The one shot or spherical lens was heralded as a revolution in creating panoramic images. It was going to revolutionize the industry as it literally takes only one click on the camera to capture an entire 360 degree view. An amazing shortcut to creating stunning panoramic images. A seamless image with no stitching required.
That's the problem about taking shortcuts - something else has got to go. Unfortunately for the one shot lens there are two MAJOR problems: quality and field of view.
To capture a scene, the camera takes a photograph of the reflective surface of the spherical/cone shaped component of the lens. The reflective cone is a polished surface made from chrome or other similar material. That's where the problem lies - you are taking a photo of a reflection in a polished surface. Compare that to a traditional camera lens - a combination of very high quality precision made glass components where there is no loss in clarity and detail - there is no comparison where quality is concerned. For this reason the one shot spherical lens can only ever generate small low quality panoramic images.
The one shot lens permits a 360 degree view in only the horizontal direction. Vertically you are typically restricted to around 120 degrees (the eye can see almost 180 degrees) - this means you are not going to get a 360 degree view in every direction. When you walk into a room, a concert hall or a museum you look everywhere including all the way from the ceiling to the floor. You website visitors expect the same of your virtual tour.
If they are low quality why are they used? Well our experience tells us that they are quick. A oneshot takes seconds to setup and shoot and the processing of the image once downloaded from the camera just takes a few minutes. So where the oneshot tour will take typically 5 minutes from start to finish our high quality - full screen - HDR photography and post processing can typically take 60+ minutes per image.
Why do some companies use the spherical one shot lens? They are putting speed, convenience and money ahead of quality for you - the paying customer. Not only that, they will try to convince you that you are getting a high quality product. Just ask if they use them! If they do and promise a high quality virtual tour - you are being conned.
We can only tell you why we don't use them - low quality, small panoramas, limited field of view, image distortion (straight lines become bent) and that's just the immediately obvious problems. Remember that there are NO shortcuts to creating a high quality full screen virtual tour.
How can we be so sure one shot lenses deliver such poor results - the reason is we have one. On that basis we are only dealing with facts and experience not speculation on our part.
Have a look at our one shot example. Here are the things to notice: the whole image has poor definition - everything looks out of focus and lacking in detail and zooming in only makes it worse, you cannot view 360 degrees in every direction, straight lines appear bent for example the tops of buildings.
Now compare the same location taken using our professional equipment, there is simply no comparison.
You will find many articles on the internet that objectively review the one shot spherical lens and come to the same conclusion.
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