Instead of buying and connecting an expensive 360 camera to your phone, the PanoClip just slides onto your phone and uses its cameras instead. At least, that’s the promise. Announced today by the same company that makes the Insta360 One and Nano, the PanoClip has no electronics, just lenses built into a small slide-on iPhone accessory.
It’s an interesting looking device, looking like a squarish version of an actual 360 camera: two lenses face either direction. The position of the lenses will vary depending on the model. The company claims there will be versions available to fit any iPhone, 6 and newer, including the X and Plus models.
Inside, however, there are no electronics. It’s essentially like the myriad iPhone add-on lenses, just with one for each camera on your phone… at the same time.
The trick, then, is the software. This is one of the areas that Insta360 does quite well, so I’d assume it will work pretty well. You can take the spherical “fisheye” images and create traditional 360 photo/video spheres, or turn them into Tiny Planet photos. There’s also a “Spin View” that creates short video clips that “showcase the scene in every direction and bend it into eye-catching shapes.”
A “SkyWarp” mode will replace the sky with “a variety of preset skyscapes that shift and flow in time with a music clip. It’s trippy, fun and will make your friends think you’ve got crazy editing skills.” Sounds… interesting. Not for me, I’d bet, but you do you.
I’m told the iPhone cameras can’t take a photo at exactly the same time, so the app does it one after the other. Potentially this could lead to tearing or stitching issues, especially if there’s motion near the edges of each field of view. Since the tradeoff is the low price of entry for this type of photography, I would imagine for most people this occasional issue would be a fair tradeoff.
The only issue I see is you’ll have to take your phone out of its case, assuming you have one, to use it. This is the same issue with the Insta360 One and Nano. Not a huge deal, but worth considering if your phone case is a pain to remove. [EDIT: According to PanoClip the opening is adjustable so that it can slide over thinner cases.]
PanoClip claims an Android version is in the works, though as you’d guess that’s more difficult, given the greater variety of Android phones. It’s probably safe to assume they’ll have one for the big names, but if you’ve got an older or less popular phone, you might be out of luck. We shall see.
For now, the iPhone-compatible PanoClip is available on their website and elsewhere.
PanoClip: $50
