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Pilot One 360º 1-Click Camera is a Contender for Real Estate Photographers11003

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WGAN-TV Unboxing the Labpano Pilot One by WGAN-TV Founder and Managing Editor Dan Smigrod on Thursday, 23 January 2020 and embargoed until 10 am EST Monday, 10 February 2020. Labpano Pilot One pre-orders through the first week of March 2020 ($1,199 64GB | $1,249 128GB) with a free GPS module (valued at $129) with this link.

WGAN-TV Labpano Pilot One Camera is a Contender for Real Estate Photographers | We Get Around Network Forum Founder Dan Smigrod

360º spherical panoramas shot with the Labpano Pilot One 360º 1-click camera and published in an EyeSpy360 Tour. Tour by We Get Around Atlanta Chief Photographer Dan Smigrod

------------------------------------------------
10 am EST Monday, 10 February 2020
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Review: Labpano Pilot One 360º 1-Click Camera is a Contender for Real Estate Photographers

Hi All,

The Labpano Pilot One 360º one-click camera is a contender for real estate photographers that want to offer 360º Virtual Tours and do Google Street View map-updates for store-fronts.

My recommendation is based on a loaner of a Pilot One camera (beta hardware and software) that I received from Labpano on Thursday, 23 January 2020. My recommendation is also based on discussions that I had with super-successful Google Street View subject matter expert photographers at the 2019 Google Street View Summit that are power users of the Labpano Pilot Era: the big-brother of the Pilot One.

Labpano is presently accepting Pilot One pre-orders through the first week of March 2020 ($1,199 64GB | $1,249 128GB) with a free GPS module (valued at $129) with this link. While Labpano previously announced that the Pilot One would begin shipping in late February, it has since updated that shipping schedule to March 2020 - at the soonest - as a result of Coronavirus affecting staffing at its China-based manufacturing facility.

There were three reasons that I accepted Labpano’s invite to beta test/review the Pilot One:

1. Create Google Street View map updates and create new Google Street View "blue lines"
2. Create PilotTours – Labpano’s new virtual tour platform in the Cloud featuring auto-creation of tours
3. Create EyeSpy360 virtual tours using 360º panoramas shot with the Pilot One

Unfortunately – or fortunately – Labpano is having so much success with pre-sales, I have not received a GPS module and backpack (as of 10 February 2020) to create Google Street View with the Pilot One.

And, unfortunately, PilotTours is still in early development. (More on my PilotTour testing and recommendations later in this review.)

I did successfully shoot 360º HDR panoramas with the Pilot One to create multiple EyeSpy360 360º virtual tours. Please see example EyeSpy360 Tour (above) using the Pilot One 360º spherical panoramas and in these WGAN Forum discussions:

My 3rd EyeSpy360 Tour (Workflow for Furnished Apartment in Atlanta)
My EyeSpy360 Tour Example of a Senior Living Apt (Easy, Fast & Affordable)

As an Apple Fan Boy, the highest compliment that I can make for the Pilot One is that the user experience strives to be Mac-like. And, while that user experience is not there yet, I can imagine that the Labpano team will achieve a great, Mac-like user experience with firmware updates.

While I have not taken all 50+ 3D/360º cameras for a spin, I can imagine that the Pilot One 2.2” touchscreen – with logical menus – is a huge differentiator - particularly when it comes to overriding the automatic modes to change camera settings such as:

✓ Exposure Compensation (EV)
✓ White Balance (WB)
✓ Focus distance

I have shot with enough 360º cameras to say it would be hard for me to go back using other 360º cameras that do not have a touchscreen (at least as big as the Pilot One) with Mac-like menus.

Shooting 360º Spherical Panoramas

When I shot three Atlanta senior living apartments using the Pilot One (example above), I kept the settings on Automatic – with HDR enabled. The in-camera stitched image quality is excellent and I like that the images are typically 11 to 14 MB .jpgs.

