Ricoh action and 360 cameras

Dual one-inch sensors and a selectable aperture — f/2.1, f/3.5 or f/5.6 — are things no other 360 camera here has, and they are the reason this 2021 camera still sells for a thousand dollars. It is a stills instrument: 23 MP spherical RAW files out of sensors more than twice the area per lens of an Insta360 X6's, which is what professional virtual-tour shooters buy it for, and the selectable aperture is how they control depth of field and diffraction in an interior. Everything else about it is dated and deliberately so. Video caps at 4K30, storage is 51 GB fixed with no card slot, there is no screen beyond a small status OLED, and there is no waterproofing. As an action camera it makes no sense; as the highest-image-quality one-shot 360 stills camera on sale, it is still unmatched.

Ricoh has been making 360 cameras longer than anyone else here and aims them somewhere else entirely: real-estate tours, insurance surveys and construction documentation, not helmets. The THETA X reflects that — 60 MP spherical stills with the best stitch quality in the category, built-in GPS to tag where each shot was taken, a swappable DB-110 battery so a surveyor can work all day, and a 2.25-inch touchscreen for checking frames on site. It is also not an action camera in any meaningful sense. There is no waterproof rating, nothing mounts to it but a tripod thread, it is rated only to 0 °C, and 5.7K30 video is a secondary feature rather than the point. If you want one camera for both a ski trip and a property listing, this is the wrong half of that pair.