Insta360 Invisible ¼ Inch Screw Adjustable Length Selfie Stick for ONE RS ONE X2 & X3 Cameras

Product Information

The last attempt had HDR, but the ONE RS adds Active HDR, which is uniquely designed for capturing sports and fast action outdoors (though not in low light conditions). This video mode retains details in highlights and shadows and boosts colour, but also adds some FlowState Stabilization.

Insta360 has so far been very good at getting useful updates out, including the desktop and mobile apps. I’ve noticed no obvious or consistent difference in the video quality between the One X2 and the One R in 360 mode. Ultimately, it’s a lot of fun coming up with new mounting positions for a 360 camera, but I also find it saves a lot of time, and gives great results. This also reflects a broader issue that's worth noting – you'll need a fairly recent phone or tablet to make the most of the Insta360 One X2's app. For iPhones, you need a model with the A11 chip or above (effectively anything from the iPhone 8/8 Plus onwards), while on Android you'll ideally need a phone that has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, Exynos 9810 or Kirin 980 chip or above (think Samsung Galaxy S9 or Huawei Mate 20 and up). Editing via the app now comes with a new Snap Wizard mode, which allows you to move your phone or swipe to reframe.The overall design is smart and attractive and the aluminium components make it feel solid in the hand. With a 19.5cm folded length and a weight of around 170g it’s still nice and portable when travelling. Unlike a lot of its more budget rivals, the ATUMTEK’s mount is rotatable, allowing for nicely balanced shooting in both portrait and landscape orientations. The only issue with Shot Lab is that despite it telling you exactly what to do to satisfy the needs of each template it’s very difficult to tell from the camera roll exactly which clip is relevant to each template. Is the Insta360 ONE RS a novelty or a serious filmmaking device? Unique in the market, the ONE RS is designed to appeal to anyone who would normally consider a GoPro yet yearns to at least have a go at 360º. Charging the remote is done via a microUSB cable, so it’s a shame it’s not the USB-C of the camera, though a full charge easily lasts at least two full camera batteries.

It’s designed to work with the One X2, One R or One X and allows you to control the camera remotely (the clue’s in the name). This can of course be very handy if the camera’s out of reach, but be warned – pressing the square button changes modes, so you could easily switch into timelapse, for instance, and not notice. The mode is displayed on the remote’s screen, but when you’re riding, the last thing you want to do is study this. The One X2 is slightly larger than its predecessor, but this is barely noticeable and the main benefit is that it has room for a larger battery. Inside you get a removable 1,630mAh cell, which promises to keep shooting for around 80 minutes of video (up from the 60 minutes of its predecessor). With a full 1hr 28mins of filming time, the Insta360 One R has plenty of battery life for me to get an entire day filming everything I need for a road test. The One R gave me 58 minutes with the standard battery, which was fine for me, but this is an impressive boost.

The Insta360 ONE RS Twin Edition combines detailed and colourful 4K with 6K widescreen, 360º and 48MP photos

When using the ONE RS you can swipe left and right to toggle between the various modes. For photos there’s Standard, HDR, Interval, Night Shot, Starlapse, Burst, PureShot – with images in 16:9, 9:16 and now in 2.35:1 widescreen – while for video there’s Standard Video, Slow Motion, Active HDR, Timelapse, TimeShift, Loop Recording and 6K Widescreen. In reality, that means you get a wide field of view wherever you point the camera in the edit; you can zoom in, but go too far and the quality starts to drop off… this is not like setting a GoPro to 4K knowing you can crop in later for a 1080P video. The most significant is that the camera now has IPX8-rated waterproofing, which means you can take it underwater to 10 meters without needing a case.

Of course, another advantage of being able to edit the viewpoint after filming is that you can put the camera at the side of the road and ride past, then pan in post-production, giving the impression of a videographer standing there. One of the new modes that's exclusive to the One X2 is 'Steady Cam Mode', which effectively lets you use choose one of the two lenses and use the camera as a standard action cam. While the BBC world service and plenty of other pro teams use GoPros, they’re only just broadcast quality; technically the Insta360 isn’t really, but it’s still very, very good. Video clips are up to 30 minutes in length, which is more than enough for anything I’ve done, though film longer than that and you will notice a gap of a few seconds between the end of the first clip and the start of the second.Little things like the space bar not starting and stopping video mean the desktop app still isn’t quite perfect, and it can take a little getting used to, but you’ll soon be blasting through footage before incorporating it into Premiere Pro, Final Cut, iMovie, PowerDirector, Davinci or whatever editing software you use. So far, though, we'd say it looks similar to the One X in terms of quality, which is to be expected given that it appears to have an identical image sensor that shoots 5.7K video and 18Mp stills with a maximum bit-rate of 100Mbps. I’m very impressed with the audio from the One X2. Wind noise at a standstill is well controlled and allows decent speech, while in shelter it’s very good. I’d say my GoPro Hero 7 has the slight edge in speech quality as it sounds a little less processed, but I’ve no problem with the One X2. The rubberised handgrip doubles up as a tripod base and an iOS and Android compatible Bluetooth remote is included for hands-free shooting. The mic adaptor allows you to plug a lavalier microphone in directly, or radio kit, and it’s here the cold shoe adaptor could be handy if you have the Rode Wireless Go