Nearly 10 years ago, I was using a Canon 5D Mark III with a Sigma 8mm fish-eye lens and a NodalNinja R1 rotator to shoot 360ºs – and then using PT Gui Pro and Pano2VR to stitch the images together and “clean up” the nadir.

For the vast majority of professional real estate photographers that require an easy, fast and affordable workflow for shooting 360ºs, the Pilot One fulfills this requirement.

I will defer to others to debate the quality of the 360º panoramas versus other 360º cameras versus the price of the camera and related accessories. As I shared with you, the Pilot One touchscreen with Mac-like experience for shooting 360ºs are the deciding factors for me.

I could imagine that when you look at my 360º images shot with the Pilot One (examples above), you might conclude that the HDR is not so great or that the color saturation is not the best. Blame me first for not changing the Exposure Compensation (EV) and not doing any post production to tweak the color saturation and white balance.

Lapano PilotTour Virtual Tour Platform

While I did get an Amuse-bouche of the Labpano PilotTour virtual tour platform – again in early-early-early beta – I recommend that Labpano abandon offering PilotTour and instead focus on 3rd party integrations with as many of the 130+ virtual tour platforms as possible.

I consider the Labpano's PilotTours 360º virtual tour platform in the cloud more of a proof-of-concept to show what’s possible with deep integration between the Pilot One camera and other platforms. What's possible - using the Pilot Open System to create a much shorter and easier workflow for the creation of 360º virtual tours.

I could imagine that camera manufacturers like Labpano are obsessed with incremental improvements in the hardware and software. Actually the greatest value-add Labpano could add is seamless integration with virtual tour platforms and software. It's obviously headed in that direction with the Labpano Pilot Open System.

[Parenthetically, when I am asked for a recommendation regarding which 3D or 360 camera to buy for real estate photographers - or for real estate agents – I always recommend determining the use cases first. Then, to look at the virtual tour platform(s) that are on their short list of 130+ virtual tour platforms/software and, only then, look at which cameras have easy, fast and seamless experiences with those virtual tour platform(s).]

At the very least, Labpano should prioritize deep integration with these eight of 130+ 3D/360 Virtual Tour platforms with the Pilot Open System allowing for custom Android solutions.

1. Cupix
2. EyeSpy360
3. Google Street View
4. Matterport
5. Panoskin
6. ThreeSixty Tours
7. RICOH Tours
8. Zillow 3D Home

Please see this related WGAN Forum post:

Are you a 3D/360º Camera Manufacturer? The Must Have Killer Feature is ...

For clarification, if the Labpano objective is “PilotTour: Indoor & Outdoor” 360º Virtual Tour Made Easy” - their tag line - I would suggest that they study EyeSpy360 virtual tour platform, for example, the EyeSpy360 workflow is much-much-much easier than the vision of Labpano’s PilotTour – even when PilotTour emerges from Beta (in its likely future state).

For example, EyeSpy360 virtual tour (above) - using the 360ºs that I shot with the Pilot One – is a much faster workflow than it would be using the Pilot One PilotTour shooting feature – created a 360º virtual tour, 3D tour and interactive floor plans. (Better deliverables shot with a faster workflow than PilotTour.)

I could imagine that the Labpano PilotTour virtual tour platform could inhibit other virtual tour platforms integrating with Labpano cameras if Labpano is going to attempt to compete with them by offering a free virtual tour platform. Any professional real estate photographer would likely choose a different 360º virtual tour platform that PilotTour. I cannot imagine professional real estate photographers and/or real estate agents - paying $1,200 for the Pilot One and being satisfied with the free PilotTour virtual tour platform.

