Gizmodo
This is a conceptual design by Ye Chen (no relation to our Jason Chen—he isn't this creative) and isn't officially associated with Nikon, but it is an interesting design, nonetheless. Rather than having to painstakingly create your own panoramic pictures, this camera does it for you automatically. It has an ergonomic cylindrical form lens that rotates and takes a 360-degree picture. If this were to actually be manufactured I highly doubt it could sell enough to stay afloat, but it could be a good schtick camera.
Nikon 360 Degree Digital Camera [Yanko]
Comments
does it have to look like a retarded boomerang though?
Let us hope the 360 Degree Camera Concept stays just that: a concept.
i rather just turn my camera around than buy this thing.
Isn't it spelled "lense"?
^^
That's ok. . it shouldn't interfere with he operation of the shut button or the stander.
It seems, for some time now, that industrial design has had this notion that consumers want everything they own to have a teletubby-esque appearance (and of course, in any color you want as long as it's white).
The professionals get all the cool-looking stuff - like the RED one digital camera
@fuzz:
good point...
No, no my droogs:
The VR tour industry would support this: I know, I make virtual tours and I have been dreaming of this very thing!
Currently I have to stitch together anywhere from 5 to 36 images to describe a 360° image. Yup. In this day and age.
Every Realtor on Earth would buy one of these.
This thing has been a long time coming, and I encourage Mr. Chen to keep going & add CCDs for the nadir & zenith, with a hoverboard mount, please.
BTW, this would make awesome POV orgy shots, so lets get with the program!
(For the lazy:
droog
zenith
nadir)
Hmm I saw this and just thought... "ooooh new xbox controller"
I just saw this and thought... "ooooh new microsoft iphone killer".
Often I'm not a fan of these industrial design concepts when the designer has no clue about what's actually techn.ologically possible... but this one actually seems both feasible and useful.
I think a motorized tripod stand combined w/ a camera's built in panoramic mode might be a little more realistic, but none-the-less, this would be a neat toy for most, and as mentioned above, very useful for some.
It's actually spelt lens and shut botton is probably the shutter release button but I'm not paid enough to point that out. Besides this guy's a designer not a writer.
So anyway, wouldn't a camera that shoots 360deg images require a very different screen. The images would be superwide panoramas.
Darned if I'd know how to hold it either.
Nikon, I'd be on the phone to your lawyers about now.
Nothing new here. The first panoramic camera was patented in 1844 and it too used a rotating lens.
Digital makes it much easier, and there are at least two professional cameras that work on the same principle - PanoScan and RoundShot - both very pricey and both selling well.
It looks like this one could be built for a reasonable price for the consumer market. Home inkjets are adequate for prints, and they can also be made into QuickTime panoramas for the web.
Entirely practical, and certainly would have a market.
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