Insta360 One X2 ⛷ Real-World ⛷Review // It's a game changer for action cameras!

Good morning everyone! I’ve always wanted to 
test [a] 360 degree camera and that’s what  
we’re doing today with the Insta360 One X2. 
This won’t be your normal review as my goal  
is to bring you along so we can both learn 
together how this camera actually works.  
Now with the Insta360 One [X2] and my skis ready, 
let’s go into the forest to film some b-roll!
For those of you who are new to this 
channel, I’m Loïc Bellemare-Alford,  
a young photographer and filmmaker on the journey 
to become better at this art. A few weeks ago  
Insta360 reached down and asked me if I 
would be interested to make a comparison  
between their camera and the DJI Pocket 
2. They do not get to see this video,  
they do not get to pay me and they don’t even know 
I’m making this video, so you’re getting my full  
unbiased review of this camera in this video. 
We will quickly talk about the build quality  
of this camera. So it’s really accurately pretty 
impressive. The handle is all made of metal which  
I didn’t really expect. I expected it to be made 
of plastic or something like that. And the camera  
is actually a lot heavier than i thought, but 

/> that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s a good  
thing because it has a huge battery so that means 
you’re probably getting better performances out  
of that battery and out of the camera because 
there’s so much tech inside of this small body.
The idea with the Insta360 is that you can shoot 
first and reframe later. This is particularly  
useful when doing things like right now and we’re 
gonna go for a ski we can just enjoy the activity,  
film some footage and afterwards decide what 
is the best firming for your shot. I’m also  
using the built-in microphone right now so i’m 
pretty curious to hear if it sounds good or not.
I finally got to the trail so let’s talk a little 
bit more about the camera itself. IIf you’re  
coming here, you might be a little bit scared 
because there’s a lot of snow falling right now  
and you might think it’s not waterproof, but 
it’s actually waterproof up to 10 meters so  
this is not a problem at all being outside. The 
only big problem is actually the lens is going  
to get some snowflakes on it. So first thing you 
can actually buy this little pouch to go on it  
to protect it when you’re not using it. But the 
most important part is actually to bring with you  
at the little lens cloth that they gave that 
comes with the camera and always wipe your lens  
before taking every shot. Now if you look at the 
different buttons on here, first we have on the  
side right here our power button. So if we press 
it we’re gonna see that after a few seconds it’s  
gonna power up and tell us that it’s on. Then if 
we look at the other side right here we have first  
at the top here a little door and behind the door 
we have access to our usb-c connection that’s for  
charging and also transferring file if you want. 
Then if we go now we’re just gonna close it,  
then we go down here, if we take this one out 
we have the battery here and it’s a huge battery  
so i’m pretty sure it’s gonna last pretty long. 
And one thing I had a hard time finding at the  
beginning was actually where was the sd card. But 
yes the card is located right inside of here. So  
now you know if you’re searching for the sd card 
where it’s located. So we’re just gonna put back  
the battery inside to keep the water ceiling. 
Finally at the bottom here, you have your quarter  
inch screw and this screws into this invisible 
selfie stick. And this might seem a little bit  
silly, but i wasn’t sure how to extend the selfie 
stick at the beginning. I thought we had something  
to turn or something like that but you actually 
just pull it and it holds in place perfectly  
steady. So it’s actually really simple to use 
just pull it, unpull it and that’s pretty much it.