Labpano Pilot One Live Streaming

I did find it super-easy to livestream to Facebook. (My Pilot One Live Stream on Facebook (recorded): watch starting at 38 seconds). Plus, I was pleasantly surprised about the excellent quality of the Pilot One Live Stream video. [Another Pilot One live stream to Facebook example shot yesterday during a group glamour photo shoot.] Given the ease-of-use and the quality of the video, I challenge real estate photographers to imagine how we can offer this Pilot One Facebook Live Streaming feature as an Add On for our real estate clients. I could imagine using this feature for amplifying an Open House and doing a live walkthrough with the agent that then continues to be available on the agent’s Facebook page. (Other Add On opportunities?)

My Labpano Pilot One Beta Tester Recommendations

As a Pilot One beta tester, here are my additional recommendations for Labpano to update the firmware to include the following:

Touchscreen Keyboard – The letters/numbers/symbols on the Pilot One are simply too small to be practical. While this implementation may work okay on the larger, big-brother Labpano Pilot Era camera, using the touchscreen keyboard on the Pilot One camera is extremely difficult and frustrating to enter the passwords for WiFi (home and office) and more. The good news is that the Pilot One has a great way that you set the date and time with wheels like a slot machine. That process for entering passwords and tour names would be far, far easier with this wheel approach.

Transitions Between Menus – It needs to be obvious that:

✓ you swipe left or right to move between menus
✓ when you can swipe left or right
✓ when and how to exit a menu

I found myself constantly pressing the physical home button to get back to the main menu. That's not a great workflow.

Hemisphere Shooting – While I found the timer hugely helpful for staying out of the shot, it’s not always possible to hide. I could imagine either Labpano – or a 3rd party – offering a solution for staying near the camera, but not in the shot and then stepping around to the other side of the Pilot One to complete the shot.

Image Gallery – I found myself shooting a blank shot - hands covering the four lenses - to separate tours. It would be nice if a separator could automatically be added to separate tours and groups of 360ºs. For example, 360ºs shot a few hours apart would very likely be in a different group.

While I found uploading to my Dropbox super-easy, I would have liked the videos to be “checked” that it was uploaded successfully. [This feature is included when you go to upload, but not when you are simply viewing the gallery of 360ºs, videos and PilotTours.

[The following was fixed when I did a firmware update.] Plus, there are times where I need to upload some of the 360ºs – but not all. In my beta testing, it was hard to keep track of which 360ºs I still needed to upload. Plus, I would like to be able to select which 360ºs to upload. If I did not want to upload everything to Dropbox at once, I had to upload 360ºs one at a time (and it was hard to tell which ones I had already uploaded.) For example, while I could select multiple images, I was limited to deleting the multiple images with no option for uploading the selected multiple images.

The good news on this list (above) is that they all likely recommendations can be firmware updates. If Labpano is in agreement with my recommendations, all these recommendations might be implemented even before the camera ships (or shortly afterwards via firmware updates. [I did do a firmware system update (v5.0.10) and it was an easy Mac-like experience.]

More Action – while the Adjust Photo (beta) is an interesting feature, I could not (or could not figure out how) to do a Batch change. It's unlikely that I would want to edit just one 360º image. I would want to do a batch change to either all 360ºs within a tour or selected 360ºs (such as just the indoor shots: not the outdoor shots.) The Adjust Photo includes:

✓ Brightness
✓ Gamma
✓ Shadow
✓ Highlights
✓ Saturation
✓ Temperature

Facebook – I would like an option to save the video to the camera and be able to set the countdown timer for going live (from the time that I hit the Pilot One go live button). (The Labpano Pilot Go app for iOS and Android likely addresses this issue.)

I look forward to shooting 360º video in March (2020) when my wife and I will be taking a weeklong Western Caribbean cruise. I will also shoot a 360º of our Miami hotel room (the night before the cruise) as well as our cruise ship suite (our 25th wedding anniversary splurge). I will share this Pilot One content in the WGAN Forum when we return.

Hardware Improvement Recommendations

Home Button – Labpano stressed that the Pilot One camera I received - hand-labeled #22 - is beta hardware, so in their production run, Labpano may have already addressed the home button which feels like it is a tiny bit loose.

