The excellent Insta360 camera technology has, depending on who you follow, largely hit standard aspect action cams hard, with the ability to select shots in the edit, rather than reframing or repositioning the camera live. The clever and easy to master tech has made shooting bike reviews, or even events like Red Bull Rampage, or Moto GP, seemingly, a doddle.
It’s not quite that easy at that level, but we use Insta360’s whenever we can get our hands on them, and they really do represent one of the very best ways to capture brilliant cycling content, quickly, especially if you want something unobtrusive that doesn’t need constant attention, which might otherwise take away from the ride or event you’re participating in.
When it comes to being unobtrusive, whilst there’s little better there is smaller, and to date, the Insta360 offerings have come with a compromise in that they’ve been larger than some conventional action cams, and whilst they’re hardly bulky, you tend to dangle them at the end of a stick, suspended off the front or back of your bicycle, so any ‘miniaturisation’ is going to be very welcome. That’s exactly what Insta360 has been up to with this latest redesign of their 360 camera tech.
Insta360 has taken its X4 compact camera and re-engineered it to make it the brand’s lightest ever 8K 360 camera, with portability at its core.
(Image credit: Insta360 X4)
The X4 Air weighs a claimed 165 grams, which should make it less noticeable when attached to a bike helmet, or anywhere else for that matter, or when carried in a backpack, bike bag or jersey pocket.
But despite its svelte appearance it’s still loaded with features, making it what Insta360 says is “an ideal entry point for anyone looking to explore 360 storytelling for the first time”, as well as being “smarter and more intuitive” than the X4.
It uses 1/1.8-inch sensors to capture its 8K footage, with what Insta360 says is a 134% increase in pixel area per frame compared to the X4. This means more detail and added colour. It also features the brand’s intelligent exposure algorithm, AdaptiveTone, which independently analyses the light from both of the camera’s lenses to better balance brightness and colour across the full 360 image. This is said to work in conjunction with Active HDR, which increases dynamic range in real time, resulting in more lifelike shadows and highlights even when the light conditions are less than ideal, for example when…