Now let’s quickly talk about the different 
video modes that are available on the camera  
because i definitely want to try out the 
hyperlapse mode that they have because  
it seems to be pretty cool. So if we come on 
the camera right here and look at the screen  
and we swipe up, so this is my understanding 
up to now is that if we swipe up,  
right here we have a quickly our different 
shooting modes we have a picture here,  
we have video and we have time lapse. Now if we 
come back to the main menu let’s say we select  
video mode and then we go on the little icon here 
so if you click on the little video icon here  
you’re gonna have different shooting 
modes so here we’re gonna have standard  
hdr time lapse time shift and bullet time so 
i’m not 100 sure what are all these different  
modes but i guess standard is what i was using 
up to now which is seem to be the default mode  
hdr seems to be for high dynamic range but right 
now i don’t really need high dynamic range so i’m  
not going to test it out for now then time lapse 
i guess is just a time lapse but i’m not sure  
if this is the one we need to be using for the 
hyperlapse but i think what we need to be using us  
is time shape so this is going to allow to have 
a hyperlapse with motion blur inside of it and  
then freeze at time now bullet time i think it’s 
when you turn around you can have a mode where you  
put it on the top and you turn it around to get a 
pretty cool effect but we’re going to go inside of  
time shift and now if we go from the left of the 
menu from the right of the menu here we can swipe  
and then we have our different uh settings here 
so we have our exposure our white balance exposure  
i’m just going to leave everything automatic 
uh we could also shoot in vivid so we’re on  
vivid color right now we could shoot in log in 
different settings another thing to note right  
now is actually that if you go from the bottom 
here and change your video mode so let’s say you  
go back in standard you’re actually going to get 
more advanced settings here so you can see like if  
you want to have auto exposure or manual exposure 
and then you can go through the different options  
and you might have a few extra options depending 
on the mode you’re selecting so for example i  
think if we go on hdr we only have access to 
the white balance because the camera is doing  
all the rest of the work for you so you can 
only change the white balance in this case so  
this is something to keep in mind but yes let’s 
go back inside of time shift and test that out  
i’m just it right away but it’s pretty 
incredible how good and rugged this camera is  
it’s pretty cold outside right now plus the rain 
that is falling down i’m completely soaked and  
the camera seems to have no problem at all i’m 
a little bit scared of how this was gonna look  
on the lens but apart from that it seems 
to be working perfectly fine in this case
two pretty important things i forgot to mention 
is first you can use a little touchscreen here  
to look around and see what you’re framing and 
this is a big improvement that they brought to  
the second generation of this camera 
and the second thing is also that on  
the bottom here if you click on the image you 
actually have your different frame rates and  
resolutions so it usually films at 5.7 k 
that’s the whole image for the 360 degree view  
but you also have options at 4k and also a 3k at 
100 frames per second so 100 frames per second  
is for slow motion so that’s 
what i’m gonna try out right away
um so i think i’m gonna have to call 
it a day a little bit earlier right now  
because the conditions are just 
not good i’m soaked completely  
and it’s pretty cold so yeah 
i prefer going back home
just when i was getting very close to home the 
snow decided to stop being as awful as was so  
we’re going to continue reviewing this outside 
so there’s a few things i just discovered about  
the insta360 one x2 and the first one is that you 
can quickly start recording by long pressing the  
record button so that’s the button in the front 
here it’s gonna open the camera right away start  
recording so it takes about a few seconds to get 
started and it’s recording right now then when  
you want to stop you simply press the button and 
the camera is going to power off automatically so  
this is pretty useful if you don’t have the camera 
on you just want to quickly start recording start  
recording without keeping the camera on all the 
time so if you have the camera on now there’s a  
few other things i want to talk about so first of 
all is that i forgot to say but you can actually  
view your footage by swiping from the left here 
but one thing i realized and was a little bit  
disappointed is that i realized that if we have 
some slow motion footage so like right here  
you can actually not view it on the camera itself 
you need to go for the app but if you have some  
360 footage so just let me swipe here and start 
playing the 360 footage you can actually look  
at it and swipe around to see different point 
of views so this is pretty cool if you want to  
review your footage pretty quickly on the camera 
without having to take out the phone to do it
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another pretty neat feature of the insta360 one 
