Ricoh announces Theta spherical camera device for $399

Taking panoramic pictures has now become a fun-filled activity for most smartrphone and digital camera owners who love to create and share such images. This new device will make taking breathtaking panoramic images an easy job now.

Japanese imaging company, Ricoh, has unveiled the brand new Theta camera at the IFA 2013 in Berlin that boasts of being the world’s first mass produced 360-degree imaging device. The camera is a hand-held one that captures spherical scenes with merely a click of a button.

Ricoh Theta is small and portable

The Theta will come with a proprietary ultra-small twin-lens folded optical system that will capture scenes around, above and below the device in a single shot to produce spherical images. The device is a fairly slim one and weighs only 95-grams. The Theta can fit into the palm of your hand, making the device truly portable.

The device will have 4GB of internal memory and will let you take about 1,200 shots with it. It will also have an internal lithium ion battery that will be chargeable via a USB cable and will be good to click 200 images per full charge.

Like most smart cameras being released now, the device can be synced with smartphones to send photos to them directly via Wi-Fi. You will be able to view images on your phones using a dedicated application and share it on not just Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, but also Microsoft’s Photosynth and the theta360 website as well.

Sample images taken from the Ricoh Theta

At launch, the Ricoh Theta will be compatible with the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 5 that run iOS 6.0 and up. For now, it only has iOS compatibility but Android support is due to come to Ricoh Theta by the end of this year. The device won’t come too cheap, though. The Ricoh Theta is priced at $399 and will be available for pre-order this month in France, Germany, the UK and the US. The device will start shipping in October to these countries but there is no word on the international release yet.