You have decided you want a virtual tour, but how do you decide who to use? It would seem that more and more virtual tour "experts" appear in Google every time you look.
Many companies will sell you "high quality full screen" virtual tours but in reality few actually do - the result is an almost worthless small sized low quality tour. You will have wasted your money and your website visitors leave disappointed....read on....
Poor quality virtual tours, the main reason?If your Virtual Tour photographer turns up to shoot with one of these lenses - show them the door! How do we know they deliver poor results? - we have one - and to prove how poor they are, view the comparison...
Click to view: One Shot Lens Image, Our Standard Full Screen High Quality Tour Image. If you want to read a more detailed comparison between oneshot and traditional lens photography you can read our one shot lens article.
One shot lenses cannot produce high quality images, they cannot produce full 360 degree virtual tours and they cannot produce full screen images at any acceptable level of quality. Make sure your tour provider does not use any type of one shot lens. Do not be fooled and do not be told any different. IPIX™ tours also tend to be smaller and low quality tours - these should also be avoided.
All pikoDesign tours are produced with the highest quality professional photographic lenses and equipment from manufacturers such as Canon, Sigma and Manfrotto. Every tour is high quality and full screen as standard - no compromises - no short cuts.
Many tour providers use off-the-shelf virtual tour package software such as "Tourweaver". The problem with one size fits all package software is that one size does not fit all. This type of software is severely restricting in the options made available to the tour developer and ultimately you, the customer. This type of software uses preset templates into which tours are placed - the result being many tours look the same. We do not use off the shelf tour package software which means each tour is custom built from scratch to meet your exact needs and the result is always superior.
Any tour company should be happy to show you their work - how else can you judge them? The problem is many tour companies will list samples of panoramas they did not actually produce. This is common practice for tour providers who work as "agents", "affiliates" or "consultants" for other tour providers. Where it may appear they have many virtual tours they may in fact only have created one or two. Look at their samples - do they host the tours or are they hosted by someone else - do you see their copyright notice or logo or is it someone else?
Note: These agents usually get a one shot lens and camera bundle supplied by a parent tour company and given some training. Incredible as it may seem, they are then pushed out the door as "expert" panoramic virtual tour photographers!
"The No.1 Virtual Tour Company", "Leading Virtual Tour Company" - You have seen the headlines and claims, but are they true? Does a company's standard of work and list of clients match the claims - usually not.
We don't claim to be the greatest tour company in the world BUT we do rank ourselves as one of the best providers of true 360 degree full screen high quality tours in the UK and believe the quality of our work stands ahead of the competition by every measure.
Don't take our word for it, all we ask is you do your research and make up your own mind!
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Virtual tour BlogOur BLOG for anything and everything related to virtual tours and more.. |
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Helping you decideChoosing a virtual tour provider. Our guide to help you make the right choice. |
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Virtual tours explainedGetting around the jargon associated with virtual tours. |
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