Soft Case – While the soft case is a nice and necessary addition, I recommend two ways to improve it. First, make it easier to put the soft case on the camera; and second, use a bigger carabiner that screws shut. I would like to use this feature to carry the camera on my belt. The existing carabiner feels like it might open.

Like you, I look forward to seeing Pilot One reviews by other real estate photographers.

Want to ask me questions about the Labpano Pilot One? Please either:

✓ post here
✓ join the discussion on WGAN-TV Live at 5 (5 pm EST | GMT -5) tonight (10 February 2020) here: My Beta Testing of the Labpano Pilot One

Best,

Dan Smigrod
Founder and Managing Editor
We Get Around Network Forum and WGAN-TV
Atlanta, Georgia

---


Screen Grab: Labpano is presently accepting Pilot One pre-orders through the first week of March ($1,199 64GB | $1,249 128GB) with a free GPS module (valued at $129) with this link.
Post 1 IP   flag post
Kumar private msg quote post Address this user
pano orientation/mis is a big let down here .... could be one of first thing for labpano to work at.
Post 2 IP   flag post
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumar
pano orientation/mis is a big let down here .... could be one of first thing for labpano to work at.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
Blame me first for not changing the Exposure Compensation (EV) and not doing any post production to tweak the color saturation and white balance.


Would you like me to put the original 360ºs in a Dropbox for you? Might be fun to see the originals compared to how you can tweak them.

Dan
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user
@DanSmigrod Sorry i overlooked at the content..

So this is not LABPANO TOUR but EYESPY360 one.

Any hint as to when you can publish a labpano tour?

@Original panos - yes, please would love to see them.
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user
@DanSmigrod

Also while shooting, the SLAM is on the camera? The panos are linked as you shoot?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumar
@DanSmigrod Sorry i overlooked at the content..

So this is not LABPANO TOUR but EYESPY360 one.

Any hint as to when you can publish a labpano tour?

@Original panos - yes, please would love to see them.


For clarification, I used the Pilot One to shoot the 360ºs used in the EyeSpy360 Tour.

Also ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
While I did get an Amuse-bouche of the Labpano PilotTour virtual tour platform – again in early-early-early beta – I recommend that Labpano abandon offering PilotTour and instead focus on 3rd party integrations with as many of the 130 virtual tour platforms as possible.

I consider the Labpano's PilotTours 360º virtual tour platform in the cloud more of a proof-of-concept to show what’s possible with deep integration between the Pilot One camera and other platforms. What's possible - using the Pilot Open System to create a much shorter and easier workflow for the creation of 360º virtual tours.


And ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
For clarification, if the Labpano objective is “PilotTour: Indoor


Dan
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bryanhscott private msg quote post Address this user
@DanSmigrod Wow! What a thorough test drive and review! Immersive to say the least.

It will be interesting to see if Lab Pano moves forward to develop their own tour platform. Strategically, it could be a very big step, or mis-step, depending on how it works out.

Might make more sense of they could form alliances with the major platform players and do a Lab Pano Tours, Powered by XXXXX, letting the established players in that space handle the heavy lifting, while they focus on making the best cameras.

I have similar thoughts about Ricoh and their tour platform as well.
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@bryanhscott

Quote:
Originally Posted by bryanhscott
Wow! What a thorough test drive and review! Immersive to say the least.


Thank you. Can you join me on WGAN-TV Live at 5 to chat about the Pilot One?

About ...Quote:
Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
Lapano PilotTour Virtual Tour Platform

While I did get an Amuse-bouche of the Labpano PilotTour virtual tour platform – again in early-early-early beta – I recommend that Labpano abandon offering PilotTour and instead focus on 3rd party integrations with as many of the 130 virtual tour platforms as possible.

I consider the Labpano's PilotTours 360º virtual tour platform in the cloud more of a proof-of-concept to show what’s possible with deep integration between the Pilot One camera and other platforms. What's possible - using the Pilot Open System to create a much shorter and easier workflow for the creation of 360º virtual tours.

