Any way to shoot Photosphere photos with the S8?

[mundo472]

For those of you not able to load the Sammy Surround Shot, try resetting (turn off and on) first.

 

[stmax]

Sorry guys... I thought they made Google Camera available to all... what about this one Cardboard Camera by Google. It shows up on my S7 Play Store.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tails?id=com.google.vr.cyclops&token=HK35y735

 

[LineKill]

Thank you anyway though! It's just so annoying on Samsung's part... why can't they just leave it be?

Also while searching around on some pretty old threads, I saw some people mention using Google Street View app to shoot Photospheres. I just installed that and it does seem to work. Funny that it's kind of a hidden feature of that app as it's used more for people to view and share Photospheres publicly. So if you just want to use it for your own personal use, just make sure not to publish anything after shooting.

Here's the link for that if anyone's interested: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s?id=com.google.android.street&token=NZ6d32bf

Looks like there are 2 solutions now to regain the ability to shoot Photospheres on the S8, though they are kind of hacky. Hopefully some day maybe Samsung will just simply put that feature back in.

Here is another solution you can check out, it is an early access Photosphere BETA.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tails?id=com.suhel.photosphere&token=rMtbya5c

 

[youngjediboy]

Sorry guys... I thought they made Google Camera available to all... what about this one Cardboard Camera by Google. It shows up on my S7 Play Store.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tails?id=com.google.vr.cyclops&token=kNA4Wzo-

It's so strange, on my S8, when searching Google camera on the Play Store, this (the official camera app from Google) doesn't show up. But when opening this on desktop, I could click Install and then choose the S8 to install to. That does seem to work!

 

[youngjediboy]

Ok, so if anyone is interested. It seems like there are 3 different ways to be able to regain the ability to take Photosphere photos with the S8. For some reason it's a hidden function and you have to go through some workarounds to make it work.

1: Google Street View app
Can install directly from Google Play here: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s?id=com.google.android.street&token=Fg-RBTYh
This app is for viewing Photospheres/street views that others have photographed and published, but there is a camera button that allows you to create your own. This opens up the camera to allow you to shoot multiple photos and the app stitches them together to form a Photosphere.
This method seems to produce the best results. The stitching does a pretty good job to not show the seams and the resolution is kept high. However, this app was designed more for people to shoot Photospheres and publish them publicly. If you don't want them public, after you shoot, you have to go back out and then use the Gallery or Google Photos to access these shots separately so you can view or share them to social media.

2: Surround Shot add-on for the default S8 camera app
The only way I've been able to add this on was by downloading the apk and installing directly from here: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/samsu...e/surroundshot2-1-4-3-1-android-apk-download/
Some posters have said that they already has this on their phone and others have been able to download it from the Galaxy App. My T-mobile S8 didn't have it out of the box and when trying to find it on the Galaxy App it's missing for some reason.
After installing the apk, the default S8 camera app now has the Surround Shot function. This method lets you shoot Photosphere in the most straightforward way. However, the stitching and resolution does not appear to be as good as when shooting with the Street View app above.

3: Google Camera app
When searching in the Play Store on the S8, this doesn't show up at all. But on a desktop you can access the page directly: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...om.google.android.GoogleCamera&token=iHJYvnmO
Then click Install and then choose your S8 and it will install it on your phone. This puts the original Google camera on the S8 and it has the Photosphere function. However, this app doesn't seem to have full access to the S8's capabilities and it doesn't allow 4K video recording and in Photosphere it seems to be quite low resolution and has some weird artifacts after it stitches. I'm guessing the app was only designed to be used on Google's phones and if installed on any other phone will only give you basic functions.

 

[anon(7901790)]

It is built in. It is called "Virtual Shot." You access it like you access the Pro camera.

 

[youngjediboy]

It is built in. It is called "Virtual Shot." You access it like you access the Pro camera.

Virtual shot is a totally different thing. It's for shooting something like a product or item and you move the camera around it to create a virtual or 3D video or animated GIF kind of thing. Photosphere is where you stay in one spot and shoot the environment around you like a street view or any other 360-degree image. Before the 360 cams got popular, this was the only way to manually shoot 360 photos on your phone.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Virtual Shot does it too. It doesn't to a 360 though.

 

[youngjediboy]

Virtual Shot does it too. It doesn't to a 360 though.

