Kogeto Dot 360° video lens
For iPhone panoramic video shoots
Geek Treat of the Week If you’ve ever dabbled in the world of panoramic photography and tried to stitch images together so that they form a virtual reality movie, you’ll know, frankly, what a pain in the backside it can be.
There’s the lining up of the shots, the careful positioning of camera and tripod, and, of course, there’s always some stray object which moves across your field of view between shots.
Kogeto’s Dot aims to eliminate this. It’s a 360° lens designed to fit snugly onto an iPhone 4 or 4S and allow you to shoot panoramic video in real time. Clip the brightly-coloured case onto your handset and download the free app, and you’re good to go.
You’ll need to calibrate it so that the app knows where the lens is in relation to your iPhone’s camera, but other than that it’s just point and click.
Video quality is, to be frank, shonky. But that’s not the point. Play back a video and swipe your finger across the screen and watch as you rotate around 360 degrees. It’s remarkable to be able to do this on a phone at all.
You can then share it on Facebook or Twitter, if that’s your thing. Or upload it to Kogeto’s website - which has a good selection of examples - so you can view it a computer if it’s not.
The Dot is a toy rather than a serious video tool, but it’s a lot of fun and with a little imagination can produce some creative results. ®
Geek Treat of the Week is published every Monday. Got a handy or fun gadget in mind you'd like us to consider? Please let us know
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COMMENTS
It’s remarkable to be able to do this on a phone at al
Wait till you hear about computers!
Money for old rope.
£70 for a curved reflector, a plastic case and an iphone App?
Nice work if you can get it.
Warning to others
I still have my old Razr with a zoom lens attachment thingy.
When I first tried it I thought Wow and Cool.
Then I realized (as most keen photographers already know I suppose) that a tripod is essential because YOU CANNOT KEEP YOUR FRIGGING HAND STEADY!
Re: Money for old rope.
I thought my comments about tooling costs could be read more broadly to mean "I know they have to recover sunk costs but..." rather than "They only need to recover tooling costs and....." The rest of the post still stands, it's massively over priced considering material cost and optical performance and is priced far too dearly for mass appeal. They would have been far more likely to make their fortune selling a million of these things at £10 each, rather than selling 1000 at £70 a piece.
Personally I think R&D costs were a few hours in autocad, and enough business bullshit to hoodwink a venture capitalist, the thing is objectively an optical and ergonomics disaster. Software development and web-hosting costs as much as your willing to spend, which can be a lot when it's someone else's money and the project lead is your best mate.
