9 Creative Tricks using an Action Camera (Insta360)

Published on May 26, 2020

Camera Tutorials

360 camera, action camera, camera hacks, camera tricks, camera tutorial, insta360

The benefits of Action cameras

Almost every film maker has an action camera in his backpack. Owning an action camera has a lot of benefits, especially when you shoot a lot of adventurous videos or sport videos. It allows you to get angles that would be way more difficult with a DSLR or mirrorless camera. And since most action cameras are waterproof it’s an ideal solution for (under)water shots.

Since most action cameras are quite cheap in comparison with DSLR’s a lot of aspiring film makers tend to buy an action camera as their first camera. And why not, right?! It doesn’t really matter which type of camera you use, it’s the type of content that you create with it. I’ve honestly seen amazing content made with Insta360 or GoPro cameras that I’ve never seen before with a higher quality camera. So if you’re starting out with film making, think about buying an action camera, it’s definitely worth it.

Like I mentioned before, it’s super easy to get creative camera angles with an action camera. You can mount it to your bike, your wheels, a drone and even your own body. The possibilities are endless so when shooting, try to get the most creative shots you can imagine.

Shooting 360 videos

Since a couple of years 360 videos are super trending, music videos are shot this way, like for instance the music video of ‘Humble’ by Kendrick Lamar. In this video they used the tiny planet effect that you can create with a 360 camera.

Shooting 360 has a lot of benefits but in my opinion it’s getting overused and all the content is just a copy of another. So when shooting with 360 cameras you really have to get creative. Think outside the box and try to get shots that haven’t been made before with these types of cameras. The effects that you can create are cool tho but I think that the quality of most 360 videos isn’t that nice. A 360 camera basically has a high resolution like 5K or 3K but it needs this because when stitching into a normal view instead of a warped VR view it has to scale and therefor there is a bit of quality loss.

Insta 360

Our video today was sponsored by Insta360. We used their One R series with a 1inch camera, a 4K wide camera and a 360 camera. A benefit about the One R series is the fact that they are modular, so you can choose which camera you use on it. The 1 inch camera is also great for low light, and we can vouch for that since we did a comparison test with our RED Gemini. If you want to start shooting with a 360 and/or action camera we recommend having a look at the Insta 360 Twin Edition.