I could imagine that camera manufacturers like Labpano are obsessed with incremental improvements in the hardware and software. Actually the greatest value-add Labpano could add is seamless integration with virtual tour platforms and software. It's obviously headed in that direction with the Labpano Pilot Open System.

....
At the very least, Labpano should prioritize deep integration with these eight of 130 3D/360 Virtual Tour platforms with the Pilot Open System allowing for custom Android solutions.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bryanhscott
It will be interesting to see if Lab Pano moves forward to develop their own tour platform. Strategically, it could be a very big step, or mis-step, depending on how it works out.


About ...Quote:
Originally Posted by bryanhscott
Might make more sense of they could form alliances with the major platform players and do a Lab Pano Tours, Powered by XXXXX, letting the established players in that space handle the heavy lifting, while they focus on making the best cameras.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
At the very least, Labpano should prioritize deep integration with these eight of 130 3D/360 Virtual Tour platforms with the Pilot Open System allowing for custom Android solutions.

1. Cupix
2. EyeSpy360
3. Google Street View
4. Matterport
5. Panoskin
6. ThreeSixty Tours
7. RICOH Tours
8. Zillow 3D Home

Please see this related WGAN Forum post:

✓ Are you a 3D/360º Camera Manufacturer? The Must Have Killer Feature is ...

For clarification, if the Labpano objective is “PilotTour: Indoor


Best,

Dan
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WGAN-TV Podcast
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DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
Hi All,

Here is a transcript of my unboxing video above.

Dan

Transcript

----

- Hi Y'all. I'm Dan Smigrod founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Thursday, January 23rd, 2020.

And you're watching a special edition of WGAN-TV.

So excited, in the mail from Hong Kong. Labpano sent me a Pilot One 360º camera and we're going to do an unboxing of it.

Unfortunately, they've asked me to embargo today's show until 10:00 am Monday, eastern time, Feb 10th 2020. Actually about a little more than two weeks from the time that I've gotten this. So anyway, they've just put an embargo on any media showing anything and talking about the camera that we're all receiving. And so I'm excited.

I'm gonna do an unboxing for you. It came from China. Pretty small box. We're gonna open up the Labpano Pilot One camera.

So, I got a note from them that, I actually should read it to you because it says, "Please note the Pilot One "you received is a test camera. "It's packaging, hardware, appearance "and software features are not the final version.

"The hardware and software of the final version "Will be significantly improved." Okay, so there's the disclaimer but not withstanding I thought I would show you what I received. And I have, got a sharp knife and scissors.

This thing is packed really well. You know, I'm particularly excited about this Pilot One for two reasons. I was really eager to test it out.

The first is if you've read in the We Get Around Network Forum, wganforum.com. If you happened to be watching us on our YouTube channel or Roku channel.

I've written that 2020 is the year of Google Street View. Not withstanding a slight hiccup that all of us photographers were experiencing trying to publish to Google right now.

I'm sure that in the big picture, long-term that's just that kind of a hiccup in the process and we'll get through that. But I think what's happening is that all these 360º cameras that are coming out there's in fact there's more than 50 360º cameras right now.

And that these 360º cameras just keep getting better and better and better in terms of the quality, and the cost keeps coming down, and the seamless integration with Google add a little GPS to that and you make it easy, fast and seamless for anyone to publish to Google Street View at an affordable price. And I think this Pilot One might kind of fit in that category.

I don't know if it's in the Pilot Era is being that, maybe the professional version and it's Pilot One is maybe a little bit more consumer or prosumer version. Priced at 1200 US but I guess if you pre order it you can get a free GPS module.

Okay, so I'm making some progress opening it up. Incidentally it had some nice blue packing tape that actually says Labpano.

That's the new name for a Pisofttech and I think I like Labpano better, it's a little bit easier to pronounce a little bit stronger in the terms of consonants.

