The camera aisle is where most people stall on the way to their first virtual tour. The honest news: for interiors, the differences between current 360 cameras matter much less than the differences between a careful shoot and a rushed one. Here is what actually matters in the spec sheet, and what does not.
The specs that matter for rooms
- Still resolution, not video resolution. Marketing leads with video specs, but tours are built from stills. Look for the photo resolution: 5.7K stills are workable, 8K and up is comfortable, and the difference shows exactly where buyers zoom, on kitchen counters and out of windows.
- HDR photo mode. Interiors are a contrast problem, a bright window in a dim room. A camera that brackets and merges exposures in one press is worth more than extra megapixels. This is the feature to refuse to go without.
- A tripod thread and a self timer or app trigger. You need the camera on a pole at eye level with you out of the room. Any camera without a clean way to do that disqualifies itself.
- Equirectangular JPG export. The standard format every tour builder speaks, Pano included. All the mainstream cameras export it; some phone apps do not. Check before buying anything exotic.
What does not matter much
Flowstate stabilisation, 8K video, AI reframing, invisible selfie sticks: all built for action video, all irrelevant to a camera standing still on a tripod. Do not pay for them unless you also make video content.
Three honest tiers
- Entry, around 300 to 500 EUR: Insta360 X4 or Ricoh Theta family. The X4 shoots 72 MP stills with solid HDR and is the default first camera for a reason. The Theta line is slower per shot but its colour straight out of camera is the most natural in this tier.
- Serious, around 800 to 1000 EUR: Insta360 X5 or Ricoh Theta Z1. The Z1's larger 1 inch sensors are still the interior image quality benchmark in a pocketable camera, especially in dim rooms. The X5 counters with resolution and a far easier workflow.
- Dedicated, 3000 EUR and up: Matterport Pro or similar rigs. Purpose built scanning hardware. If your business is high volume scanning, you may already own one; a Pano tour does not require it, since dollhouse geometry comes from tracing, not from depth hardware.
What about just a phone?
Phone apps that stitch panoramas while you pivot in place do work, and a phone tour of a real listing beats no tour. Expect stitching seams on straight lines and a lower ceiling on quality. As a test of whether tours fit your workflow, start there; the upgrade to a real 360 camera pays for itself in not re-shooting.
The uncomfortable truth
A 400 EUR camera on a level tripod at eye level, HDR on, shot in even light, will beat a 1000 EUR camera handheld at chest height in harsh sun, every single time. Buy once from the tier that fits your volume, then spend your attention on the shoot itself. The camera stops being the bottleneck the day it arrives.