Shooting 360 panoramas looks technical from the outside and is mostly checklist from the inside. This is the whole checklist, from gear to files on disk, for anyone shooting their first property.
What you need
- A 360 camera. Any current consumer model works: Insta360, Ricoh Theta, GoPro Max. What matters is that it exports equirectangular JPGs, the flat 2:1 format every tour builder reads.
- A tripod or monopod with the camera at eye level, 150 to 160 cm.
- The camera's phone app, so you can trigger shots from the next room and keep yourself out of the scene.
- No 360 camera yet? Phone apps that stitch a panorama as you pivot in place will do for a first test. Expect visible seams; a real 360 camera removes them.
Before you shoot: the two minute walk
Walk the property once and write the scene list: which rooms, plus the entrance and any exterior worth showing. One scene per room is the baseline; long or L shaped rooms earn a second. While walking, stage as you go: lights all on, blinds matched, surfaces clear, wardrobe doors shut, bins and laundry out of frame. The panorama sees the entire room at once, so there is no cropping problems away later.
Camera settings
- HDR photo mode on. The single most important setting for interiors. It merges exposures so the window and the room both read.
- Timer or remote trigger. You will be in the next room when the shutter fires.
- Level the camera. Use the tripod bubble or the app's level indicator. Verticals must be vertical; a tilted panorama makes viewers queasy.
Placing the camera
Stand the tripod where a person would naturally pause: a step inside the doorway or the centre of the open floor. Not in corners, which feel cramped, and not hard against furniture, which distorts at close range in a fisheye lens. Keep the height identical in every room. Then trigger from outside the room, check the preview for your own shadow and for mirrors, and move on. Thirty seconds per scene once you find the rhythm; a whole flat is twenty minutes.
From files to a walkable tour
Back at the desk, export or transfer the equirectangular JPGs, one per scene. In Pano, drag the whole folder in at once and every shot becomes a scene. Then link the geography: drop a hotspot on each doorway and connect it to the room behind it, both directions. Add the floor plan if you have one, so viewers get the minimap. Name scenes what buyers call them, Kitchen, not IMG_0347.
Press publish and the tour lives at one link, ready for the listing, the email, and the sign. Your first one is free, and the second shoot will take half the time of the first. The camera was never the hard part.