Again it's NOT the same thing. It's for shooting around a subject just as it instructs you to do if you use that mode. Even the logo for Virtual Shot shows a box and an arrow around it. It's not designed for shooting Photospheres or 360 or anything like that.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Ok. Then explain how I managed to do it then with Virtual Shot?

 

[youngjediboy]

Ok. Then explain how I managed to do it then with Virtual Shot?

Ok, please post your Virtual shot that shows a Photosphere or 360 like panorama. Facebook, Google, etc recognizes those types of shots as 360 or panorama photos and lets you click to look around.

Edited: I just did a test shot with Virtual Shot and all it is basically a short video or animated GIF that loops... it does nothing like what Photosphere or any panorama shooting mode does (which takes multiple shots and stitches/connects them into a single image). Not to mention that Virtual Shot also doesn't even show up in Google Photo or Quickpic except as the first frame of that video.

 

[anon(10211324)]

This is the first disappointment with my S8+. I have hope a decent app will come. I've tried a few, with much disappointment. Google Street view is about the best, and I am not very impressed.

 

[nmyeti]

This is the first disappointment with my S8+. I have hope a decent app will come. I've tried a few, with much disappointment. Google Street view is about the best, and I am not very impressed.

Pretty much the same way I feel. I take Photospheres and publish them to Google Maps all the time. I was expecting the experience to be better on my GS8+ than on my Nexus 6p, but that clearly isn't the case. I reached out to Samsung Mobile USA via twitter. Hopefully they can tell us why the surround shot app isn't available as I would expect Samsung's implementation to be better than Google's street view camera.

 

[youngjediboy]

Pretty much the same way I feel. I take Photospheres and publish them to Google Maps all the time. I was expecting the experience to be better on my GS8+ than on my Nexus 6p, but that clearly isn't the case. I reached out to Samsung Mobile USA via twitter. Hopefully they can tell us why the surround shot app isn't available as I would expect Samsung's implementation to be better than Google's street view camera.

I did the hack mentioned in earlier posts to get Surround Shot installed via the apk download and the few tests I've done it just wasn't very good. There were many stitching errors and some pretty bad seams, so maybe Samsung just scrapped it instead of leaving in a feature that wasn't very good?

Of course it just feels very hacky to have to use the Street View camera to shoot. I only wanted to shoot stuff for fun/personal use and share to facebook, not looking to publish my shots to Google Maps.

 

[nmyeti]

Sharing them to Google maps is a good way to keep record of adventures. If I can't reliably do these with an S8, which should take higher quality 360s than the 6p, i'm going to be disappointed.

https://goo.gl/maps/fX9g7ky6kpG2
https://goo.gl/maps/gvVYPVjeAB82

https://goo.gl/maps/My6bDTznW5m
https://goo.gl/maps/EyRcJvPF4wk
https://goo.gl/maps/6rZ63VbydFF2
https://goo.gl/maps/5mtgNDidcs92
https://goo.gl/maps/jKcUng414sQ2
https://goo.gl/maps/nXDDDaEpdbR2

 

[erasat]

Sharing them to Google maps is a good way to keep record of adventures. If I can't reliably do these with an S8, which should take higher quality 360s than the 6p, i'm going to be disappointed.

https://goo.gl/maps/fX9g7ky6kpG2
https://goo.gl/maps/gvVYPVjeAB82

https://goo.gl/maps/My6bDTznW5m
https://goo.gl/maps/EyRcJvPF4wk
https://goo.gl/maps/6rZ63VbydFF2
https://goo.gl/maps/5mtgNDidcs92
https://goo.gl/maps/jKcUng414sQ2
https://goo.gl/maps/nXDDDaEpdbR2

I don't really know what may be wrong with yours or the APK you sideloaded from the previous post on this thread, but the one that my phone downloaded automatically, I imagine from the galaxy Apps, after I did a restore from the Samsung Cloud with my S7 edge data, works pretty well. I have tried it a couple of weeks ago and I just took another picture and it's pretty good. On Samsung the Mode is called Surround shot and it's working great for the past couple of years with all the latest galaxy phones.

 

[domifer]

Here is a direct link to apkmirror with the latest Samsung surround shot app:

SurroundShot2 1.4.3.0 (1018) APK Download by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. - APKMirror