The Syrp Genie Mini is a neat little tool to add a little motion to your time-lapse project (or a smooth pan to your video projects). But in a new post from the folks at Syrp, it turns out it’s pretty good for a home-brew 360-degree timel-apse rig, too.
The Syrp team traveled to the top of Coronet Peak in Queenstown, New Zealand and created the 8K 360-degree time-lapse by hooking up 3 Nikon D750 cameras outfitted with AF-S Fisheye Nikkor 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED lenses to a Genie Mini and turntable. Splitters were used to hook up the link cables to trigger the cameras, the crew was able to capture photos with enough resolution to stitch together into an 8K time-lapse. By setting the rotation to zero degrees through the Syrp – Genie app, the setup stayed put and the device was used only to trigger the cameras simultaneously.
There’s a lot of gear and software involved, but the team writes up every step of the process in great detail over on the Syrp blog. They’ve even provided a behind-the-scenes video to go along with the writeup.
There was a lot of post-processing on the backend of this, with special software used to stitch the files from the three cameras and remove the tripod from the frame.
And why go through all this trouble to create this cool video? They don’t say it explicitly in the post, but there’s mention of a possible future product in the behind-the-scenes footage. One of the team members says:
“So in the past we have created 360 time-lapses using a single genie. It’s quite a complicated process, so we’re looking at automating this feature in future products,” he says.
Automated, 8K, 360-degree time-lapses? Take my money now.
[via Syrp Blog]
Am I the only one who doesn't like 360 videos? They just don't feel natural, and I have yet to see one that adds to a scene that a wide lens couldn't do for me.
Nope, same here. I always feel like I'm missing something in a part of the perspective I'm not looking at and then have to pan to it. I'd rather not have to interact with a video all the time but just sit back and enjoy the story.
A 360 image however seems a lot more practical to me, where you can take all the time you need to explore the full view.
360 videos work much better in a headset. I didn't quite get it until I tried one in an Oculus Rift. Totally worth it, trust me.
At 4k it is running smoothly on my pc but not at 8k. I'm not sure it is the internetconnection (150Mbps) or my videocard not being fast enough (GTX1070 8Gb Gaming X)
I set it to 8K and let it buffer for a while so it loaded it all, then I came back and watched it. Running on a GTX1060 with 3GB so it should be fine on yours!
So they used Genie Mini just to trigger the cameras. Very smart to use the device made for turning your cameras instead of simple wired trigger. LOL.