Review: Mountain lovers with smartphones and SLRs are happy to acquire new freestyle cameras with Casio's new CASIO EX-FR200

Point 4: Multi-camera mode allows you to shoot amazing 360° videos and simultaneously at the same time.

This is where the true essence of this camera begins. Next, let's recognize two cameras and see how you can take spherical videos in multi-camera mode. There is an original multi-camera mount to place two cameras back and forth, but there is no mount to secure the mount to the body in the original, so we replaced it with a helmet mount for Gopro.

It is a multi-camera and attached to a helmet. The mount was slightly higher, so it felt a little heavier than I thought.

A multi-camera (with multi-camera mount /Gopro helmet mount) is installed on the helmet to take 360° photos (skiing down)

Multi-camera (with multi-camera mount /Base mount for Gopro) is installed on the skis to take 360° shots (skiing down)

What do you think? ? I think the 360° video captures the impact of the downhill and the scenes of the friends who are skating together. Incidentally, it seems that the deviation at the joints between the front and rear cameras is inevitably about this amount of time, and unfortunately, it seems that it is not as good as the completely fixed THETA in this trial. Also, some people may have noticed some subtle smears in several areas of the video, but please be aware that this is a scratch on the lens cover used.

A Gopro base mount was glued to the front of the skis, and a multi-camera mount was installed (charging). Because the shock caused by the blur is large, it might actually be safer to be a little more guilty.

However, just to be careful, the method of attaching the Gopro base mount to the ski is a very high risk of the mount peeling off due to vibrations in the board, and is a high risk installation method that is not even known to the manufacturer or Gopro. We are currently undergoing trial and error on the Internet, and the editorial department has not yet found a mount method that says, "This is absolutely safe." This time, we decided to slowly slide on gentle, fresh snowy slopes with good visibility, but if you try, please take the initiative at your own risk, such as avoiding hard slopes and speed, maximizing adhesive strength, and installing a flow stopper in case of a loss.

a multi-camera (with multi-camera mount /Gopro helmet mount) (passing rocky areas)

I tilted the camera angle a little too much and the seams became noticeable, so I added a boundary line when I exported it. This level of rocky areas is quite altitude, so you can get quite a bit of a stunning footage on rocky areas and variations of the Alps. By the way, YouTube and Facebook support the release of 360° videos, but the screen has an angle of view of 16:9, so it's a shame that even though it's actually a large square screen, the top and bottom are cropped together when you actually upload it.

In other cases, in the multi-camera mode, you can create a 360° image by placing it in front and back, but you can also freely arrange the cameras and take pictures from completely different angles at the same time. For example, if two people each have their own cameras on skiing and take pictures while sliding together, the material taken at the same time can be played and viewed on a single screen using a dedicated smartphone app, as shown in the photo above. The experience of sharing the same moments from different perspectives is quite refreshing.

Point 5: Photos taken automatically to your smartphone, making it easy to connect to SNS

Photos and videos that have such an impact will make you want to post them on social media right away. Another attractive feature was that the FR200 had a system where you could take a picture and share it immediately without using any special operations. Images taken in the all-out mode are directly saved as 3888 x 3888 pixels of the entire-out photo, and if you connect your camera and smartphone to Wi-Fi, it has a function that automatically sends the captured images to your smartphone, so as long as you have set them up, you can normally post individual photos to various social media without using a dedicated app (the dedicated app "EXILIM CONNECT" is required for Wi-Fi integration). Below is a photo I uploaded when I went to Sugadaira the other day and took the usual 360° shot at the peak.

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A post shared by Outdoor Gearzine (@outdoorgearzine) – March 7, 2017 8:02pm PST

In addition, by using the dedicated app "EXILIM ALBUM", you can choose photos transferred to your smartphone to a good balance from the photos and videos you took that day and create videos edited in a slideshow, and you can also share these videos on social media.

Things that bothered me

The FR200 has provided a variety of new experiences, but it is also true that as I used it more, I began to see a lot of different things.

There is little system to share 360° photos and videos you've taken as they've taken.

