GoPro and Insta360 get a Solid Competitor with the Kandao ‘QooCam 3’ 360° Action Camera

Posted on 19/09/2023 by Sarang Sheth

Although Kandao has built its reputation on high-end VR filming gear and conferencing equipment, its more popular sellers have always been consumer-facing gadgets like the QooCam range. The company’s latest offering in the series is the QooCam 3, a tiny handheld 360° action camera designed to butt heads with the GoPro Max and the Insta360 X3. With a $349 price tag, the QooCam 3 stuns its competitors with a 1/1.55” sensor and an f1.6 aperture that allows for more light to pass through, helping the camera capture more detail with less light. The result, 360° video at resolutions of up to 5.7K or regular action-camera-style videos at 4K. Oh, and spatial audio to match your spatial videos too!

Designer: Kandao

With its two 1/1.55 inch sensors, the QooCam 3 surpasses the Insta360 X3’s 1/2″ and the GoPro Max’s 1/2.3″ sensors. This, coupled with its impressive maximum lens aperture of f1.6 (compared to the X3’s f1.9 and the Max’s f2.8), greatly enhances its ability to reduce noise and deliver exceptional performance in low-light conditions. The QooCam 3 is capable of capturing 360° video at a maximum resolution of 5.7K@30fps or regular video at 4K@60fps. Additionally, it can produce stunning 62 MP panoramic photos and record 360° 4-channel spatial audio in Ambisonic format, allowing users to focus the audio based on their desired framing direction.

The QooCam 3 shares a remarkable resemblance with the GoPro Max in terms of its physical appearance, although it is slightly bigger and heavier. It has the ability to be submerged in water up to a depth of 10 meters or 33 feet, and its IP68 rating ensures that it is resistant to both dust and water, making it suitable for various action-packed and adventurous situations. On the software level, though, the QooCam 3 shares quite a few similarities with the Insta360 X3, like the invisible selfie stick (the stick doesn’t appear in 360° videos), post-production reframing, video stabilization, automatic horizon leveling, and time-lapse wizardry. Kandao sweetens the deal with a mobile app for creative editing and seamless social media sharing, along with a desktop application for the more advanced post-production enthusiasts.

It seems like Kandao has its sights on the 360° action camera market, with a pretty affordable $349 price tag, undercutting even the GoPro Max by a solid $50. The QooCam 3 is available on Kandao’s website, although it should hit Amazon stores soon too.

The post GoPro and Insta360 get a Solid Competitor with the Kandao ‘QooCam 3’ 360° Action Camera first appeared on Yanko Design.

The world’s smallest 8K 360 camera can fit in your pocket

Posted on 07/11/2019 by Engadget RSS Feed

When it comes to pocket 360 cameras these days, we tend to look to the likes of Insta360, GoPro and Ricoh. The adventurous folks may also tap into the lesser-known KanDao, which has today released its second pocket 360 camera, the QooCam 8K. As the n...

Kandao’s QooCam will be whatever camera you want it to be

Posted on 05/06/2018 by Sarang Sheth

With three fisheye lenses, a swiveling 45° joint, and a lens cover that turns into a stand, the Kandao QooCam can be a regular action camera, a 360° camera, a 3D Stereoscopic camera, and even a webcam.

It seems like camera tech has surpassed all possible goals and the QooCam’s definitely testament to it. Designed to be the one camera you’ll probably ever need, the QooCam can shoot regular hi-res pictures and 4K video, 3D Stereoscopic content (that you can view on a VR headset), and even fully immersive 4K 360° video, thanks to its clever array of lenses.

The slim camera that literally fits into the grip of your hand comes with stabilizers on all the lenses to make sure that your videos are jitter-free. Aside from capturing in 4K, the camera can even record at 120fps, albeit at a lower resolution. Switch to the stereoscopic mode and things get even more interesting. Capture 3D stills and videos that can be later played back on a VR headset, or better still, use QooCam’s 3D depth-sensing technology to capture regular 2D stills, but with the ability to focus anywhere within the picture AFTER clicking it, giving you the effect of using the portrait mode on a dual-camera phone, although with much better quality and much more control. Another trick up its sleeve is its lens-cover, that doubles up as a rather useful stand for the QooCam, allowing you to prop it up on a flat surface (there’s even a tripod mount, for better control).

The QooCam even comes with an app that allows you to browse through content, edit images, and even livestream video to your social networks! With cutting-edge technology behind the workings of the camera, and a multitude of design and technology awards (the QooCam has Red Dot, iF Design, and CES Innovation Awards under its belt), the QooCam is like no camera we’ve ever seen, while also being every sort of camera we’d ever need!

Designer: Kandao

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The Obsidian captures 360° Stereoscopic 3D videos… in 8K

Posted on 04/05/2018 by Sarang Sheth

Colored black to look powerful and premium, and christened Obsidian because it’s an unshakeable force to reckon with, Kandao’s VR camera comes with 6 fisheye lenses arranged in a hexagonal layout. Here’s where the mind-boggling feature list begins. The Obsidian doesn’t just shoot in 360°. It shoots in 3D 360°, using a clever algorithm that processes both left and right channels, stitching together the videos and images captured in real-time. Impressive? How about the fact that it also shoots 8K at 30fps?

Most 360° VR experiences fall short in one aspect. They’re flat (there’s no difference between the left-eye and right-eye channels), unlike our human eyes that see in 3D. Obsidian’s ground-breaking 3D VR technology literally captures immersive video the way our eyes see the world, and with an 8K resolution, promises to be the world’s most mind-meltingly immersive VR camera ever. No wonder it won an innovation award at CES, a German Design Award, an iF Design Award, AND got some serious compliments from Facebook’s VR engineer director, Brian Cabral.

Designers: Julien Gueuning & Christophe Branchu.

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