And isn't this nice? They gift wrapped it so even though this is a little test, you know this is the test cameras that are being sent out to media, it's nicely gift wrapped. So I give them props for that, that's cool. It's got a little Social Security number there or a serial number, S/N. Imagine that might be important. So I'm just slicing my wrapping paper open.

I wonder if I should do it like the Holiday gifts and try and save it and reuse it. So and the second reason that I'm really excited about getting to test the camera is the Pilot Tour Service, the platform that Labpano has for hosting the tour.

I'm just like you, I'm reading their website trying to figure it out as much as I can. And it looks like there's some automated process of making it easy, fast and seamless to publish 360s to the Labpano Pilot Tour platform.

That might mean I might not have to link them all together in some constellation process that I really don't want to do that, so I really interested to see if that's in fact the case. So anyway, I can already tell the box is not large enough to hold a GPS module.

So, unfortunately until if and when, and until Labpano sends me the GPS unit I really don't have an easy, fast and seamless way to use this camera to publish to Google Street View.

So, I have high hopes that when that GPS module is available that Labpano will send me one so I can test it out with Google Street View 'cause that's actually what I think is going to be the most exciting use case for me, for this camera.

All right so I am just opening the box here. Let's see. Ah, beautiful. So, there is the camera. So small. Okay, nothing else in this box. Okay, so I just want to show you it's got some place for me to grab the camera. So, it looks like this whole piece comes out here. Okay, and there's some more pieces... I guess my green screen's a little bit distracting there, it's distracting to me, I apologize.

So, there's some pieces in this box we'll look at that in a second, and then I'm going to pull out the camera. They got some nice place to put my fingers and kind of... It's actually packed in there pretty good.

It goes and take me a little bit to pull that out which is okay. So that's just the piece of packaging. We'll put that aside. And there's the actual camera. This is really teeny. This is you know this is like an 8K camera with four lenses, this is really teeny.

It does feel somewhat substantive in terms of weight. It's a little over 10 ounces that's 288 grams. So, let's see I'm gonna to show you one side and on this side is a hand-written 22. That must mean at least 22 people have received the a test Pilot One camera from Lab, Labpano. Okay, so let's see. Ah okay, so this a good point to see it's go the consumer grade mount, so that's interesting in itself. So, that says... I was actually going to put this on a professional tripod mount, and I could do that but I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna uns... I'll leave this here 'cause , what I'll do is I'll put a little adapter on here so I can put the camera on it. So, I wanna have you be able to see the camera. You know there was some instructions in the packaging about take the film off the lenses and I just don't believe that it actually has film on top of the lenses, and I'm gonna guess that's again because this is a test camera, and it's not the actual camera that's going to be shipping. It's probably close. That it wasn't packed up exactly how when you buy one of these things that you would get it.

So, I'm just using the little lens cloth here just to see if I can see if there's any kind of covering and I just don't think there is, okay.

So I'm gonna go ahead and put that on top of my tripod so I again I'm using, I've got a professional tripod there and I did a little adapter to get to that size. I wasn't actually quite sure what size mount that, that was gonna be. So, that's cool.

All right, so can you see that okay? All right, cool 'cause I wanna see what else is in the box. Okay. A little note that I tell you that's gonna to bother me. I'm gonna take that off of this. I'm sorry but that's just a little bit too high for me to look at it with you so I'm gonna take that off. And I put the camera down just for a second.

I'm probably gonna bring it back up here. I'm gonna take this little Ninja Hansatech pole off. I have a little tripod that I have it's a Manfrotto end base C-O-N-V-R plus a little pole. I'm gonna attach that to this.

That will make sense. Anyway, I just wanted to be able to have the camera in front of me while I was talking so you can see the camera while I'm doing other stuff.

And I'm not saying that I have the right pole for this camera but you might look in the We Get Around Network Forum I posted a nine different tripod, mono pod mounts that have gotten a lot of press coverage, write-ups, forum members, We Get Around Network Forum members writing about them.

