Unless you could cough up the heavy cash on a big-budget virtual reality camera rig, it's hard to purchase the technology to shoot on ... until now, perhaps.
LucidVR, out of Berkeley, Calif., has developed LucidCam, a pocket-sized 3D virtual reality camera equipped with stereoscopic lenses, allowing users to capture and record VR content. The minds behind the camera have raised $83,063 of their $100,000 goal as part of their Indiegogo campaign as of Monday afternoon, with 39 days left. The LucidCam can be yours with a super early-bird pledge of $299. The ultimate goal is to be able to ship the camera next summer.
With LucidCam, users could record anything they want via the device's wide-angle lenses that capture 180-degree footage and then use Google Cardboard or any other virtual reality headset to view it. In fact, the brains behind LucidCam intend it to be sold with Google Cardboard, even offering it with some of its pledge packages. LucidCam also has an iOS and Android-compatible app.
"Capturing in 180 degrees has many benefits in regards to portability, storytelling, shooting, and scalability," the brains behind the company say on LucidVR's Indiegogo page about deciding on 180-degree footage as opposed to 360 degrees. "Reducing a VR camera to 180 degrees makes it small and easy to fit into your pocket. With 180 degrees you still give the immersion, but limit the user to the right content and field of view. 180 degrees allows you to do normal point-and-shoot without capturing yourself or other things you don't want to capture. Additionally, 180 degrees is scalable into 360, but 360 is difficult to reduce down in form factor."
As convenient as it is to carry around, LucidCam also boasts simple and smooth one-button functionality for image capture, video capture and for settings.
