Nikon KeyMission 360 price and specs appear on retailer's website

GoPro Owns the market 😀 Karma drone will be the next big action camera. Unless Nikon has better looking video this looks like a Novelty product.

GoPro doesn't even make the cameras and they are in trouble. Stock crash and layoffs.

http://dailyreckoning.com/gopro-go-2015s-worst-stock-far/

Karma drone will change that. All it takes is a big home run to be back on top of their game. I never liked GoPro but Karma drone has changed my mind.

Yeah I was looking at the GoPro 360 rig today, looks very cool but as you say the number of cameras you need makes it prohibitive. It sounds like GoPro are developing their own 360 option, but an interesting market for Nikon to move into. Keymission 360 promo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wekyeyFTgi0

@ZJ24... a key difference is the the GoPro 360 is also 3D in addition to 360. Which makes a decent difference when viewed using a VR rig. I got to do "Google Cardboard Expedition Tour of Mars" using photos taken from the Spirit Mars Rover.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0604-using-cardboard-to-tour-mars.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

Despite the obvious limitations of a cardboard VR viewer, your brain is tricked into believe it could take one step up that Martian hill, walk along the trail behind you that the rover left made, or even reach out and pick up a rock at your "feet". I thought that was kind of cool. It remains to be seen if 3D will make most user-created videos more interesting (I haven't been impressed with the 3D versions of movies at all... so who knows)

LegacyGT: The Gopro 360 3D is not a camera, but a holder for lots of Gopro cameras (12 on the smallest model). This is in a totally different price group and doesn't compare to the more seamless 360 modes from Keymission and the Theta-series. With seamless I mean less stitching error at close distances. In my eyes those are not competing solutions. If you consider Keymission, the way more expensive Gopro 360 3D will not be an option and vice versa.

@SimenO1, I agree that the 360 and Mission are pretty different in form factor, price, and targeted use. If you read the entire thread conversation you will see that's exactly what I was trying to point out to ZJ24... who himself stated the for the 360 "number of cameras you need makes it [cost] prohibitive." in talking/comparing standard GoPros, GoPro 360, and Nikon Keymission 360. Also... have you actually viewed the output of a GoPro 360 on a VR rig? My personal experience was it was pretty seamless... like you said, it isn't for showing images on a flatscreen or paper.

Actually the form factor suggests this camera could be paired to achieve a binocular view photosphere, for VR glasses. This development seems to be the next step. Maybe this field could be more interesting than what we've seen so far in 3D

@creaDVty and @LegacyGT : yes I mean joining two cameras side by side. I think the problem of one camera catching a part of the other could easily solved by software. The internal angle of view for each eye is less important and could be cut away. In reality we have the nose between our eyes... :-)

@gion No, it cannot be easily solved by software to give 3D perspective. Put you hand out by your right eye. Notice that you can't tell depth from that angle?... that's because you need BOTH eyes to see 3D. In real life we just turn our head to look (that's why the nose doesn't get in the way).

For 360 3D video ... all possible perspective must be recorded beforehand in case the person decides to turn their head to the right in the VR google. So you need two cameras to be able to see any angle possible... hence the bulky GoPro 360 setups.

@LegacyGT. Yes I'm thoroughly familiar with stereo photography (I still use my Fuji W3 sometimes). Have you seen the Google Cardboard expeditions? They are 360 3D images, yet there is only one continuous jpeg (as opposed to a pair of jpeg images) which means that interpolating 3d seems possible.

@creaDVty, yes I have done the Mars Google Cardboard expedition. I guess you right that it is possible, but that was done on a single static image. My intuition was that it was not yet computationally practical to do that on ~1080p 30fps video while the camera is in motion. That's based on my experience with software video stabilization and taking a few courses in Computer Graphics/Vision when for my Masters in Computer Science (which admittedly was over a decade ago so I might be just out of the loop). Maybe @gion is right and it is possible. I'm sorry for dismissing it so quickly.

Doesn't matter.
Any way you look at the recorded footage, it's still only standard definition.

It's supposed to be an action camera, so I'm comparing it against other action cameras.

umm, I'm sure all those 4 people with VR glasses will be happy to buy one - hope that pays for R&D

@wlad. Did you know the Ricoh Theta S (a 360 camera) is one of the hottest selling digital cameras on Amazon? There's a reason all these companies are scrambling to get a piece of the 360 ecosystem (cameras, apps, viewers, social media platforms, etc.)

it's a $350 toy, not a $500 "action camera"

@wlad. I dont know why you're insisting that it's an action camera. I guarantee that anyone who does not care for 360 photos or videos will not give a second look at this camera. On the other hand, many people who are looking for a 360 camera would be interested in the keymission if the image quality and usability are as good as that of the Theta. The extra $150 for 4k, waterproofing and shockproofing would make it worth it.

there's no 4K - the resulting image will always be low definition - no matter what device you use to view it - as long as you only have 2 eyes, you will only see low definition footage from this camera

@wlad. Again, the issue is: should this be compared to other action cameras or to 360 cameras? If I were using your tunnel vision logic, I could say, sure but when watching Gopro footage, can you swipe the screen and look behind you? It's a ridiculous argument, just as it is ridiculous to insist that the keymission image quality should match the image quality of other non-360 action cameras.

not calling it a 4K camera when in fact it's just a low definition camera would be a good start