Need wide angle without loss of quality

[Robert Fahey]

I'm going to make drive-through videos of every single street in my town, part of my website (BurlingtonRetro.com). Need high quality and wide angle.

 

[country_hick]

Depending upon how you define "high quality" nothing may exist. The wider the angle the lower the image quality must become. A 4k camera (ANY 4K CAMERA) with a 90 degree lens is only good for forensic quality images (facial recognition) up to 48 feet. The wider the lens the lower the quality is at the same distance. A 4k camera with a 50 degree lens can capture the same 40 PPF (pixels per frame) at 103'. Changing to a 90 degree lens captures 40PPF at 48 feet. Using a 150 degree lens 40PPF is limited to just 13' from the same 4k camera.

Can you find a decent dashcam at a reasonable price that will capture decent pictures showing houses with a wide angle lens? Yes you can. Just do not expect to much from any video camera when it comes to excellent details at a distance. Although bigger is better even a 1080p dashcam will provide decent images of the scenery unless you want incredible levels of detail. The 8 mp imge sensor found in 4k cameras is just not sensitive enough to capture high quality details at much of a distance with a wide angle lens. It probably does not matter because people do not see that well anyway.

 

[Robert Fahey]

Ok. Given the use case (google earth-like documentation of streets, but video instead of still), what camera do you suggest? Figure a $300 budget.

 

[lacibaci]

You can't do it with a single camera. All providers of street view imagery use multiple cameras for that reason. I think Google Street view uses at least 8 cameras.

 

[Robert Fahey]

Doesn’t have to be THAT wide angle. How about 140 degrees?

 

[Nigel]

Doesn’t have to be THAT wide angle. How about 140 degrees?

That would be around normal for a dashcam, and a sensible angle since any wider will not look realistic of what you would see in real life.

What resolution do you want for your final videos?

 

[TonyM]

Take a look at the GitUp F1. It has 4K and a 160deg lens, and works well as a dashcam unlike some other action cameras.

 

[Robert Fahey]

That would be around normal for a dashcam, and a sensible angle since any wider will not look realistic of what you would see in real life.

What resolution do you want for your final videos?

I haven’t thought about it. As high as it gets? What’s the downside? Eats up memory? Slow to upload to YouTube?

 

[kamkar]

If it is just for logging the local streets, then i don't feel like dashcam functionality are needed, i assume he will go by a plan and do so and so street this day and so and so tomorrow.

I think i would do it stop motion style / photo lapse and then i would probably use my DSLR for large photos you can zoom into just like you can on googles street view, only you will of course not have the full wrap around that google have.
So IMO at least something 4K

If the streets and the town are not too big, maybe you could drive the street / route 4 times with 1 camera in each direction every time, and then stitch it together in post.

 

[kamkar]

I only have 60mbit upload, so i don't really mind uploading larger files to youtube, it do take a while of course but i do other stuff on the computer meanwhile.
It would of course be a cake walk if my upload matched my 1000 mbit download speed, but thats not going to happen not even on docis 3.1 cable like i am on.

Larger resolution are of course also more demanding for the computer you are going to work with the footage, i assume you are not just going to upload raw material.
Larger resolution of course also eat up memory on the recording device, but as you will be doing targeted roads and not just drive around a full day, then this paired with the current modest prices for memory cards are no problem.
I could imagine to you drive down a street on yout youtube video, then encounter a intersection, so it would be smart if you then there got the option to change left or right onto the recordings of that street with links in the video, this way you could drive around and jump "seamless" from one video to the other.