How long does it take to create a 360° photo and what do you need for it?

Maybe you’re considering taking 360° photos. Do you wonder how long it takes to create such a 360° photo? Is it a matter of seconds, minutes or hours? It’s hard to say. Many aspects matter. What kind? We’ll talk about that in today’s article.

What is 360° photography?

Before we get to the actual question, how long does it take to shoot 360°? It would be useful to first mention what 360° photography is all about. Right?

In short, 360° photography is a type of photography that can capture absolutely the entire space around you in one photo. That is why we talk about 360° photography, because it can capture every angle of the place from which the photo was taken.

You can learn more about these photos in the article what are 360° photos.

What equipment do I need to take 360° photos?

Whatever kind of photo you want to take, you’ll need a camera. How unexpected, right? 🙂

However, there are multiple ways to take a 360° photo.

The first option is to use a 360° camera. Another option is to use your DSLR or mirrorless camera and the last alternative is to use a mobile phone with a good quality camera.

We’ll go one by one and talk about how time-consuming each method is.

Shooting time with 360° camera

This method is the least time-consuming. These 360° cameras are designed to be as user-friendly as possible, so that any individual can shoot 360° photos. They contain a limited number of settings, so photographers don’t have to spend much time on setting the ideal time, aperture and ISO. Even most of these cameras have an automatic setting that works great on the vast majority of occasions.

The great advantage of these devices is that when you press the shutter button of the camera, photos are taken from each lens, which together create a full 360° photo. In other words, you only have to press the shutter once to create 360° photos (which is not really the case with other methods).

If you’re shooting with a 360° camera on an uneven surface, you probably can’t do without a tripod. There could be a situation where the individual photos cannot be combined (stiching problem) into one or there would be visible lines in the final 360° photo (where the photos were stitched). To avoid this, we recommend using a tripod.

360° SHOOTING LENGTH

Let’s say you have a simple monopod (a kind of tripod) and you take one photo. With a 360° camera, you can take that one photo in 1 – 5 minutes, depending on your experience and the goal of the shoot.

360° shooting time with DSLR/mirrorless (DSLR or mirrorless)

The difference between shooting with a 360° camera and this method is really significant in terms of time. Unlike 360° cameras, which have limited capabilities, DSLRs offer many more options. Which is also why professional 360° photographers use these cameras in most cases. Ultimately, though, it increases the actual time spent shooting.

If you choose to shoot with a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a tripod is a must. And not only a tripod, but also tripod heads (the most commonly used is the panoramic head) and accessories are needed to capture a 360° view. Without the necessary accessories, there would be distortion in the photos.

All of these accessories are needed to rotate the camera into different positions so that different angles can be taken. And all this from one unchanged place, if we accidentally move the whole tripod or any other part out of the way, the result will be leaving no parallax point and unintended distortion of the photo.

So it means that you will have to take many more photos with this method than with the 360° camera (where it was only one). Because you have to capture every angle. And depending on what type of lens you use, you can calculate how many photos you need to take to capture the entire space and every detail.

Imagine you are using a lens that can capture 60° of space in one photo. So this means that the 360° photographer will have to take at least 6 photos around the circle and probably 2 photos at the top (zenith) and 2 photos at the bottom (nadir). I say at least, since if you want to continue to stitch the photos together into one 360 photo, the individual photos have to overlap at least a little so that a stitching program (like PtGui) can link it.

LENGTH 360° FOCUS

So let’s say it can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes to set up a tripod with all the accessories and take all the photos to create one 360° photo (this is an average estimate … depending on the experience of the 360° photographer, of course).

Shoot 360° photos with your smartphone

The third option is to take photos with your favourite mobile phone. It should be noted that the resulting 360° photos are not as good as the photos of the previous 2 methods. But in terms of affordability, this method is beneficial.

With a mobile phone, you can take photos using Google Street View or other mobile apps, and in this case, if you’re careful, you don’t even need to use a monopod or any kind of tripod.

The second method is to use a tripod and a panoramic head for mobile devices like the Matterport Axis. Thanks to the tripod, you get a stable device that will minimize shake and distortion.

LENGTH –> For shooting with this method, I cannot accurately determine the length of a single 360° photo. It depends on whether or not the first photo is acceptable to you and if you take your first photo on your first try or your tenth.

How long does a professional 360° photographer shoot? Plus a demonstration of the work

I talked in this article about the fact that shooting with a quality DSLR or mirrorless is more time consuming.

Yes, it’s more time-consuming. Why? Because the photographer has to take multiple photos to get one 360° photo. There’s a simple guide to use here, the more photos a 360 photo consists of, the more likely it will be of higher quality and detail.

An example of a high quality 360° photographer is Jeffrey Martin, who shoots gigapixel 360° photos. Which are very impressive!

I’ve never seen so much detail in one photo.

These are 360° photos composed of more than 6,000 static photos.

You won’t believe how much detail someone can put into one 360° photo.

Here is an example of a gigapixel photo of Prague, from which you can read the identification numbers of cars or find out what time it is from Prague Castle (which is 2 kilometers away from the place of the photo shoot).

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

However, not all professionals take gigapixel photos with thousands of frames. Most of us need “only” around 100 photos to create a really good 360° photo.