Say goodbye to slapping two PixPro SP360’s together as Kodak has announced a true 360 degree action camera with the Kodak Pixpro 360 4KVR360. The news came out from Photokina on Tuesday that Kodak’s licensee JK Imaging will be bringing out the new camera “sometime” around January 2017.
Though a relatively young company (founded in 2013), JK Imaging has an agreement with Kodak to manufacture and sell Kodak branded digital imaging products.
Last year they were responsible for the 360 Pixpro, which we gave a so-so review at the time. Though riding on a reasonably novel product at the time, the market has since been swamped with 360 cams, including the Nikon KeyMission 360 that was also announced this week. This has inevitably led to them giving the product a kick up the behind and fixing some problems with the original.
The Pixpro 360 4KVR360 will have two lenses that can be used for wide angle shots or stitched together to create a true 360 experience. The previous model required two cameras that you had to awkwardly connect together.
/Kodak
Now the PixPro boasts two lenses; the front one will have a 155 degree angle while the rear will be wider at 235 degrees. The other big upgrade for the 4KVR360 is in it’s name: 4K. Indeed this new action cam will come with the ability for both 16:9 flat 4K shooting out the front cam and 360 degree recording using both. The camera has two 20MP BSI CMOS sensors for individual stills which combine their resources to create 27MP 360 shots.
To navigate settings, the 4KVR360 has a tiny menu screen on top that looks suspiciously like the moderately irritating menu from the Pixpro 360. It also has the Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth built in to provide full connectivity to your smart devices. Sound has also been given consideration in this model. Using four built-in mics the 4KVR360 captures stereo sound and has an external microphone connection.
Though we’d prefer it to be waterproof the 4KVR360 is at least splashproof. To keep the previous PixPro 360 safe from moisture, one had to put it in a separate case, which unfortunately wasn’t possible when doubling them up. We’re still looking forward to hearing about a proper waterproof housing to take this cam deep-diving.
Though we know we’ll be able to get our hands on the 4KVR360 come January, JK Imaging have remained mysteriously silent about the price. The wise sages of the internet are guessing a figure anywhere between US$350 and US$500. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear, as this does look like an impressive piece of kit.
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. digitalrev.com2016-10-7 03:00