When comparing 360Fly 4K vs Ricoh Theta S, the Slant community recommends Ricoh Theta S for most people. In the question“What are the best 360-degree cameras?” Ricoh Theta S is ranked 1st while 360Fly 4K is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Ricoh Theta S is:
Allows manually tuning ISO, white balance, shutter speed, noise compression, and exposure compensation.
Specs
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Pros
Pro No stitching
Since there's only one lens which captures with a 360x240 degrees field of view, there's no stitching being done.
Pro Suitable for recording sports or other outdoor activities
360Fly is dust-resistant (IP6X certified), water-resistant up to 50 meters, and shock-resistant up to 1.5M. The exterior is also rubberized to make it harder for it to split when handled with wet hands.
This makes it a great device for recording extreme sports or general outdoor recording.
Pro Extremely easy to edit a video or photo once it's captured
After shooting a clip and before sharing it, the app will let you choose which sections of a video to include in the final shared version, add music and even adjust the playback speed of your video or parts of it.
Pro Capable of capturing spherical videos
The 360Fly 4K can be combined with another camera so to shoot completely spherical, immersive videos.
Pro Supports live preview
When the camera is turned on, so is the camera's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth which are used to connect to a mobile phone that has the camera's app installed. Once that's done you can then change the app's settings and have a live view of what the camera is capturing straight from the app.
Pro Offers good degree of manual control over image capture
Allows manually tuning ISO, white balance, shutter speed, noise compression, and exposure compensation.
Pro Straightforward to use
This device is very easy to use. Simply switch between photo or video capture by pressing a toggle on the side of the camera and then press the button on the front of the camera.
Pro Highly portable
The camera is small, making it easy to carry around. It can easily fit into a trouser pocket.
Pro Comes with a protective sleeve for carrying and storage
The protective sleeve is not only highly practical, but it also looks very sleek and doesn't add much bulk.
Pro Reasonable stitching quality
The Ricoh Theta app is reasonably successful at stitching. While artifacts and splicing issues can occur, they will usually not be noticeable during a casual viewing, only revealing themselves upon closer inspection.
Pro Real-time live preview via a smartphone app
The smartphone app allows previewing the footage that the camera is capturing. It can also adjust settings such as exposure and white balance.
Pro Built-in interval photography support
You can set intervals between images and the number of images you wish to take.
Pro Offers HD live streaming
You can live stream to YouTube in dual fisheye mode.
Pro Includes HDR mode
HDR mode allows the user to capture exactly what they see before them and helps take overall better-looking photos. HDR is particularly useful when capturing landscapes, low-lit scenes and scenes in which there is excessive sunlight.
Pro Compatible with the new Google Street View app
The app allows you to capture and publish your photo spheres instantly to Google Maps for people all over the world to explore.
Pro Perfectly placed shutter button
The shutter button is placed far from the power button in order to avoid accidentally turning off the camera instead of pressing the shutter button.
Pro Built-in service for uploading videos and pictures
Ricoh Theta S has a built-in service for uploading pictures and videos on social platforms such as Google+ and Flickr, making the whole process of uploading your work as seamless as possible.
Pro Takes high quality stills
The camera takes crisp 14.5MP stills with well judged colors. There's little noise or artifacting, and only minor stitching issues. It performs well both in daylight and in dim environments.
Pro Possible to attach to a tripod or monopod
Ricoh Theta has a standard tripod/monopod mount.
Pro Durable for casual use
Provided you take care with the lenses, the camera is more than able to hold up to casual use. It's made of a grippy, hard plastic and works in a temperature range of 0-40C.
Cons
Con Poor lighting adjustments
The visibility of images is poor in darker lighting.
Con Issues with recorded audio
Audio captured more than a few feet from the camera sounds rather low and muffled. There's also no way to add an external mic.
Con There's purple fringing around subjects in high-contrast areas
There's some purple fringing when there's a high contrast in the video or photo. This is not very visible on smartphone screens unless you zoom in. However, it's very visible on computer monitors.
Con The view is not spherical
The 360Fly 4K has only one lens which makes it a 360x240 degree camera. Because of this you lose about 120 degrees below the camera.
Con Functionality is split among multiple apps
Capturing and editing is done via different apps, which only creates hassle for the user. This could have been avoided had there been only one app providing both functions.
Con No expandable storage
The camera is limited to the 8 GB of storage that it comes with.
Con Connectivity to the smartphone app over wifi
Smartphone app connects to the Ricoh Theta using wifi, that means, you can no longer be connected to the internet over wifi. Also the connection process is quite slow.
Con Poor quality smartphone app
Smartphone app usually can't find the device even if you are connected to the Ricoh Theta wifi. Usually you need to restart the app in order for it to see the device. And overall smartphone app quality is not very good.
Con Non-removable battery
The device's battery cannot be replaced.
Con The device can be easily damaged
You have to be extra careful in how you store the device due to its protruding lens design and the fact that it can easily fall over. The lenses are also not scratch resistant.
Con Low resolution video
Videos are recorded at 1080p and 30fps, which is relatively low as far as 360-degree cameras go.
Con Minor stitching issues can occur
When looking closely at an image, you may be able to notice some splicing issues with the stitching.