Ricoh Theta V - resolution and timelapses

Ricoh Hardware and Software
1

Hi everyone, I bought a Ricoh Theta V camera and I have faced two problems:

  1. The photo resolution is very poor, even when taking photos with the camera relatively close to the subjects.
  2. when creating time-lapse photos, the minimum interval is 4 seconds. This is a problem when we use the camera to map the streets (i.e. StreetView or Mapillary). I owned a GoPro Fusion, whose time-lapse photos minimum is 0.5 seconds. How can I decrease the time interval between photos in Ricoh Theta V?
1 Like
2

There is only a workaround to reduce the time. You can use the Dual-Fisheye Plug-in with the V to get the image into dual-fisheye at 1 shot per second. You would then need to stitch it with PTGUi, which may be expensive for your use, or find something else that can stitch it. Ichi’s stitcher used to work on V images as well as Z1, I’m not sure if it still works with V.

You can use Hugin, which is free, but maybe too much work.

To get 0.5 delays between shots, you would need a feature similar to motion stills, which is not supported on the V or Z1 right now.

3

Dear Craig,
I have the same problem here with the Z1. The fastest interval is 10 seconds when using RAW+JPG mode and 6 seconds when only JPG. And that is a little bit too much for instance when drinving a car, too much distance between shots.
I think when you mention Dual-Fisheye Plug-in, you mean the burst mode. But unfortunately can only handle 17 shots (if I’m not wrong).

Do you know an app or pluging being able to take pictures every 1 or 2 seconds at least?.

Thank you in advance,
JuanMi

4

On the Z1, do you need the RAW images? Or, are you OK with just using the JPG images? The JPG only images will be faster.

For the JPG images, on the Z1, I’m taking it at under 4 seconds/shot.

Can you describe what you are using the images for from the car? For example, for tours?

I’m using this tool to measure the time the Z1 takes to be ready to take the next picture.

RICOH THETA API Test Kit

image

z1_processing

5

Hi there Craig!,

Thank you so much for your quick answer!. I’m planning taking pictures for GSV Blue lines from a moving vehicle (electric scooter and cars). Yes, JPG would be ok.

For the sake of image quality, I wouldn’t like to use record video (one of the Z1’s “weakest” point for me) and the extracting frames…

4 seconds at an speed of, let’s say 15 Km/h would lead me to an about 16m spacing between shots which is normally too much for blue lines.

Ideal situation (I guess) would be taking at least a shot every 1.5". After your information, I think this would not be achievable… :frowning:

I registered as a plugin developer by Ricoh to try to test it by my means.

Again, thank you very much for your quick answer!

Greetings from Spain!

JuanMi

6

There’s a long discussion on the THETA V plug-in here:

Dual-fisheye Images With THETA V Plug-in

There are two primary strategies, both of which have limitations:

  1. you can use the plug-in architecture and the camera api to take un-stitched JPEG images in the Z1 and it may reduce the time between shots a little. I still think it will take over two seconds to take a single shot. I haven’t tried this recently.
  2. on the THETA V, there was a Google Streetview app to take 5.4K video. This app is no longer available, but it did show that the camera was capable. You can find references to this app on this forum. The method on how to achieve this was never disclosed. Hopefully, we can see this type of technology in the future. At the moment, there is no way to enable this on the Z1 through the published APIs.

Example of the 5.4K video at 5fps (app is no longer available)
Video Mode publishing Street View improved to 5.4K & 5FPS

You can see an automatic frame extraction I did here:

https://goo.gl/maps/89PQ1CCXfPz