360° Camera Buyer’s Guide

Garmin VIRB

Editor’s notes: The Garmin VIRB is a rugged camera with among the best performance in terms of video capture. It’s on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, and the photo quality is about equal to that of other much lower priced cameras, but if you’re doing lots of 360 video it’s a solid choice.

Insta360 ONE X

A great camera for 360 photos and video capture. It produces great quality photos and videos and has been tested in multiple project situations. The price is a bit higher, but with VideoWalk, it is the lowest cost provider for that product. The “FlowState” internal stabilization puts it in the category of the Garmin VIRB360, at half the cost capturing images quickly as you are moving throughout the job site.

Storage is done on a removable MicroSD Card with a max storage of 128 GB. The battery can be removed for easy charging so you can have multiple batteries for uninterrupted field capture time.

Insta360 ONE R*

The newest camera from Insta360, the ONE R, is compatible with 360 photos, and VideoWalk®. Please note: there is a firmware update (1.1.43) needed for the Insta360 ONE R to be compatible with the StructionSite VideoWalk capabilities. See this article for more details. Also, for iOS or Android users, please update to the latest version of the iOS App (1.50.1), and Android App (1.6.20079).

Ricoh Theta V

This is a well-rounded camera with a solid build and fast rate of capture. It produces good quality photos and videos and can handle varying degrees of lighting with ease. It’s on the higher end of the pricing spectrum but makes up for it with ease of use. A dedicated wifi button makes all the difference when it comes to easily connecting your mobile device, which doesn’t seem to be the case for other camera manufacturers.

Storage on this camera is internal. This is both good and bad, depending on your preference. It is good because you don’t have to purchase an extra mini-SD card, but bad because you can’t quickly switch-out the data card. You also can’t expand past 19GB of space, which can become an inconvenience when you plan on taking a significant number of photos on a regular basis.