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GoPro is finally sharing more details about its new Fusion 360-degree camera.
The Fusion is the company’s first camera for shooting 360 video, and it could be the future of not just the company, but all cameras. With just two fisheye lenses, the camera can capture 360 footage in 5.2K resolution and potentially replace the work of six regular GoPro action cameras.
SEE ALSO:Whoops, a hacker found a way to steal your passwords from macOS High SierraThis futuristic camera promise won’t come cheap, though. It’ll cost $699.99 when it launches in limited quantities later this year. A proper consumer release will happen in early 2018.
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I was really quite impressed with the Fusion when I saw it in Vail, Colorado, back in June just ahead of the 2017 Mountain Games.
While not as small as other consumer 360 cameras like Samsung’s Gear 360, the Fusion is quintessentially GoPro. Its body is rugged and waterproof, and the video quality looked really great (not as perfect as I initially thought, but the stitching between the two lenses looked better than most 360 cameras).
Its killer feature, however, is not just recording 360 video for viewing online or in a VR headset, but OverCapture.
OverCapture is a unique GoPro feature that lets you flatten and reframe a shot from the 360 footage for standard flat 1080p videos. This is the special sauce that makes the Fusion more versatile than other 360 cameras.
The ability to not worry about where to place your camera -- just record everything around you -- and then choose your perspective after the fact is arguably a more powerful tool than simply cropping in on a 4K or 8K video recording.
GoPro also shared a few other tidbits about the Fusion camera it previously kept close to its chest. It has electronic image stabilization just like the Hero 5 Black. There’s a built-in gyroscope, accelerometer, and GPS.
The Fusion has three microphones that enable planar 360 audio capture. They also actively work to suppress wind noise.
By default the camera shoots 5.2K spherical videos at 30 fps, but you can also set it to record at 3K at 60 fps. For the latter, you can use OverCapture to punch out 720p resolution footage at 60 fps.
For photos, the camera shoots 18-megapixel stills and supports continuous shooting at up to 30 fps.
Certain specs like battery life are still unknown, but I’m sure GoPro will reveal more in due time.
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TopicsCameras