If you view it with a PC-only viewer, you can enjoy it as the original 360° images and videos, but at this time there is no way to share it online.

This is what caught my eye the most.

Even if 360° photos can be posted as stills on various social media via smartphone, when it comes to VR images and videos that can be moved with a mouse or finger, Casio does not offer a way to easily share them via smartphone, which is a very wasteful feature.

The only way to do this is to edit and export using a dedicated app and then upload it to Facebook (still images/videos) or YouTube (videos), and currently you will have to go through a PC. In this regard, THETA has more functionality on smartphone apps, from shooting to editing and sharing. I'm sure that the mechanism and ease of sharing will be essential for cameras in the future, especially those that can enjoy taking photos that look great on social media, so I would like them to put more effort into this.

To fully enjoy skiing, the battery life is not enough, and the rechargeable battery cannot be replaced.

The batteries of cameras and controllers are originally separate, and when you take interval shooting or video, the battery only decreases as the cameras keeps the battery running out.

When used in the winter, the battery runs out very quickly, so just taking a video (a total of tens of minutes) quickly ran out of battery on my camera. However, I think this is probably the same for every camera from any manufacturer, so I can't believe it's that much, but the problem is that this model cannot be replaced. Normally, when I take a SLR photo shoot in the winter, I take about four spare batteries, and then replace them without hesitation when the batteries run out, but if I can't do that, I'm honestly at a loss. By the way, when the temperature was relatively high (about 10°C), I used it for an entire day of climbing during the entire day of mountain climbing, so I only had to just barely get to the finish line, so I hope that something will be done (there are no use to do on such days, so if I get the chance to do it, I'll use it while charging it with a mobile battery whenever I get the chance).

Apps and software do not have great usability and stability

In reality, this is common with products from many hardware manufacturers, but this time, I was really curious to see that the application and LCD parts were a little difficult to use, and there were no functions I wanted.

For example, when shooting, the current camera mode display is hidden, so I once wanted to take a picture in "all-spherical mode" in multi-camera mode, but it was set to "all-season mode." Even in normal single camera mode, the main displays are hidden easily, making it difficult to understand how to set it up, and at first I found it difficult to get into. Also, every time you turn on the switch (occasionally when you wake up from sleep), you need to pair two cameras with the controller, or connect them to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on your smartphone, but the operation is clear and still difficult to understand and troublesome, and the connections every time are often not stable (occasionally, the camera itself freezes and it can't be restored unless you reset it).

I wish the smartphone app also had more image and video editing functions. It is said that EXILIM ALBUM can display images around the sky and create highlight movies, but to be honest, it is not compatible with social media, so I still don't think I'd like to use it actively. Also, even if you take sync photos of two devices from different angles, you can only play them side by side with the playback function on the controller, and it's a shame that you can't line up two videos in parallel and edit them into one video.

As for other editing software on PCs (EXILIM 360 Viewer), I feel like I would like to see some functions that will make the users' desires come true, such as editing functions such as freely cropping 360° photos and videos and cutting out still images.

Overall review: Depending on how you use it, it is definitely a unique camera that will keep you excited and the atmosphere of the site locked in.

The previous model, the FR100, was attracting attention for its tricky angle and ease of action cameras, but with the FR200, it was possible to take 360° shots, and personally I've come to love it as a very interesting camera with a charm that neither smartphone nor SLR camera has. Rather than focusing on image quality and settings to capture artistic works, we want to keep the memories of everyone having fun together, the excitement and atmosphere we encountered on set, and more specifically, we want to share pictures with impact that cannot be captured normally! This is the perfect camera for those who are looking for such a thing.

However, my honest impression is that although it is a bit difficult to get into the real value of this camera in order to show off the true value of this camera, I still want two cameras and some attachments. I think it's pretty interesting to use it in basic ways, but I thought this camera will become more and more interesting by using your imagination and inventing various ways of taking pictures. At the same time, since it has such a great deal of appeal as hardware, we hope to see the enrichment of the applications surrounding it and the shared environment after shooting.

EX-FR200

CASIO

Open price

For detailed specifications and accessories, click here (official product page)