So, I've given you nine great options in terms of tripods, mono pods whatever you want to call them and I don't think all of them would necessarily be appropriate for this camera. This camera may be a little bit heavier than when you think about a Ricoh Z1 for example, so be really careful you just want to make sure you don't lose your camera in the wind, kind of thing.

Okay, so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to bring it down a little bit. So, okay, I can see that. So I'm going back to the box. Okay. And we're going to open the box.

There's a little container, another box inside. I don't even know if the final version is going to be like that. Okay, there is a lens cleaning cloth, great. I didn't need the one I had. All kinds of stuff. Okay, so there's that empty box. Okay, and there's a mount so, you know, let me see. I'm trying to guess what that mount would be for.

There's a little power. So this would be I want to say, yeah this is the Type-C USB that's come with it. I have some notes, USB PD 2 fast charger 2.0 fast charger USB 3.1 data transfer. I don't want to get to geeky on the specs but I think, that's something you can just go to their website and it's nicely organized and check it out, panolab.com. Looks like they got their new site up. So, that says, you see that on there and then it's got a little wrapping around it. So, I'm gonna assume I can scoot that off, that piece off. I'm gonna plug this in. Okay, good. It came with a little, a nice little case. I think kudos in terms of the case because it actually has a clip to put on your belt and that's something that I would like. I don't know if it has substantive enough for me, for a $1200 camera, I might put my own clip on there instead of this one but we'll see.

But I like that because the case can hang on my belt.

And then it's got a draw string, okay. Says Labpano on it and feels kind of cushy. And it's a good question about what this piece is, I guess that, that was... Let's unscrew it. Take a look. I'm gonna guess, Yep, that's okay, now I understand. Okay, this makes total sense to me is because the charger is down here, so you can see that, that, that Type-C.

I want to put this in here to charge and I have my tripod then I need to have that extender in order to get the clearance to be able to charge or to actually run battery...

Run off current. So I think probably an example would be if I was doing either a live stream or I've run out of juice during a shoot, or it needed to be charging but I wanted to keep it on my pole, so that's actually what that piece is for. So, I don't think I have more in front of me but there's an extender that I bought to use with a RICOH THETA camera and so this looks like the Labpano version of it.

I'm sure that the one you get from Amazon or whatever for that particular piece would be fine too. Okay, so I got it sitting on top of my tripod and what I see is a place the, to turn the camera on right here. I have no idea whether it shipped with power but I'm gonna hold that for three seconds. One, two, three.

Look at that, it actually turned on. Now I'm reading backwards, let me see what I can see in a second. Okay, it's loading. So cool, it actually shipped 54% battery and it says it's 7:36. So, the time is just, I'm on eastern time, so it's 6:00 p.m, 6:36 p.m eastern time, Thursday and this camera says 7:36, but that's pretty close, came in. So it automatically launched camera gallery live in settings. So, that's pretty good right of the box. I don't need to charge it in order to even start playing with it. What else can I tell you about it?

Again I would just send you to the website Labpano for the specs but I think probably one of the coolest things. I want to take it off here for a second. Okay, I'm gonna drop my tripod here. And it really is the size. You know, this is crazy in terms of size.

This is an 8K camera with four lenses. It's actually four Sony sensors. The battery, I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing.

There will probably be a whole discussion on this but the battery is built, the battery itself is built-in and I know some of us like batteries built-in, some of us don't like batteries built-in, but you're suppose to get a two hour continuous 8K shooting.

So, I guess what I would say if you were doing street view and you were doing a section of the street in front of the business, two hours is gonna be plenty. It's gonna be one less thing to carry, or fall apart, or fall off. I think if you're trying to do you know, eight hours or six hours of Google Street View then you're probably really want the solution the Pilot Era or yet another camera.

