Full frame mirrorless panos w Cupix vs Matterport's latest and greatest8763
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LoudandClear private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi everyone, Realtor turned real estate photographer here. I've gleaned some great info from this site in my planning to jump into offering 3D tours to my clients, but have never seen a direct comparison between full frame 360 panos loaded to Cupix' platform vs the latest and greatest Matterport setup. So far I think I understand that Matterport is by far the costliest solution to get up and running with, let alone the monthly and per job fees associated with the platform. I have also read some disconcerting reports of Matterport sales reps targeting our clients directly, and if true that is quite unsettling. Speaking as a Realtor, if one of us did that we'd be hauled in front of the board pretty quickly. Having said that, Matterport definitely seems to have outstanding quality and fluidity with their tours vs some of the competitors, which can be a bit clunky. Now on to my questions... 1. I already own two full frame pro bodies, the 24MP Sony A7iii and 42MP A7Riii, and also a 12mm Loauwa lens which I have found best to swing every 45 degrees for a 360 pano. I think I understand that cupix has a 30mb max pano upload limit to their platform, which I believe used fully would give me higher resolution than the latest Matterport camera. Is this correct? 2. Honestly, should I just bite the bullet and go for one of these easy to use and under $1000 360 cameras and call it a day, or do they still give up too much resolution to the Matterport or Full Frame pano solutions? The example tours I have seen with the cheaper cameras certainly didn't look as sharp or polished as Matterport, and the best examples I have seen of Cupix show a DSLR type camera on a pano head in mirror reflections. Leads me to believe these are still the best two options as far as quality goes. There certainly seems to be a lot of buzz about these cheap 360 cameras, but I cant help but feel most of it is because they are priced very accessibly and are also very easy to use, saving a lot of time on location and in post. Thanks, humbly. Brian |
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 Cupix Directorof Sales San Francisco |
scott_cupix private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hey Brian, By chance I was perusing this site. I work for Cupix. Hello. I have the A7R2 and it was the first DSLR I picked up since my A300. On it I have a 8mm Samyang and I shoot 12 shots in 12 seconds at 4 rotation and move the the next spot. Post takes 30s per position in a PTGUI template (I don't think I even need a template now a days, the software's gotten more automatic) on a Thinkpad and I count on the viewer never looking down, but OK for him to look up. These upload to the cloud to create a tour. Regardless of how 360 imagery is shown and navigated within, Fisheye on a Rotator will continue to be the gold standard for quality: Exposure, Dynamic Range, Zero Parallax (do you know what this is? If focal point offset from axis then image gets funky; generally big cameras are therefore are worst, symptoms are worst in tight spaces), Color, and to a diminishing extent the high resolution. You can also move the image sliders you want for all the feel in the image. Here's a tip, if you are using Cupix: If your 360 image is not going to be a part of the published tour, don't waste any time adjusting the image sliders. You probably already know that a LR export with 360 photos keeps quality high even as low as q=30. Regarding Cupix and any modern delivery system of high resolution imagery, there's going to be a progressive loading of the image, so the highest resolution image arrives to the viewer when he has the highest bandwidth connection. Here's a comparison of a few point-and-shoots with a DSLR: http://players.cupix.com/s/ZBjMiLmH.html. There are some newer 360 cameras that might be worth checking out. You can even add all this text which doesn't do all that much for me, but it's there. Some camera have on-board HDR but this only gets you so far. Many of the one-click 360 cameras can shoot raw. Most tours are viewed on a mobile device. Hit F12 on Chrome to feel what this is like. You can even simulate a mobile connection. Best, Scott |
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LoudandClear private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by scott_cupix Hi Scott, and thanks for the reply! So 4 shot rotations with a 8mm on full frame, consisting of 12 exposures, meaning you are shooting three exposure brackets? Are you using in-camera HDR processing or processing your HDR with an external software? (I'm sorry but I am not familiar with the term "PTGUI"...yet). How many stops of dynamic range are you bracketing your three exposures? Quote: Originally Posted by scott_cupix Yes, I am familiar with Parallax adjustment, but assumed that the one shot 360 cameras were already adjusted for it as their mount/sensor/lens will always be centered predictably, no? Quote: Originally Posted by scott_cupix I hadn't considered the bandwidth thing, or that the typical viewer will be consuming the tour on a mobile device. I have been making comparisons on a 32" 4K monitor...perhaps to be more fair to the lesser expensive cameras I shouldn't be. I understand you represent Cupix so you may not be able to answer this question, but are there any 360 degree cameras which you prefer for quality scans loaded to your platform, or any that should be avoided? With the cheaper models I have seen some pretty awful quality examples, soft, with color noise and banding everywhere. I don't think I could deliver that, but I'm definitely still interested in a one-shot "easy" workflow if the quality is acceptable. Thank you so much, Scott. I love your platform! Brian |
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| Post 3 • IP flag post | ||
