PanoX V2 Camera - Kuula Review
Panox V2 is the latest member of the Labpano family. It's a 360 action camera, which makes it a direct competitor to Insta360 X series. It also takes 12K photos and offers a Google Street View shooting mode, which makes it one of the most versatile 360 cameras on the market right now.
We now offer a 10% discount on PanoX with Kuula PRO. Just head to the Deals section to grab the discount link.
Panox V2 is a 2 lens 360 camera with a large 3" touchscreen. It has 2 1/2" CMOS sensors which allows it to take better shots in low light conditions with an incredible resolution of 12K (11968x5984). This is a great step for small 360 cameras which usually don't go over 8K.
Photos
The quality of the photos is fairly good, though the colors are a bit desaturated. The high resolution helps with better quality of the JPEG files.
At the time of writing this article, it is not possible to save RAW photos. For this reason, professional-grade retouching is not possible. However, DNG (RAW) file support will be added soon and this will further elevate the picture quality.
For those who don't want to shoot in full auto, the camera offers a few manual controls which include Shutter Speed, ISO, EV and White Balance.
HDR Mode
At this moment, HDR mode doesn't perform great because the EV intervals are too close and they're not customizable. After updates also this feature should be improved.
Beside standard photos, it is possible to take Interval photos every 5/8/10/15/20 second. It also offers a speciale mode for Google Street View shots.
Video
Regarding videos Panox V2 records in 5.7K (5760x2880) 30fps which is the highest resolution for a normal video. There's also 60fps video but with the resolution of 4K (3840x1920). Instead, for a higher resolution of 8K (7680x3840) we have to sacrifice the framerate which can be max 10fps.
The stabilization of the videos is incredible! Labpano made a lot of progress compared to older models and now it's on the level of the competing Insta360 cameras. The stabilization system, called PilotSteady, works great for walking, running, sports and allows to have steady videos while doing activities and recording at the same time.
There are different video modes: classic 360 video, flat video (where we can choose the format 9:16/16:9/1:1 etc), Smart tracking (which records a flat FHD video following a subject which is selected automatically), Timelaps and Google Street View (for blue lines gps vids).
Virtual Tours
Labpano 360 cameras are famous for being a good choice for Google Street View shooting and Panox V2 is no exception.
For those who are seeking a 360 camera for Virtual Tours, this new camera could be a good choice as well. The stitching is done on camera and it's easy to share the photos once downloaded to the mobile app.
Below you can take a look at a virtual tour uploaded on Kuula.
Software
The screen is 3" wide and it's very intuitive and fast to interact with. The system is based on Android and keeps a lot of "common" features for the customization. It's really fast to change from one shooting mode to another because it's everything on the screen and also manual controls are fast to access by just tapping on it.
There's also a new app called PanoX which allows you to control the camera remotely and there are 2 different ways to connect the camera to the app.
Wifi Connection
The camera can be connected to the same WiFi as your phone and it will find it over LAN.
Wifi Hotspot
In this mode, the camera creates its own WiFi hotspot. The user connects their phone to that WiFi network and that way they can control the camera. This is a good solution for outdoors when there are no other networks available. However, in this case the phone will not be on-line.
Once connected to the camera, there's a live preview and there are the same controls which allow you to easily decide what kind of content to create. The preview is compressed to have a faster response so don't worry, the quality is higher than what you see on the screen.
On the app you can also check the footage and, eventually, export photos and videos from the camera to your mobile phone. The stitching is done in-camera for both photos and videos.
Exporting photos and videos
It is possible to export photos both flat and 360. For flat exports, there are a number of supported aspect ratios like 9:16, 16:9 and 1:1.
The videos can also be exported in either flat or 360 format. For flat videos, there's a simple editing tool available. It allows you to set the direction of the frame by adding "hotspots". At least for now, the tool is a bit bare and offers few features. It is possible to trim the video and set hotspots deciding where to look. But it's not possible to cut a piece of the video from the middle, it's only possible to cut it from the beginning or from the end.
There is no color correction of any type and the exporting process is a bit slow. It takes around 10 minutes to export a 2 minute video. There is also no possibility to set an AI tracking AFTER the video is recorded.
The PanoX V2 app still needs improvements, but the team is already working on them, so we need to just wait a while for the next update!
Final considerations
This camera has a lot of potential. The overall quality is very good. It cannot be used on some occasions (ex. it's not waterproof), but there are a thousand ways to create useful content with a high quality. 12K photos are a dream and once RAW DNG files will be available, it could become the best consumer 360 camera for photography.
The mobile app needs some more work, but step by step and with users feedback it can become a solid competitor to Insta360!