THETA HOW-TO VIDEOS
The form of the face looks natural but tends to appear backlit when shooting against bright backgrounds such as the sky, and this causes the face to appear dark.
Raising the camera to a position where you look up also makes your expression appear bright and clear. A good tip is to raise your chin, not just your gaze, and face the camera.
When you don’t want to photograph your face, place THETA on top of your head. Your hand will appear a lot in the shot but you can shoot while hiding your face and body.
THETA has a built-in sensor that detects camera tilt so the vertical plane of spherical images is always recorded correctly regardless of THETA’s angle when shooting. This means that there is no need to hold THETA perpendicular to the ground but you must be careful because holding THETA sideways at the same height as your face, as in the example, will cause you to mess up the shot as your own hand will hide your face.
Just set your thumb on the THETA shutter button, relax your grip while not worrying about slightly tilting the camera, extend your arm and shoot the photo.
When you have set up THETA, as long as the lens is not hidden by your fingers and it is all visible, you can take a photo without your fingers covering your face.
You can still shoot the vertical plane correctly even when going to the extreme of laying THETA on its side. However, this may cause your face and body to be hidden by your hand.
THETA captures every direction so during the daytime while outdoors sunlight enters the lens and the image will have a mixture of areas with direct sunlight and back lighting.
This will cause no problems for front lighting in which light hits the main subject. However, the subject will look darker than it appears when there is back lighting.
In places surrounded by a dark environment, such as at night, people will also appear too bright. In such a case, be sure to use exposure compensation or the HDR rendering function that enable you to either adjust the brightness by compensating with exposure or increase the width of tone exposure.
With the sun at the subject's back, in other words, back lighting. Shooting using automatic exposure will set the brightness of the photo based on the bright sky. This will cause the front side of a person in shadow to look darker than they appear.
Adjust the brightness using the exposure compensation function. While checking the results of the compensation at live view, ensure that the brightness is such that the subject's facial expression is clearly visible and the background does not have significant blown out highlights before taking the shot.
Part of the image has blown out highlights and there is gradient loss.
HDR rendering is a function that renders images that were shot continuously while changing the brightness automatically. It allows you to obtain images that have far less blown out highlights and blocked up shadows than images without compensation. It is essential to secure the camera in place such as using a tripod to prevent the camera from moving during the rendering process.
When shooting with the shutter button on the camera, your fingers will always appear large in the shot. This is something “typical of THETA”. However, there are times when you want to avoid your hands standing out in the photo. A selfie stick is useful at times like this. It also has the advantage of being able to change the vertical angle in an instant, in addition to ensuring your hands do not stand out in the shot.
You can also get closer to the subject because you are holding THETA at a shooting position you cannot reach just by extending your arm, and this enables you to take a photo that is both unexpected and has impact. It is not possible to push the shutter button on the camera when using a selfie stick so you should use either remote shooting from the smartphone app or use the self-timer function. It is also important to be careful not to allow camera shake in dark locations.
There is a distinct difference when comparing shooting in hand and with a selfie stick. When significantly changing the view and visual point with such as the THETA+ app, the scene may appear more unnatural so it is recommended to use this method as required. When you want to make your hands not stand out by just a small amount, not extending the selfie stick all the way makes a big difference in how they appear in the shot. Try to find the best length for your own shooting style and usage.
You can freely decide the high angle and low angle if you have a selfie stick. Shooting with a selfie stick that can lift THETA high up enables you to look down at the entire scene more than in hand shooting.
When you want to capture a wide range in the direction of the ground this way, a high angle is the best. Conversely, a low angle is suitable for fixing the sky or a tall object into the background.
Many selfie sticks have an angle adjustment mechanism for the part where the camera is attached (camera platform). With THETA, you do not have to directly face the lens so don't tilt the selfie stick at an angle to ensure the stick does not appear in the shot.
When shooting with the camera platform tilted at an angle, only the stick section appears in the shot and this looks unnatural. Ensuring that THETA and the selfie stick are in a straight line, will hide the stick in the shot.
THETA can stand up by itself on a flat surface but we do not recommend this method. The reason is that THETA has a high center of gravity and accidents may occur such as the camera falling over and the lenses can get scratched. Be sure to use a stand or tripod when you want to secure THETA so that you don’t regret a careless accident. If you have a stand or tripod, every single THETA function will be at your disposal such as slow shutter shooting and HDR rendering. It is also necessary to use remote shooting or the self-timer function when using a stand or tripod.
There is no blur even with slow shutter shooting for nightscapes or in dark rooms. You are free to take photos how you like by lowering ISO sensitivity with the ISO priority mode and using HDR rendering with the automatic mode, etc.
Secure THETA on a tripod and use the self-timer or remote shooting. If the photographer is hidden from view, you can shoot a spherical image without any people on the screen.