Insta360 X4: The BEST Settings

the esta 360 X4 like most compact cameras is designed to be picked up and used right away you can take high quality shots with the default settings which is perfect for most situations I think it's the premium 360 camera available right now but if you really want to unlock the full potential of this camera you've got to dive deeper into the settings especially in less than perfect shooting conditions today I'll show you what to look out for and which settings matter if nerding out to get the best out of your X4 is your bag then this is the video for you first things first let's talk about the shooting modes and which one works best in different situations once you tap on the camera icon the menu will appear just swipe left to select the recording mode you want the choice depends on whether you're in single lens or 360 mode you probably know that your 360 camera has two sensors the camera's processor combines the images from both sensors to create a 360 image when you select single lens mode the camera shoots with just one sensor and lens but why would you want to do that after all the best thing about this camera is its 360 mode and the ability to reframe shots especially now the X4 can deliver 8K video reframes to high quality 2.7k flat footage well there are two main reasons to shoot in single lens mode on the X4 first off you don't need to reframe your shot so you can save time later secondly especially if the light lighting conditions are difficult you may be able to get better image quality with the single lens mode now this can be the case if one side of the camera is well exposed and the other isn't in single lens mode the camera can optimally adjust exposure to one of the two sides there's also a solution for that in 360 mode but we'll get to that soon also you have the option to record in 4k at 60 frames per second while in single lens mode if your video is 360 the reframe resolution is at 2. 7K a really nice 2.7k but if you want 4K then single lens mode is how you get it but really if the lighting conditions are good there's hardly any difference in image quality between a single lens shot and a 360 shot only the most dedicated pixel peeper is going to see any significant differences now there's also M mode no need to reframe and the camera keeps you in the center of the shot great for those who want to film themselves and instantly share their recording on their smartphone on social media without any extra steps or if you really don't want to do any editing now M mode is probably not my first choice because you can only edit the shot a little bit though you can now get very decent slow motion using this mode on the X4 with 2.7k at 120 frames per second so apart from what I've already mentioned on those special cases my recommendation is to go for the 360 mode with the X4 this mode is where the camera really shines now to get a hyperlapse use the time shift mode but you can can also make a hyperlapse by recording a video and then speeding it up afterwards especially with the new motion ND effect for cinematic blur now if you want to do a time-lapse shot you could try interval mode in this mode you can take separate photos and then put them together into a video the overall image quality will be the best it can possibly be but there are a quite a few more steps to that workflow make your life easy by using the 11k time-lapse mode on the X4 it's a game changer check it out out so good and easy to use the two shooting modes we're really into today in 360 mode are the standard video mode and the active HDR mode so when should you use the standard mode versus the active HDR mode it's tough for small cameras to handle really bright and dark Parts in the same shot the bright areas in the picture always get washed out and you can't make out any details the active HDR mode is made for situations like these it's meant to save the details in the really bright areas of the image now I'd only recommend this mode if you're in that exact situation and really want the best outcome because this mode has its downsides too you can't just set it to active HDR and forget about it pick your moments for example it's not really very good for low light shots the image will be much noisier compared to normal standard video mode the active HDR mode also doesn't have as many options for capturing as the regular video mode with 5.7k resolution ution and 30 25 and 24 frames per second available so let's next dive into the details of these recording settings in regular video mode the resolution and frame rate is what you need to focus on resolution and frame rate go hand in hand because the frame rate choices depend on your resolution the camera usually shoots in 8k at 30 frames per second you can get the highest resolution on the X4 with 8K you should only lower the resolution if you want to shoot slow motion or you're okay with reframed 1080P and you want to save some SD card space in AK you have the option to select 30 25 or 24 frames per second now remember this rule if you want to use your clip for a bigger project like using multiple clips for a video then ideally shoot all your Clips in the same frame rate as your video project so if you're planning on making a video at 30 frames per second shoot your Clips at the same rate if you want to create your project at 25 frames per second then you should also shoot your Clips at 25 frames per second and so on if you have more frames per second your video will look smoother so 30 frames per second will look smoother than 24 or 25 frames per second now since professional Movie Makers use 24 frames per second it kind of gives off a more cinematic Vibe 25 frames per second is the pal frame rate meant to prevent flickering under artificial light in most countries outside the US in Canada now people usually use 360 cameras like the X4 for action shots or epic nature experiences so the focus isn't really on getting a cinematic result what you really want is to create a totally immersive look so in my opinion 30 frames per second works better I'd only go with different settings than the standard 830 in a few cases and that's slow motion if you're putting a bigger video project together with 24 or 25 frames per second and you want to use your 360 clips and maybe in low light when it's dim shooting at 24 or 25 frames per second is better because you get more light but honestly the difference to 30 frames per second is pretty small insta 360 recommends shooting in 5.7k in low light condition so bear that in mind you may need to take a step down in resolution next let's have a chat about slow motion for slow motion shots you have to reduce the resolution on the X4 in 5.7 K you can shoot at 60 frames per second that means you can record slow motion videos at 50% speed in 1080P flat images with good image quality even in 4k you can go up to 100 frames per second for a 24% slow motion effect and will'll still look awesome on social media so just so you know slow motion videos can be cool but they won't have the same image quality as full 8K and