When it comes to selling real estate, having more than just still shots will help tremendously in selling a house. So, being able to create a great real estate video tour will make a house ad pop and help put the potential buyers right inside the home as if they are actually walking through it in person.
And the best way to take those real estate videos is with a 360-degree camera. A 360-degree camera has a visual field of the whole sphere or can simply capture a 360-degree field of view in a horizontal plane. This works well when you want to cover a huge visual field like in panoramic shots, which would apply in this type of photography.
Since this is an entirely different kind of camera, choosing one may be difficult for the beginner. So, here are some examples of the best cameras to shoot a real estate video tour:
Ricoh Theta S
The RICOH THETA S a great camera for doing professional 360 real estate photography. Plus it is one of the most affordable ones for beginners at around $300. This 3D camera has two lenses and two sensors. Plus it works with the Google Street View app and lets you upload photos to Google Maps.
This camera takes up to 25 minutes of full 1080p HD video at 30fps and does 360-degree spherical video that is supported by YouTube. Plus you can even charge it by connected the USB cable right to a computer. Other features include 14 megapixels, an f/2.0 lens, built in memory up to 8GB, ability to shoot in manual mode with shutter speeds set from 1/6400 sec. to 60 seconds, and you can live stream and live view your video.
It does have some cons, which include having to upload your videos to Ricoh’s website prior to sharing them, you can’t expand the 8GB of internal memory, and its twin lens system makes it hard to store it properly.
Ricoh Theta V
This is an upgrade to the Ricoh Theta S, and it cost about a hundred bucks more than its predecessor. To start, its transfer speed is two and a half times faster than the previous version.
It still has 14 megapixels, and instead of just 1080p it can do 4K video and stills at 3-fps. Plus, it can be connected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and can be controlled with either Android or iOS based phones.
Plus it also supports H.264 file format for video recording, has a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a four channel microphone and built in omnidirectional audio, which means it can record in a both horizontal and vertical direction.
Another new feature is it can use a software plug-ins that lets it provide wireless playback on a screen if you have a wireless display adapter that is compatible with the camera.
Xiaomi Mijia Mi Sphere
The Xiaomi Mijia Mi Sphere is another relatively inexpensive 360-degree camera, which is less than $400 on Amazon. It shoots at 24 megapixels and one great factor is there’s no requirement to do manual stitching of the photos.
It shoots HD video with two Sony image sensors supporting up to 3456×1728 at 30fps or 2304×1152 at 60fps. Plus its 1600 mAH battery lasts for as long as 75 minutes of recording time and its actually waterproof, so you can take pix of houses even in the rain!
It also has a 6 axis electronic image stabilization feature that ensures recordings are clear and not blurry. And it’s compatible with both iOS and Android phones. It uses Wi-Fi so you can immediately upload your video to social media.
Insta360 ONE
This 360-degree camera is also less than $300 on Amazon. It captures 4K video and can do 24 megapixel photos. The flow stabilization ensures the camera gets clear shots even if you were running or biking or otherwise carrying the camera as you shoot it.
It can be used three ways, by itself, via Bluetooth or by connecting it to an iPhone. The camera’s housing is waterproof too, as well as dust proof. Plus, there’s no need for cables. It also works with Android 5.1 and up.
Not sure exactly which of your shots you want? Use its cinematic editing feature to mark off the part of the video you want and the camera automatically edits it into a professional looking video with the shots you desire to tell the story of the house.
Matterport Pro 3D Camera
Matterport is the biggie of these 360-degree cameras. It is strictly pro at nearly $4,000 bucks. It is made precisely for shooting real estate interior shots. In fact, it even has GPS integrated right into it so you can add location tags to a video when its uploaded to a website or social media. Plus it works with Google Street View and has a partnership with that so you can publish content there from the Matterport camera.
It has an astonishing 134 megapixels, and shoots 4K, and can automatically create both 2D still shots and 3D shoots so you could create floor plans if desired. One difference with this camera is you must have a tripod to use it. Plus you have to have some sort of iPad according to the Matterport website in order to use its 3D Capture app.
If you can afford it, this camera is slated to start shipping to customers by the middle of June.
These are a few of the special 360-degree cameras that are great for shooting real estate video tours.
