Equipment for shooting 360° panoramas and virtual tours

Choosing equipment is the first decision every panoramic photographer makes, and it defines the quality ceiling of every virtual tour that follows. This guide covers the four ways to produce a spherical panorama, the accessories that matter, the software that turns frames into a 360 x 180 image, and which setup fits which kind of job. At the end you will find links to real panoramas on TrueVirtualTours filtered by the equipment they were shot with, so you can compare results before you buy.

1. One-shot 360° cameras

Cameras with two back-to-back fisheye lenses (Insta360 X series and ONE series, Ricoh Theta Z1 and X, GoPro Max, Kandao QooCam) capture the whole sphere in one press and stitch it in the camera or the phone app. Resolution runs from 5.7K to 11K, and the newest models shoot RAW and HDR brackets.

• Best for: real estate, hotels, restaurants, cars, quick documentation, tours with many scenes.
• Strengths: speed (a 10-room flat in 15 minutes), no stitching, small and light, phone control, built-in HDR.
• Limits: small sensors, so shadows are noisy and highlights clip; stitch lines visible on close objects; not enough resolution for zooming into detail.
• Accessories: a thin monopod or "invisible" selfie stick (the camera erases it from the nadir), a small tripod base, a remote or the phone app so you are not in the shot.

Which model to buy this year is covered in the best 360 cameras guide; opinions from users on the trade-offs are in the DSLR vs 360° camera comparison.

2. DSLR or mirrorless camera with a fisheye lens

The professional route. A full-frame or APS-C camera with a circular or diagonal fisheye (Samyang 8 mm and 12 mm, Canon 8-15 mm, Nikon 8-15 mm, Sigma 15 mm, Laowa 4 mm on Micro Four Thirds) shoots 4 to 8 overlapping frames around the vertical axis, plus a zenith and a nadir shot when needed. The frames are stitched on a computer.

• Best for: museums, architecture, interiors for print-quality marketing, gigapixel and HDR work, anything where the viewer will zoom.
• Strengths: large sensor and real lenses: clean shadows, sharp detail, full control of exposure and white balance, RAW workflow, resolution from 12,000 to 30,000 pixels with a fisheye and far beyond with a normal lens.
• Limits: a panoramic head and tripod are mandatory, shooting is slower, and stitching adds time per panorama.

With a longer lens (24 to 50 mm) and dozens of frames per position you get gigapixel panoramas; TrueVirtualTours accepts images up to 65,500 x 32,750 pixels and streams them as tiles, so the size costs the viewer nothing.

3. Panoramic heads, tripods and monopods

• Panoramic head. Rotates the camera around the no-parallax point of the lens so foreground objects line up between frames. Nodal Ninja, Manfrotto 303SPH, Leofoto and Sunwayfoto make single-row and multi-row heads; a single-row head is enough for a fisheye. Set it once for your lens and note the rail positions.
• Tripod. Any stable tripod with a levelling base or a ball head with a bubble level. Keep the same height for every position in a tour (eye level, about 150 to 160 cm, is the usual choice); changing height between scenes is the most common reason a tour feels wrong.
• Monopod. For one-shot cameras a thin monopod or a "panoramic pole" gives a clean nadir with almost nothing to retouch. Extended poles (3 to 6 m) put the camera above fences and crowds.
• Remote release and phone apps so you can step out of the frame, and a nadir cap or patch logo if you want to cover the tripod in post.

4. Drones

Most DJI drones (Mavic, Air, Mini series) have a panorama mode that shoots and stitches a sphere from the air, or you can shoot the frames manually and stitch them yourself for higher quality. Aerial panoramas are the standard way to show a plot, a resort, a construction site or a city; combine them with ground-level scenes in one tour and add the location so the tour appears on the map. Check local drone regulations before flying.

5. Stitching and editing software

• PTGui - the industry standard for stitching DSLR frames; handles HDR, viewpoint correction and masking. Paid.
• Hugin - free and open source, the same Panorama Tools engine, more manual work.
• Kolor Autopano - discontinued in 2018 but still used by many photographers; no longer recommended for new setups.
• Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity Photo - RAW development before stitching, nadir retouching and colour work after.
• Camera vendor apps (Insta360 Studio, Theta app, GoPro Player) - stitching and export for one-shot cameras.

The output for upload is always an equirectangular JPEG with a 2:1 ratio; see what is a 360° panorama for the projection details.

6. 3D rendering instead of a camera

For interiors and buildings that do not exist yet, the "camera" is a 3D renderer: 3ds Max with Corona or V-Ray, Blender, Unreal Engine, Twinmotion or Lumion can render a spherical panorama directly. The result is uploaded like any photo. Step-by-step: rendering a panorama in 3ds Max and Corona.

Which setup for which job

Compare real panoramas by equipment

Photographers on TrueVirtualTours tag their work with the equipment and software they used, so you can see what a given camera, lens or drone actually produces before buying. Open a category and pick a model:

• Classic cameras (DSLR and mirrorless) used for 360° images
• One-shot 360° cameras
• Drones used for aerial spherical panoramas
• Lenses for professional cameras
• Stitching, post-processing, design and architectural software
• Tripods, panoramic heads and other accessories

When you upload your own panoramas, add the equipment and software tags too. More people find your work, and new photographers get an honest reference.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest way to start?

A used one-shot 360° camera and a thin monopod. It is enough to shoot a complete real-estate tour on the first day, and the free plan on TrueVirtualTours hosts up to 15 panoramas per 30 days.

Do I need a panoramic head for a 360° camera?

No. The two lenses share one optical centre, so a plain monopod or tripod is enough. A panoramic head is only for cameras that shoot several frames.

How many frames does a DSLR panorama need?

With a circular fisheye, 4 frames every 90 degrees plus a nadir shot; with a diagonal fisheye, 6 to 8; with a 24 mm lens, three rows of 8 to 12 frames. More overlap is safer than less.

What resolution do I actually need?

6K is fine for phones, 8 to 12K for desktop fullscreen, 20K and above when visitors will zoom into detail. Larger files do not slow the viewer down here because panoramas are tiled.

Ready to publish? Upload your panoramas and link them into a tour with the virtual tour software; hosting is described at 360° panorama hosting.