When we last covered KanDao’s Obsidian VR camera, the 3D 360 camera was expected to become commercially available in Q2 of 2017. Well, according to KanDao, its two Obsidian models will be available for purchase very, very soon for $10,000.
Obsidian is based on Facebook’s Surround360 Open Edition VR camera and was a Best in Innovation honoree at CES 2017.
Key features of KanDao Technology’s Obsidian VR camera
The Pioneer Edition of the Obsidian VR camera has a slightly different appearance than the final camera design, shown above.
The palm-sized camera has six synced fisheyeAn extreme wide-angle lens, with image distortion occurring at the edges of the frame. lenses that output 8K stereoscopicVideo shot with two parallel cameras (or in the case of 360° video, multiple pairs of parallel cameras) Commonly referr... More video. KanDao also recently revealed the Obsidian S, which captures 4K video at 120 fps and 6K at 60 fps.
Both cameras can be controlled remotely and previewed via Ethernet cable or iOS and Android apps. Users can adjust exposureThe measurement of the brightness and range (latitude) of light being captured by the camera. Exposure is governed by ca... More, ISO and shutter speed of one or multiple lenses, as well as change shooting modes, when connected by WiFi or Bluetooth.
Obsidian also comes with its own stitching software, KanDao Studio, that KanDao claims cuts post-production time in half. Its automatic stitching also makes it possible to live stream monoscopic or stereoscopicVideo shot with two parallel cameras (or in the case of 360° video, multiple pairs of parallel cameras) Commonly referr... More 4K video in cubemapA projection where a spherical image is viewed as a cube, and where the six faces of the cube are unfolded into a rectan... More projection format.
KanDao Obsidian VR camera specs
Kandao Studio, Obsidian’s companion software, offers one-click processing, ambisonicPertaining to audio reproduction that captures the spatial acoustic qualities of recorded sound. surround sound support, and GPU acceleration to speed up workflow.
Here are some additional specs for the Obsidian S and R:
- 5.7 inches in diameter (S), 3.65 inches in diameter (R)
- 2.4 pounds
- Aluminum magnesium alloy housing
- Maximum power consumption of 26W
- Power supply via battery, external 12V, or ethernet
- 6 cameras
- Fish eye f/2.2 (S) and f/2.8 (R)
- Sony 12M back-illuminated CMOS image sensor
- Video format: monoscopic or stereoscopicVideo shot with two parallel cameras (or in the case of 360° video, multiple pairs of parallel cameras) Commonly referr... More; equirectangularStretching a spherical image into a flat, rectangular format. (i.e. the way a world map represents the spherical Earth).... More or cubemapA projection where a spherical image is viewed as a cube, and where the six faces of the cube are unfolded into a rectan... More projection
- Stitched output resolutionThe number of pixels in an image, typically presented as a ratio of the total pixels on x axis to the total pixels on th... More of 5760 x 5760 (S) and 7680 x 7680 (R)
- ISO 50-6400
- Dynamic rangeThe varying degrees of brightness that can be captured by a camera or displayed by a playback device. You can think of i... More 10 stopsƒ-stops are the measurement of, and mechanism for controlling how much light is let through the lens to reach a camera ... More (video and 12 stopsƒ-stops are the measurement of, and mechanism for controlling how much light is let through the lens to reach a camera ... More (photo)
- Supported frame rates 80/120 fps at 4K, 30/60 fps at 6K (S); 60 fps at 4K, 30 fps at 8K
- Camera IO: 1 Gbps ethernet
- Audio: internal 6-channel, external stereo in line, spatial audio support with Zoom H2n synchronization
- Output compressionA process of lowering overall image quality by reducing the amount of data in a file in order to make it more accessible... More H.264/H.265
For more information, visit the KanDao website.
