I have never seen any difference in quality. The Theta images and videos look beautiful and no worse than what I could capture on the KeyMission. (You can read my review on the KeyMission 360 on Amazon or on my WooFDriver website.) A huge plus is the Theta’s ability to perform quick edits from the field, including adding your own background music! I am all about the music – you’ll see on my website that I have a whole section dedicated to WooFDriver music called WooFTunes, and I was wowed by how easy it was to post videos to Facebook, with music, right from the field. The Theta uploaded to a smart phone, the Theta’s software allowed me to trim the clips and add the music, and boom, all my Facebook fans were watching my adventure online minutes after it had happened. You can’t beat that with a stick. I have a ton of examples of these videos – search “WooFDriver Reviews,” find this same review on my blog and there will be links right there. 360-degree videos can find their home on YouTube and they also have some functionality on Facebook, but it’s the 360-degree photos that sorely need online support. There are not a lot of websites that will host an album with spherical photos that a user can rotate to see all aspects of. Flickr has some functionality, but it’s not as good as I would like. The best solution I’ve found is a plugin on WordPress, and you can see examples of that on my WooFDriver website too. Ricoh recently came out with a new Theta model that has a price-point of $50 less than I spent on my original. It doesn’t seem to contain any more features, and I’m curious to hear the thoughts of anyone who buys it. My model is the Theta S, and the new one is called the SC. Thanks for reading! Good luck with your decision, and have a wonderful journey! If you’re still comparing the Nikon to the Ricoh to the Kodak, please check my WooFDriver website to see all the different images and videos taken in the past two years on all three cameras, ever since I entered the world of virtual reality. If you want to know more about me, just use Google and Facebook! I am the only WooFDriver!

I brought back this 360 camera after one week of usage. I bought it because a friend of mine sent me pictures he took with it in Canada and I found the outdoor picture quality really nice with sharp and vivid colors and good definition. So I thought I would buy it and use it first in my home chasing to share the houses I visited to my wife remotely. Unfortunately this didn't work well. Despite a very reactive startup time (immediate), the camera deforms the image too much so it is very difficult to appreciate the square shapes like walls and corners. Additionally, the resolution for indoor is too limited: you quickly see pixels when zooming in, the noise in the picture is not acceptable on white surfaces and the light control (flare) is not good if you have a light source like a window but your room is dark. The camera design is nice with one easy access button to take a shot but the soft touch paint gets dirty and greasy easily. Regarding the sharing, this is really unacceptable that you cannot share your pictures through WhatsApp or any other IM devices and have to go through a facebook or twitter that will then upload to the Ricoh cloud the pictures. We should be able to use their cloud whatever the sharing we are doing so that the remote doesn't need to download Ricoh app to watch the picture in 360. BTW, 360 pictures are not natively readable on smartphone but it might depends on your OS and version. Mine didn't so I had to use their app. The app is not very reactive and a bit messy. You can download the pictures from the camera to the smartphone or a laptop but you always have to go through the app to watch them.

This is by no means a professional camera. It is however not bad for what you are able to do with the ease of which to do it (360 VR experience). While it does capture video in HD, keep in mind that resolution (1080) is being wrapped around on a sphere for use as a 360 experience. If you have the capability to upconvert or 'stretch' the video to 4k, YouTube will display the video better than what it would display at 1080p. For a still image camera, it is best to use a tripod and manage your settings with the Theta app. If you know what you're doing you can get a decent image for use with a 360 simulation. The importing process is easier than most 360 cameras on the market and are just as easy to edit with third party software such as the Adobe Suite. It also does a decent job of stitching in the Theta app. If you have the option to wait, the price should go down as 360 cameras with 4k resolution become more common or a newer model is announced. All in all, this is a neat camera that makes 360 image capture a breeze.

Let me start this off by saying I'm a pretty tech savy guy. I operate 3d printers, wireless cameras, I have a Phillips hue setup, among other things. I have zero issue setting up things to operate via wifi. I did my research before buying the Ricoh Theta S camera, and saw it had mostly favorable reviews. I have a few cameras in my collection (DLSR, Gopro, etc) and wanted to get into the world of 360 photography. I've had this camera less than 24 hours and it's going back to be returned. I'd love to tell you that it takes marvelous photos, but the truth is the connectivity issues cripple this phone. Go to the IOS app store and look at the the reviews on the Ricoh Theta S app before buying. You'll see reviews upon reviews of people complaining that the device cannot hook up to their phones. I've had two successful hookups in about 30 attempts. I can't even depend on the camera to work when I want it to. It goes back to to the store tomorrow. Please check the app reviews on the IOS store before buying this. You'll thank me.

At this price point, it simply can't be beaten. I also had a 360fly 4K and ended up returning it in favor of the Theta S. The one truly inhibiting factor is the video resolution, which probably looks more like 620x480p in the actual rectangle portion that you're able to see on your phone/computer screen. The convenience of the design, coupled with the excellent quality and robust customization on photo shooting in Theta's mobile app, plus the ease of use, all serve to give it the edge against any 360 cam up to $500, in my humble of course... I didn't even realize Ricoh made anything but printers before finding out about this cam, so I was surprised to find that it was relatively well made. I wouldn't say "solid", but certainly built with some standard of quality.

I had the chance to use the camera just before the latest winter storm. I found it easy to use and well packaged. The 360 video features are neat though exposure control must be set in photo mode first. I enjoyed the many settings for the camera and the ability to preview the look it nice. Wireless connectivity worked well. The learning curve to use the camera was about an hour. My one wish was to have better directions in setting it up. I have a few pictures published to the default Theta website and it seemed to work well. I am happy with the quality of the photo and video but you will not write home about it. My expectations were not DSLR quality but rather the form factor and ease to get a unique shot. For that purpose it is perfect. I do wish they would have provided the weatherproof case with it.

I really enjoy the design of this camera. The material is nice in the hand and the camera doesn't look too obvious - very low profile. I keep a tiny tripod permanently attached to the bottom so that I can take a spontaneous shot. Rather than shoot the top of Mt. Whitney, I'm curious about experimental photo shots from small spaces. I bought this camera because it had superior photo (not video) performance in mind for creative shots. I'm very happy with my camera. The only thing I would like in addition would be even higher resolution at low light. I'm taking this on my next vacation with the kids to share unique views hosted privately in high-res on my personal Wordpress site with the [vr url="https://imgurl.jpg" view=360] tag. FB downgrades resolution but if you want a social media share avenue, give it a shot. Happy with my purchase!

Great camera for the price and a great twist on taking photos. Pros: Unique imagery, stitching 2 images together is practically seamless. Great for getting everyone in a selfie, works with iphones and can share to FB, Tweets etc., camera can be controlled via iphone as well. Cons: button to take picture is too close to the lenses so you get a bit of your hand in the picture but it's chopped off. taking the shot remotely, using your phone, removes this issue. The camera connects to your phone with wifi and the password or the signal sometimes doesn't work. That's been the most frustrating feature of this camera. Last, There isn't a way to sort by creation. The order you select to transfer is the order you'll see them on your phone. The icons are small circles of your image which is hard to distinguish one from the other.