360 Degree Spherical Movie (easy way)

Happy New Year ! Here is a nice effect to make a quick and easy 360 movie. Its so simple its surprising I have not seen it used more. I have a mirror ball I use for macro panoramic photography, its basically a large ball bearing, you can also use glass mirror balls from a xmas tree.

The shape and shine of the ball give a perfect 360 degree spherical mirror. The idea is to basically instead of taking pictures to shoot film of the mirror ball in close up using a macro lens and the Canon 5D mk2, this will give a 360 spherical view. It is not possible to take the reflection of the camera and tripod out, without editing every frame of the movie, however you can at best try to hide it. In earlier tests I did not even remember to take of the camera straps. I am interested to see if it is also possible to depolarize (from panotools) the film footage and make an equirectangular movie which could be played in an immersive 360 degree panoramic video viewer. I doubt the quality will be too good anyway as making a macro 360 degree panorama is far from simple, and takes quite a few shots.

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Technology Tutorials Video  get_flash_player

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The results are like the movie above, please excuse the mad acting, we were just trying not to be boring. I like some of the effects and am still practicing with it. Things to try are running around in drawn out circles. I can imagine timelapse being good too, and scenes with moving clouds. I will try and grab a few more iconic views around London.

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