LG G5 Friends 360 CAM LG-R105 (International Version, No Warranty)

Great 360 Camera, specially for the price.360 & VR video is tricky. While it is not new technology, it is now becoming mainstream. Until recently you had to wrangle an array of cameras pointed in at least 4 directions, depending on the lenses you have attached. I have played with the Ricoh Theta, the Kodak PixPro, the Nikon Keymission, and some overseas knockoffs, all aimed at the consumer market. If you want anything pro or prosumer, you need to spend money building an array of GoPros or whatever other cameras you prefer, buy a license for overpriced software to just stitch your footage together or add a simple title. It's a hassle, but you get amazing footage.The LG G5 360 Camera is a great, simple solution to get basic 360 video functionality with free, albeit very basic stitching software. Like the Theta & Theta S, Nikon Keymission and the Topvision knockoffs, this is a camera that includes 2 lenses on the same body. It outputs a 2K video image that covers the entire 360x360 sphere. The Nikon Keymission can do 4K, but the footage looks about the same and the Nikon App is terrible with abundant connection issues. Talking about connections, most of these consumer cameras can be used as stand alone cameras, but you will benefit by using the manufacturers software to preview and stitch your footage. Like I mentioned the Nikon has terrible connection reliability, but so do the Kodak 2-camera setup and the Topvision knockoffs. The LG 360 Camera connects like a breeze to your phone. Once connected, you will be able to select ISO and Shutter Speed and an assortment of tuned profiles. The LG 360 Camera works with any smartphone that can support the LG app. One downside is that to update firmware, you MUST a computer with another LG software called LG Bridge which installs some extra crap meant to allow you browsing of your LG branded cellphone files... I didn't need that and I was never given an option to not install it. Mind you this software is only used to update firmware and browse content. You need a separate LG 360 viewer app to view and convert videos. They could have learned a thing or two from Canon and Sony on this one. Bad LG, bad!Photos look amazing at 13MP, but why would you not just download Google Cardboard Camera and create better photospheres? The only thing this camera gives the photo enthusiast is ease of use as you just hold it up and click the button. But you will always see your frankenstein looking stitched hand or your tripod. You don't get that with your phone, but you do get it with EVERY 360 camera. I recommend getting a telescoping monopod with a tripod floor spread.What I love: Easy workflow, a lot of control (you need to use the LG made camera app on either your phone or laptop, the stitched files are a breeze to work with), small, comes with a hard case, footage looks great for a 2K 360 camera, 1 camera with 2 lenses attached(no fiddling with rigs or trying to sync the footage in post).What I hate: The low light capabilities are lacking (but this is expected with such small sensors, after all this is not a Sony A7S), the footage is at times muddy and blocky (once again, light plays a big part but the codec LG uses is a bit lackluster), 2K is fine but LG could have easily made this a 4K camera, LGs obnoxious computer app is required to update firmware.

I've used this for years, ever since it was released about 4 years ago when I also purchased my LG G5. Even though I no longer use my G5, I still found that the LG 360 camera served many needs ranging from recording special moments such as my children's first birthdays to creating VR videos for research purposes.LG recently posted an update in Google Play that it will disable mobile device access on June 20th. However, when I opened the camera earlier tonight, device access to LG 360 camera view finder was already disabled. In other words, LG, in its typical fashion, couldn't even properly sunset a device at its end of life. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, as LG basically bungled every single one of its Android firmware upgrade on every single one of its devices. As far as software support is concerned, LG is shamefully inadequate. Considering that when the LG 360 camera first came out, it retailed for $250, getting only 4 years of use from this camera is completely unacceptable. To put this in perspective, my Canon Powershot A580, which cost $150 when I bought it over a decade ago, is still perfectly usable even if its image quality is laughable compared to a midrange phone today.Stay away from LG products.

It was a good entry point for tinkering with 360 photos, but I had some frustrations.On the positive side, it works well as a static point/click camera in bright light, where you have an interesting 360 scene around you. I took it hiking and it was quite easy for that. It was nice to just pull it out and click and keep walking, without even thinking about how to frame and compose a shot to capture a scene.There were quite a few negatives. First. I had aspirations to use it to capture google street view shots. I found that after doing a firmware upgrade that the google street view app interface (IOS) no longer worked. So much for that. I thought that as an alternate I could grab shots using the native app (IOS) so that it grabs GPS coordinates and later upload to google.This brings me to the next major gripe ... interacting with the camera through the IOS app is painful. It is at least a 3 step process to connect the camera ... go to app to locate the camera and enable its wifi, go to iOS settings and switch to that wifi, go back to app and click the camera mode button, only then can you click to get a picture. The app eats your phone battery, and it is not practical to constantly have the app open to access the shutter. I found myself having to constantly step back through the full sequence to grab a picture. I eventually simply gave up on controlling the camera through the app, and simply used the camera using the single shutter button on the camera. The downside then is no GPS location on the photo, and no simple control over things like enabling a self timer (to avoid having your thumb in every photo).As a simple click camera, I did get some good and interesting pictures where the light was bright and uniform. To look at the pictures in 360 mode, you then have to go back to the app to pull from the camera. I found it somewhat limiting that there was not an easy way to share the pictures so that someone else can view in 360. Others will either need to have an app to do so, or sharing via a service like Facebook. Perhaps the native photo viewers are behind in native capabilities, but I found no easy way to share these (or even look at them myself on a desktop/mac) without seeking out another app.I found that for sharing, I would most often get the photos into a 360 viewer app (I used Go Pro VR Player on mac) and then rotate and scale to grab a flattened picture (e.g. a pano or a fish-eye rendering). I would then put that in my photo album. The stitching of the 360 view was best if the light was uniform. Oddly it looked as if the two cameras could capture light settings unique to each lens .. okay until you get to the seam and the light differences are obvious.Final frustration is with the charging cord. It is some dimension of a USB cord, but it is not a standard micro USB (slightly larger). I have no idea why they would choose this, but prepare to add another cord to your collection and good luck replacing it if you happen to forget it.In summary, if you want to tinker with 360 photos, and are okay with working around the limitations, then it is a good entry point for the price. You can then decide if 360s are something worth investing more into. My guess is that the novelty will wear out quickly with your frustrations, and you will end up waiting for the technology and compatibility to catch up before making a deeper dive.