So, I'm guessing that that's probably perfectly fine that the battery's actually built-in in this camera. I haven't read far enough in advance to know if I can take it out but I truly wanna say in this particular version, it's built-in and there's no battery to pop out and so, you're good for about two hours for 8K continuous shooting or live streaming.

And after that fortunately you know with your type-C connector, that little extender there that I'm sure you could set it up so in your nater you're not gonna see all that much if you're using, if you got it attached to a battery and you'd probably be good to go.

So, that's the Labpano Pilot One. So, as I mentioned today is Thursday, January 23rd I can't release this video publicly until 10:00am eastern time on Monday, February 10th, 2020. So, it kind of gives me a little over two weeks to play with it.

To create yet another video and to write about it in the We Get Around Network Forum and publish that concurrently in the We Get Around Network Forum.

So, my first pass at writing about it and any other video that I create also will not be public until the same time. So, if you're curious about my first impressions playing with it over the course of the next two weeks then join us in the We Get Around Network Forum wganforum.com and join the conversation. So, if you got questions, is at least I'm guessing 22 of us that have a test camera and happy to answer your questions as best I can.

I could imagine that some of the other media outlets that have received this camera are interested in features that may be for our community of professional real estate photographers for mostly interested in either spherical photography, to create a virtual tour walk around, or for Google Street View.

I think it will be nice, I'll still go play with doing a live stream 'cause I'm curious about that. And I'll still play with some of the features about recording video but I frankly, I look forward to seeing what the other reviewers who are really interested in pushing the limits of video etc. So, anyway that's what I know and I'm gonna go play with it some and get back to you all publicly after 10:00 a.m eastern time on February 10th, 2020. Super excited that Labpano was kind enough to send me one.

You know I should mention, maybe this is cool, for me it's exciting. It turns out my wife and I are going on a cruise, it's our 25th wedding anniversary, we're gonna be going on Western Caribbean Cruise. The piece is most exciting for us it happens to be an Argentine tango dancing cruise, and that's something my wife and I have been doing for 11 plus years and I've gotten permission from my wife to bring my toy with me unto the cruise.

So, in that Labpano people agreed to let me hold unto the camera longer then the typical 30 day try it out then send it back to us. So, I'm gonna hold on to it for a cruise in March and that cruise leaves out of Miami, we'll be staying at a hotel the night before, a nice hotel.

And so I'll use this to shoot a 360º tour in the hotel the night before. I'll shoot, I hope to shoot, our cabin. I got a nice suite to celebrate our anniversary and then some shots around the ship and hopefully some with island shots as well. So, I probably have some nice, beauty shots to shoot as a result of the timing that my wife and I are going on a cruise, and we'll be in a hotel.

And so I'm just hoping that sometime between now and the time I got to give the camera back that a GPS module shows up so I can take the camera for a spin doing Google Street View.

There's a number of streets I want to try it on and there's a number of public parks that I would just love to give it a try.

Here in Atlanta, the Beltline is just an amazing concept and I would really like to walk the Beltline. Some portion, I think it's 22 miles, I'd like to see if I could walk a couple miles creating some Google Street View blue lines. And as far as I know there aren't any blue lines, there's no Google Street View presently of the Atlanta Beltline.

So, I'd love to use this camera to be first. So, fingers and toes crossed that the GPS module shows up. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. I'm Dan Smigrod founder of the We Get Around Network Forum and you've been watching this special edition of WGAN TV live to tape instead of live, live.

I wish I could say this is, are doing a live show with this but we're actually just recording this for you. So anyway, thanks for tuning in. Please do check out the We Get Around Network forum wganforum.com
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WGAN-TV Labpano Pilot One Camera is a Contender for Real Estate Photographers | We Get Around Network Forum Founder Dan Smigrod
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The pilot tour capture and processing is a cake walk - except for some glitch on positioning panos sometimes.

There is no way to look down on pilot tour. With time.if they can just build features like floor plan and then progress toward 3D model there is no looking back for them.

Eagerly await to try hands on with the outcome.
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