x2 is that it can also take 360 degree photos  
not just videos so if you come in our menu in the 
bottom here and we go and our selections we can  
actually choose the first mode right here which 
is for photos and just like for video we have the  
standard mode we have hdr we have burst mode we 
have interval and we have night shot interval i’m  
actually pretty excited to test this one out maybe 
not today because the conditions are not good  
but it’s going to allow to take raw pictures 
but with an interval so you’re actually going  
to be able to control that then do a time-lapse 
or something like that taking high-resolution  
pictures instead of using only the video but one 
thing i realized so if we go back in standard mode  
where we have the most options and then we slide 
from the right here to access our more advanced  
settings we’re actually going to see first that 
we have an option so for jpeg plus raw which is  
pretty good then after if we go on manual mode 
and we’re gonna have a lot more uh settings and  
if we go on the shutter speed right here we can 
actually see that we have an option to go up to  
let me scroll it’s going to take a few seconds 
the shutter speed can be up to 120 seconds so  
that’s a full two minutes of taking a picture 
so that is pretty great because it’s gonna allow  
especially at night to get much longer shots 
and much more light inside of this tiny sensor  
now if you go on daily options you can control the 
iso the white balance so you have pretty much uh  
control over your shot then if you come back in 
our exposure setting another pretty cool thing  
here is that you have access to otto so i’m living 
on a2 today because that’s my goal is just to test  
how it works out of the box but if you go manual 
we just talked about it if you go on iso priority  
so you can set your iso and the rest is gonna 
be automatic you can have shutter priority  
and it has isolated so yeah let’s take 
a few test shots and see how it performs  
in auto mode automatically actually two things i 
was just going to forget is first that you have  
an option to put a timer so if you click on the 
bottom of the little screen here you’re gonna have  
an option to select a timer so three seconds 
5 seconds 10 seconds 15 seconds um so i think  
that’s a good idea to have it on three seconds so 
you have the time to put it on the pull and take  
your picture so then there’s a little button here 
that you might miss so by default it is on but if  
you click on it it’s going to say check pure shot 
effect in the app so i think this is going to add  
a little bit better editing to the photo once 
you look at it instead of the app afterwards
so before it gets too dark today i 
want to end the day by talking about  
uh vlogging using the instax 360 one x2 so this 
is an important thing for me because i vlog a  
lot using these types of cameras and i think what 
is very interesting using this camera is actually  
that you can see what i’m seeing because i can 
turn around the camera as i wish and you can also  
see me and i can change the framing afterwards i 
can get a tighter shot a wider shot i can control  
all of this right after taking the video now let’s 
switch to steadicam mode and talk about that mode  
so i’m now using steadycam mode and cdcam mode 
allows to replicate what you get with most normal  
action cameras so you get a super wide angle field 
of view the only problem i have with this mode is  
that it maxed out at 1440p which is a huge problem 
for me because most of the videos coming out  
instead 360 one x2 is 1080p so that is a little 
bit higher than what you get normally and a super  
wide angle field of view it’s going to be very 
useful for me when i’m going to be doing first  
person uh videos of me taking pictures 
so i’m pretty excited to test that out  
and if you’re wondering how it compares to the 
dji pocket 2 that’s going to be my next video so  
be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven’t 
already so my big question now is how good is the  
stabilization going to be inside of this mode so 
i quickly checked some of the footage at the 360  
degree view and it seemed to be pretty good but 
didn’t really look at it in detail and for this  
one i enabled pro mode because it allows to use a 
computer to apply the stabilization so i guess it  
should be a little bit better than doing it inside 
of the camera directly so we’re going to see the  
footage to see if it’s actually good or not but 
i’m pretty sure it’s going to be pretty good  
now let’s talk about the other menu options are 
available on the camera so if we come at the top  
here and slide down our first gonna see that 
we have an option for the screen brightness so  
this one is pretty self-explanatory the second one 
is to lock the screen and this was actually very  
useful yesterday when by accident with the snow 
it was really easy to touch the screen and make  
things that you didn’t want to so by accident i 
was in photo mode at some point when i was trying  
to take a video so this is pretty useful and then 
if we go on the next mode here we’re gonna have  
the led lights on or not and this is very useful 
because on both sides you have nice led lights  
right here that allows you to know when the 
camera is on and if you’re recording or not so  
this is especially useful when it’s high on the 
