Insta360’s X4 action camera is capable of filming 360° footage in 8K resolution. Award-winning underwater camerawoman Jenny Stock put one to the test

Review by Jenny Stock

In short, I love the Insta360 X4, primarily because it smashes the task I would ask of it: an easy-to-use underwater camera that captures content to share on socials and YouTube. Additionally, it does this with unique, creative, eye-catching visuals.

It’s not going to replace my Sony α1 for shooting television broadcast video, but the X4 over-delivers on capturing engaging footage at its price point.

The first thing to note, as the name suggests, is that it takes footage in all directions at once. It does this by stitching together captured images on two back-to-back 200° lenses, then outputs at 360°. When describing this to people, I give the example of Street View on Google Maps — but with moving video.

After capturing your footage, you can replay the video on the device, phone app, or computer timeline, and pick any angle from which to view it. This gives you the ability to ‘shoot first and frame later’.

You still need to position the camera in front of your subject, of course, but it gives you more flexibility to pick your shot when editing and exporting.

Invisible Insta360 underwater accessories

a woman swimming underwater with an insta360 x4 camera — The Invisible Dive Case and Invisible Selfie Stick are essential accessories for the X4 (Photo: Insta360)

One superb feature of the Insta360 X4 is the Invisible Selfie Stick, which the camera’s software automatically erases from the footage. If you’re filming yourself it looks as if the camera is floating in front of you – it’s very elegant.

I’ve also seen a video of a diver who attached the stick to the back of their tank, so it looked like they had an underwater drone hovering above them.

Using the stick meant that animals – far away from me and my noisy bubbles – were much less intimidated, so I could get the camera up close to critters in tricky positions, and they were not fussed. You need to keep it reasonably steady, however, or the stick-erasing AI software will not work.

Given my experience of using photographic equipment in saltwater, my advice is to invest in Insta360’s Invisible Dive Case for extra protection for the camera. This allows you to dive the device to 50m/164ft and the case, like the Selfie Stick, is invisible in the footage.

The lens of the Invisible Dive Case accounts for light refraction, therefore images aren’t distorted, which in turn helps the camera’s software stitch underwater images together. The results aren’t always perfect, however, and I have seen reflections of the surface appearing in some images.

The stick and case disappear in the underwater footage (Photo: Insta360)

Without the case, the device only operates to 10m (33ft), stitching may misalign, and light refraction is not taken into account. You also need to make sure all the little doors of the camera’s body are properly closed to prevent water from getting in, and you must avoid entering the water at high speeds. Please, just buy the case – it’s worth it!

Once inside its case, the X4 only has two buttons available to press, making it very intuitive to use – I could pass it to anyone underwater and they instantly knew what to do with it.

People I met on dive trips were keen to play with the X4, leaving me to shoot with my own camera… then use the footage they’ve shot while experimenting. Everywhere I go, I now have B-camera operators!

The entire package of the camera, case, and stick weighs in at just 517g – extremely lightweight compared to my typical 35kg of equipment!

Battery life is also excellent, lasting up to 75 minutes on a full charge when shooting at 8K x 30fps and 95 minutes at 5.7K at 60fps. Above water, I’ve tested hand gestures and voice activation – both worked well.

The camera does get hot when shooting in 8K, and when the temperature gets too high, there will be an overheating alert and the Insta360 will automatically stop recording. But even my Sony α1 cut out after twenty minutes in sweltering heat in
the Philippines recently.

If necessary, the option to film using only one side of the device is always available, turning the X4 into a single-lens action camera producing 170° footage, with an associated reduction in the amount of data captured.

Colour correction and editing software

A 360 degree picture of a coral reef surrounded by fish — Insta360’s editing suite comes with underwater colour-correcting software (Photo: Jenny Stock)

Insta360’s software is free to download – a clever marketing move. This means after one of my dive pals has captured some footage on my device, I can give them the data files and they can go home and edit what they’ve taken, all for free, without needing to invest in a camera – but will hopefully be tempted to buy their own if they enjoy it.

I’ve taken the camera on two dive trips so far, and three people have subsequently purchased one!

The physics of water means the deeper you go, the more colours on the spectrum you lose. First, red disappears, followed by orange, yellow, and then green.

Without using lights, I noticed that red animals at five metres were harder to distinguish, however, yellow tangs, pink anthias, and yellow coral near the surface of the open blue water in Egypt were captured beautifully.

Insta360’s editing software has an underwater colour-correcting profile to help with this, but I think there will always be limitations without lights.

a 360 degree tiny world picture of a scuba diver on a coral reef — Tiny World mode used underwater creates some amazing images (Photo: Jenny Stock)

All the flexibility of this content capture comes at a cost. Once at the editing stage, you’ll need to factor in more time to make further artistic decisions with the variety of modes available.

‘Field of view’, ‘Deep track’, ‘View Find’, and ‘Me Mode’ are just some of the choices available when you’re adding your keyframes, and the app also allows you to add music, text, stickers, and effects from an online bank – much in the same way as you can on Instagram. This can be fiddly, but the number of options at your fingertips is glorious.

The possibilities of creativity with this device are endless. You can export shots as traditional video or photographs or use the fantastic ability to export shots as ‘equirectangular’ images, which is like taking a 2D map of Planet Earth and turning it back into a 360° sphere. Insta360’s ‘Tiny Planet’ mode is a brilliant example of this when you come to the edit, making the sky look like a huge circle around you. It’s delightful to look at.

Overall, the Insta360 X4 has a far superior video resolution, a significantly longer-lasting battery, and operates better in low light and with less noise than its X3 predecessor.

Other cameras on the market may offer better low-light performance if that’s what you really need, but at its price point and with the versatility of the creative options on offer, the X4 is absolutely incredible.