Ricoh Theta: The first camera that can take spherical 360-degree panoramas
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Ricoh has announced the world’s first commercially available spherical camera — no, it isn’t shaped like a sphere: It captures spherical photos that take in the entire scene, in a 360 degree arc around you, and also from floor to ceiling (or ground to sky). Called the Theta, the camera is capable of taking both spherical panoramas that can be viewed in a Flash applet or dedicated smartphone app, or the scene can be compressed down into a standalone one-dimensional image (see below for lots of examples).
The Theta is essentially a small (95-gram), candy bar-sized device that has an ultra-wide-angle lenses on either side. When you push the shutter button, two images are captured and immediately stitched together, creating a complete view of the camera’s surroundings. If you look at the sample images below (the Flash applets), or the demo video, it isn’t entirely clear how the Theta deals with rendering the camera, and the person/tripod holding it. In some of the samples below you can see a tripod beneath the camera — in others, the camera appears to be hovering in midair. (See: Throwable panoramic camera ball could bring slow-mo video fly-bys to the masses.) If there’s enough overlap between the two images, the camera might be able to perform some clever computer vision/object tracking to remove your monstrously and spherically aberrated body from the photo — but I doubt it.
Other than a couple of lenses and a shutter button, the Theta only has two other buttons — a power button, and a button that turns WiFi on and off — and a tripod mounting hole on the bottom. It is a very, very simple device with a single purpose: taking spherical photos. Via WiFi, though, you can connect the camera to a companion app that runs on your iOS device (Android coming soon) that lets you view, edit, and share the photos you’ve taken. Microsoft is partnering with Ricoh to provide Theta support in the Photosynth app, too.
[If you can't see the spherical image viewing applet above, you'll have to hit up the Theta website. Ricoh has made the viewer very hard to embed.]
Ricoh appears to be targeting the Theta at artists who are trying to find the next aesthetic niche, but I think this camera is likely to have much a much wider audience than that. Its ability to capture the entire scene has obvious applications in documentary photography, sports and other vivid displays of human tenacity, or crime scene/forensic use. If a later version could shoot video, that’d be quite interesting as well (and no, I have no idea of how you would view these videos).
The Ricoh Theta will be available for pre-order in France, Germany, the UK, and US later this month, priced at around $400.
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