pull where you cannot really see the screen to  
know if it’s recording or not so you can always 
look at the lights to know if it’s recording  
then you have if uh quick capture is on so 
that’s what i talked about yesterday where  
you can simply long press the button and it’s 
going to open the camera start capturing the video  
and then stop right afterwards then there’s a 
few other options that are pretty cool so the  
first one here you have air pod support so if 
you have air pods from apple you can actually  
link them and use the audio from your airpods i 
don’t have that option so it’s not going to work  
then if you look at the next option here is your 
audio settings so you can either film the audio  
from all around so 360 degree audio or you can use 
the wind reduction i’m on wind reduction and it  
seems to be working pretty well then you have your 
voice command so this is actually the one super  
useful to have on so if you just say to the camera 
when it’s on the stick you can say start recording  
and here it starts recording and once you’re 
ready to stop you simply say stop recording  
and it stopped recording there’s a few other 
options for voice control but this is super useful  
especially when it’s on the pull and you don’t 
want to have to touch the camera every time  
to start and stop recording now we have our 
other options inside of the more advanced  
settings so you have general you have bluetooth 
remote you have auto sleep voice control sd card  
video encoding so you can either select 
your 360 degree mode or your city cam mode  
and the camera information so this is pretty 
much all the other options you have so  
there’s actually a lot of option 
already built in inside of the camera
one of my thoughts of this insta360 one x2 after 
using it for just over a day i first thought that  
360 degree cameras were kind of a gimmick but 
after using it i really like it first of all it’s  
very rugged so like we saw yesterday after using 
it on a very heavy snow that was kind of rain  
it didn’t have any problem at all and was 
perfectly fine afterwards which is a very  
important thing for me the second thing is that 
we have pretty good audio directly out of it  
so this is actually something i like quite 
a lot is that you can just use it to vlog or  
something like that and you know that you’re 
going to be getting pretty good audio without  
anything additional with it because you cannot 
plug in a microphone or something like that  
it’s also very easy to use but there’s a lot of 
options in the menu so it might be a little bit  
complicated when starting but once you understand 
what are all these options it’s actually really  
easy to go through all the menus and change your 
settings as you wish another really great thing  
is that during winter they have big buttons all 
around the camera so it’s really easy to press on  
them even if you have gloves or things like that 
uh on your hand while manipulating the camera  
there’s also a pretty good battery life so it 
lasted for about like two three hours yesterday um  
and i filmed about like an hour of footage so 
that’s pretty good and it was also pretty cool  
that yesterday and had no problem at all during 
the cold weather which is probably some of my  
other cameras where the lens freezes or something 
like that this had no problem at all with the cool  
weather it’s also very cool because you can get 
some super unique shots with this camera that  
you simply cannot get with any other cameras and 
then with a selfie stick you can really just point  
it wherever you want whether it’s higher lower or 
things like that and get some completely different  
shots that you’re not used to seeing and this 
is great because i’ll use to be more creative in  
the end now not everything is perfect about this 
camera there’s two things that frustrate me just  
a little bit the first one is that you need to go 
through the app for a lot of things so some of the  
footage you simply cannot review it on the camera 
directly you need to open the app just to be able  
to review the footage so i would like if they 
could fix that and so we can see all the footage  
directly on the camera to quickly know if the shot 
is good or not the second thing is that there’s so  
many options that can be kind of complicated to 
understand where are all the options and some of  
those modes actually have more settings that are 
hidden away so it’s just a thing that you need to  
learn all the different options that are possible 
on camera so i highly suggest you go through all  
the different options of the camera and try to 
understand all the menus before using it to not  
lose time when you’re in the field and don’t 
really understand how to change the different  
setting on the camera this is an easy camera 
to recommend especially if you’re doing action  
sports or you just want to get more creative 
shots if you enjoyed this video please let me  
know by hitting the like button below and also 
consider subscribing my next video is going to  
be a comparison of the DJI Pocket 2 and the video 
after that is going to go through a more creative  
techniques including the ai modes that this camera 
has built in so see you in the next one bye bye

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