If you want to take a "panorama" photo, many people's first instinct may be to take out their mobile phone and move the camera horizontally to form a flat image with a horizontal axis of 180 degrees. But in fact, you only need a thumb-sized camera, and you don't need to look at the lens and find the angle, you can capture a 360-degree picture at one time, without splicing. Today, the Shenzhen company Yingshi Innovation has made this compact panoramic camera the first in the world. Chen Yongqiang, co-founder of Shadowstone, said in an interview with reporters that panoramic image technology is not only a way to shoot, it can allow users to feel the atmosphere and details of the scene more realistically, bringing a more immersive visual experience. In the future, with the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, panoramic images will become a more popular and important way of visual expression, and panoramic cameras that can shoot VR content will also become an indispensable image production tool.
Chen Yongqiang
Build a 360-degree camera that's "ready to shoot".
"The advantage of young people starting a business is that it is simple, flat and fast." Chen Yongqiang, co-founder of Shadowstone, recalled that several partners of the company wanted to make a breakthrough in video, but in the process of starting a business, they found that the cameras on the market needed to wait for a long time and post-splicing to shoot 360-degree pictures, which was very troublesome and costly. So he made a quick decision to transform from a pure software entrepreneurial team to make hardware products, which is the classic thinking of entrepreneurs in the Internet era. Subsequently, several young people with a keen sense of entrepreneurship took advantage of the wind and founded Shadowstone Innovation.
"When we first started our business, panoramic cameras were still a new thing for most people, and we began to see that users were actually getting more and more 'lazy'. What users really want is not a camera, but cool content that can be quickly generated and shared on social media. It is this insight that we believe we should go out of our own way, and that is - to impress consumers with good content. Chen Yongqiang told reporters.
In 2014, the founding team of Shadowstone got inspiration from the popular 360-degree panoramic video on the Internet. At that time, many foreign brands had already launched panoramic cameras, but users needed to connect the camera and mobile phone together through WiFi, and it took more than ten minutes for users to upload the video to the mobile phone after shooting, and it took another ten minutes to complete the video splicing.
"We feel that this pain point needs to be solved, so that users can shoot immediately." Chen Yongqiang recalled that at that time, he wanted to launch a panoramic camera for the public, which could be directly plugged into the mobile phone and used, which could instantly generate panoramic pictures and share them with one click. Chen Yongqiang said with a smile: "So we have a brand name, and we want (instant) + 360-degree picture = Insta360." The brand "Insta360" continues to be used to this day.
Chen Yongqiang and his proud products.
"After choosing to do the hardware product track, I did not hesitate to set up the company in Shenzhen, which has the natural advantage of being very friendly to entrepreneurs." Chen Yongqiang explained that in Shenzhen, you can purchase spare parts and raw materials required by enterprises efficiently, at low prices and with high quality, and you can find all hardware supporting enterprises without leaving Bao'an District, which is one of the reasons why Shenzhen attracts so many entrepreneurs. He stressed that in terms of supply chain, the Greater Bay Area has a wide range of supply chain and market resources, and its advantages are irreplaceable. With the development and growth of the company and the introduction of new products, the supply chain guarantee within a two-hour drive in the Greater Bay Area provides more business opportunities and development space for enterprises.
He believes that with the popularization of technologies such as VR and 5G, VR content creation will explode, and panoramic cameras that can shoot VR content will also become an indispensable tool for image production.
A selfie stick can also guide the user's needs
Like many Chinese technology companies, Insta360 maintains a relatively fast pace in product updates and iterations, and can launch more than seven new products almost every year. "Later, we found that in addition to the obvious pain points of product use, many times it is difficult for users to describe what their specific needs are," Chen Yongqiang said, for example, "In fact, you can see that many videos shot with our products do not appear selfie sticks, because we found that in a sports video, the image of the user holding the pole will look very abrupt and aesthetically ruined." If you need a dedicated pilot or photographer to follow the shot, the cost is high. Therefore, we pioneered the invisible selfie stick function in the entire field of action cameras, and the structural and algorithmic advantages of the panoramic camera make the selfie stick disappear in the entire frame. Before that, however, no one felt that having a selfie stick in the picture was a big problem, and it could be said that it was a completely blank market. And once there is a product that can hide the selfie stick, it is difficult for users to accept that there are still selfie sticks in the picture. It can be said that our technology research and development has invisibly guided the user's demand for invisible selfie sticks. ”
He also revealed that compared with traditional action cameras, the Insta360 panoramic action camera's "shoot first, frame later" feature reduces the waste rate, and one footage can be used multiple times, maximizing the efficiency of information recording. In addition, the panoramic camera does not need to look at the lens and find the angle when using it, so that people can be more immersed in the sports state, reduce the risk of injury when shooting, and improve the use experience qualitatively.
A company that always loves to "live".
As the user group grows larger and more people play together, Chen Yongqiang perceives the boldness and breakthrough of the brand gene from the perspective of users, including some creative people among the company's colleagues, combined with the design characteristics of the product, "So, at that time, we decided on the brand Slogan: 'Think Bold' (bold thinking)." We hope that through interesting products and technologies, we can inspire everyone to create better gameplay and creativity, and bring you new or joyful feelings. ”
Insta360 products are constantly updated and iterated.
The user wears a bee suit and bites the panoramic camera to run in the flower field, pretending to be a happy "bee"; Holding the camera in your mouth to shoot "Attack on Titan"; Use your thumb camera to record "Immersion as a Baby". Shadowstone's innovative products not only meet the needs of consumers in various application scenarios, but also inspire consumers to create a variety of creative inspiration. Searching for #Fly with Shadow Stone#, #带着影石骑摩托#, #带着影石去滑雪# on social media such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, you can see that many users are using Shadow Stone cameras to record their lives realistically every day, and spread them like "tap water" on social media.
Not only in terms of product and marketing, but also in terms of employee rewards, the company also has creative ideas - rewarding employees with "golden keycaps" on the Programmer's Day, and customizing "golden C keys" and "golden space bars" to the programmers with the largest amount of effective code, meaning Create (creation), which is the envy of programmers in major factories, and once rushed to the hot search topic on the same day.
"These brain-opening ideas have allowed us to see more possibilities for our products." Chen Yongqiang said. Shadowstone's innovative professional-grade VR panoramic cameras are widely used in sports, film and television, news, real estate, entertainment, education, medical care and other fields, actively driving the upgrading and transformation of consumption structure and driving the rapid growth of related industries.
"Users who know Shadowstone's innovative products can perceive that our brand is very bold and creative. As our brand Slogan - Think Bold said, everything starts with daring, emphasizing the word 'dare'", Chen Yongqiang said, "It is precisely because of this concept that we have turned a small technical inspiration into a product, and gradually built into a global intelligent imaging brand." He said: "We want our imaging products to create a natural, soft and intuitive connection with users. Let our products give users the feeling that they can be more 'unconscious', more 'soul-capturing', and more 'unique'."
Chen Yongqiang
Born in 1991, he is the co-founder and director of Yingshi Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. In 2016, he won the runner-up of the 2nd China "Internet +" College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition; In 2017, he was listed on the Forbes China 30 Under 30 Elite List; In 2020, he won the title of the 4th "Shenzhen Top 100 Industry Leaders"; In 2021, he won the first "Shenzhen Youth May Fourth Medal" of the Shenzhen Youth League Municipal Committee; In August of the same year, he was awarded the title of 100 Innovative Strivers in Shenzhen.
Reporter: Zhao Jun
Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee
Editor: Chen Jianguo