 WGAN FanClub Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by LoudandClear I can help you with it. The easiest way to avoid it is to never invite a client to your cloud to work on their projects with their own email addresses. Just create a gmail(or any free email) account, get it assigned to one specific client and make this client a collaborator with only this email and accessing his own project only in the Cloud. Then you can send your client a link to access the cloud with all login details. Once job is done remove this collaborator and you can use the same gmail email for another client. This way if Matterport ever decides to sell anything to your client they will fail as email account belongs to you and only you can read all incoming emails. |
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LoudandClear private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Wingman I appreciate the advice, but frankly that seems like a time-sucking workaround to combat unethical behavior. Giving the benefit of the doubt here, perhaps Matterport sales reps don't realize your client's email address belongs to your client?...I'm not familiar enough with their platform to be able to say whether that's easily discerned, so please don't think I'm trying to smear anyone here. Rather I'm just commenting on something that seems to be credibly documented as occurring. Either way, as real estate photographers we're usually looking for ways to be faster without sacrificing quality, and even though this may be a minor extra step, it's an extra step for all the wrong reasons. Thanks Wingman! |
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Cupix Director of Sales San Francisco |
scott_cupix private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi Brian, I use a 28" 4K monitor and love it. I pipe the resolution down to 2.560K. Helps me keep screengrabs small. There's a built in tie in to Google Analytics in Cupix, you set your GA ID. I'd imagine other virtual tour providers have this too. If you know GA, you see who's visited from where and when in your own GA account, and what type of device and browser they're accessing the tour on, including things like resolution, all basic stuff you'd expect from GA. Advanced analytics are available too, even things like did they click on pin, did they go to more than 4 spots in the tour, all piped into GA. Point and shoot cameras' opposing lenses' offset vary from 1/2" or less with cameras like Ricoh Theta V, Insta 360 One X and Madventure 360 (same as Mi Sphere), all these are easy to recommend. Thicker cameras like GoPro Fusion suffer more parallax and GoPro in particular suffers from inconsistent stitching making a HDR composite near impossible last time I checked since the a low exposure and high exposure are stitched at the seams differently and have deformation. The big GoPro is excellent for video, also the One X. MiSphere/MadV is more of a pure camera. ThetaV is nice all around. Since the lenses are offset to varying degrees, you get parallax. If you have the DSLR and lenses, and most importantly the understanding of image processing pipeline since you are pro, I'd recommend the golden standard. 19 out of 20 wouldn't want to touch a software program like PTGUI. If you are using Cupix you can use the cheap 360 cameras as filler and save your DSLR for money shots -- this will make sense once you understand Cupix workflow. Many of the Pro cameras, example being Insta360 Pro, are targeting a video production pipeline. PTGUI is an long running, relatively expensive licensed software specializing in making spheres from photos on rotators. They field questions here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ptgui. There are other software that do similar tasks. The 12 separate photos I mentioned are brackets of 3 (you could shoot 5 or 9 if you wanted), PTGUI managess details such as vignetting, HDR, Fusion, Exif from Lenses and is smart about exposure recognition for bundling brackets, and spits out a 360 image. Batching supported. It will stitch the photos out of the box. Stops and range are similar to your RE photos. Best, Scott |
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LoudandClear private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Thank you so much, Scott. There are a lot of thoughtful little nuggets in there (especially the "money shot" approach in using multiple cameras...never thought of that). Much appreciated! |
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WGAN Fan Club Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by LoudandClear I just learnt my lessons from dealing with big and inflexible companies with my other business that if they are doing something what they think will increase their profit even if that harms your business you are the only one who can take an action to protect yourself. They would not care and they would never budge. My business partner after being invited into our has received an email from Matterport where they were inviting him to come to some local seminar about the whole technology including a possibility to buy their camera. I also have seen other people including some members of this forum complaining about it. They won't stop doing it just because we ask them to stop so I have found a way for not letting them to do it. What other options do we have in order to stop them? I cannot see any apart from shooting myself in a foot by selling their camera and stopping offering their technology. As for time-sucking, you won't spend any extra significant time on doing it that way. You still need to invite a person in your Cloud account settings to have access to some model. All you need to do is to invite yourself and then forward a link to your customer. It may be just extra 1-2 minutes comparing with sending invitation to your client's email directly. |
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