that's even if at first glance there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between 8 8K and 4K image quality is about more than just resolution so only use 60 or 100 frames per second if you're pretty confident you'll get a cool slow-mo shot and the lighting is good enough the advanced settings menu pops up when you swipe left you can let it do its thing automatically or take full control and set exposure yourself choose manual if you want to control the exposure in auto mode the camera will keep adjusting to get the best exposure but you have some control of things even when it's on auto let's start on the left you can choose the color profile standard log or Vivid the main thing that sets standard and Vivid apart is the higher saturation in Vivid standard leads to a more natural look but if you're into the whole strong saturation thing and just want to share your Clips right away without messing around with editing the colors then Vivid is the way to go if you're still planning on grading the colors of your shots yourself then you should definitely consider shooting in log with the X4 Honestly though I'm not into log color profiles on small cameras any camera actually I'm all about the auto settings but there are times when it can really benefit you the white balance determines whether your image has a warm or cool tone but white should always stay white not yellow or blue so you need some practice to set the white balance manually the camera's Auto white balance usually works just fine so I normally keep mine on auto but manual settings are especially handy for longer shots in consistent lighting the manual setting stops the camera from missing up your shot by changing the white balance for no good reason let's say you're out on a sunny day aim for a white balance of 5500k with EV or exposure value you can set whether the camera should expose the shot a little brighter or darker depending upon the scenario a slightly negative value might be worth considering this way you don't lose any important details in the super bright areas of the image burn out highlights can't be fixed but if a shot is too dark it's super easy to brighten it up later so I tend to set EV to minus 0.3 on the X4 and here on the far right there is still the feature allowing the two sensors of the X4 to separate exposure settings when shooting in 360 mode the settings available are Auto standard and high like I said before the lighting might be tricky it could be super bright on one side and really dark on the other here's an example you're filming from a dark room to the outside then it might make sense for the two sensors of the X4 to use separate exposure settings choose between standard and high depending upon how different the light is between the two lenses that's pretty much it for settings in automatic mode if you switch to manual exposure you'll get two extra settings ISO and shutter speed the shutter speed determines how long the single frame of the shot is exposed the longer it gets the brighter the image will be so if you lower the shutter speed the image gets brighter the only time I'd bother with manual shutter speeds is in low light so let's talk about that now the electronic stabilization on the X4 is Top Class however it requires very sharp images so if you want Sharp Images the camera has to have a super short exposure time this is great for outdoor filming in daylight with the automatic mode but if it's dark especially indoors the automatic setting will increase the shutter speed to let in more light but if the shutter speed is too long the pictures will turn out smudgy for low light go with 24 frames per second and 1 over50 shutter speed this ratio is pretty good keep in mind the stabilization won't work as well as usual at 1 over 50 shutter speed pay more attention to keeping your camera steady but when the lighting is good I just leave the shutter speed on Auto on the other hand the iso value determines how sensitive the camera is to light the higher the iso the brighter the image gets I'm unfortunately cranking up the iso makes the image look all noisy and messed up so you want to keep the iso value low for better image quality when it's sunny you can just set this value to 100 you'll get the best image quality with this but in low light an ISO of 100 makes the image too dark so here you can manually increase it as much as necessary but just so you know the image looks good up to ISO 400 once you get above ISO 800 the image quality tends to go downhill pretty far bust I'd only use ISO 800 if there's absolutely no other option keep the iso 100 for the best image quality in sunlight and daylight if it's dark tweak the iso yourself to get the right amount of light into the image 800 should be your upper limit if the lighting changes while recording you can set a maximum ISO value here on the left like 800 Max or 400 Max the camera will adjust the iso as necessary but won't go over the maximum value let's talk about two other settings to get there open the main menu and tap on the settings icon the video bit rate setting is important to us it should be set to high this is the only way to get the best image quality if you're serious about saving storage space go with standard now right below this you'll see the video sharpness setting your X4 makes the image pretty sharp the camera adds sharpness by increasing the contrast at the edges of the image this is what we call digital sharpness it makes the image look a bit AR icial it's not a great look and it's hard to fix afterwards so if you're going to edit your shots I would suggest using low sharpness if the image is looking a little bit soft just add some sharpness in your editing software but if you're not into editing your shots just dial down the sharpness to medium that's what I do okay wow that was a ton of information let me just sum up the key points use single lens mode if you don't want to reframe your shot or if the lighting is uneven ak30 would be my go-to to default in most cases for the capture settings I'd make these changes set color to standard or log if you're editing your videos set EV to minus 0.3 in dim lighting manually adjust the exposure and set the shutter speed to 1 over 50 with an ISO of 400 or a maximum of 800 you should always set the sharpness to medium or even low if you're editing your Clips check out this video next for my full first impressions of the X4 and its capabilities I'll see you there

Channel: The TechPacker

Views: 29,322

Keywords: camera insta360 x4, insta360, insta360 tutorial, insta360 x4, insta360 x4 best settings, insta360 x4 best settings for action, insta360 x4 best settings for active hdr, insta360 x4 best settings for active hdr video, insta360 x4 best settings for timelapse, insta360 x4 best settings for video, insta360 x4 best settings for video recording, insta360 x4 best settings for videos, insta360 x4 best shots, insta360 x4 best video settings, insta360 x4 video, new insta360 features

Id: tnQS0qduHZg

Length: 14min 2sec (842 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024