Then there’s the stitching. Samsung’s bundled software does an alright job, but it’s far from perfect. Seams are often visible and the footage frequently shifts suddenly, which doesn’t do great things for motion sickness if you’re watching with VR headset. There are also zero options in Samsung’s software, but it is dead simple and relatively fast. Third party stitching solutions like VideoStitch Studio and Autopano Video exist, but with these it can take hours to get something that looks decent (at least for a 360 novice like me) and even then anomalies persist. If I find myself doing a lot of 360 video, though, it would probably be wise to devote time to properly stitching the footage by hand.

Shooting

The biggest departure from traditional filming that occurs with 360 cameras is that you’re not shooting in one direction, you’re shooting in all directions. Because the viewer can look anywhere, you have to think differently about where to position your camera (and yourself). With a traditional camera, all you have to worry about in terms of position is angle; you simply point your camera at your subject. With a 360 camera, you’ve got different things to worry about:

Seams: Software can go part of the way to making your 360 video seamless, but at the current level of technology it’s not wise to count on it. I found myself constantly aware of where the seam was on the camera and positioning the camera in such a way that the seam did not fall on the subject. It takes a little thinking ahead, especially when you can’t control the orientation of the camera (more on that below).