Spear Exclusive: BubbleScope

The world is all around us but traditional cameras only capture what is directly in front of our eyes. For most people, this is no more than a slight annoyance. We use the panorama feature on our digital camera which lets us take in a little more of the view than usual (and takes a little more time than usual), and occasionally we come across a professionally made 360 degree image like the ones on Google Streets or this shot of the Divinity School at Oxford. These images are great"”and helpful"”but most people are fine with leaving them to the professionals.

But Tom Lawton is not most people. He’s the inventor of the BubbleScope, a hand held 360 degree camera aimed at bringing panoramic photography to the point-and-shoot crowd as well as the professional photographer. The BubbleScope looks like a white light saber and it allows anyone to capture 360×140 degrees of reality with just the push of a button"”as Tom says on his frantic and eloquent introduction to the Bubble Scope, “shoot the whole thing in a single moment.” The BubbleScope isn’t available for purchase yet, but look for it to hit stores soon. Meanwhile, learn more about it on the highly informative BubbleScope website, and you can see what it can do at Tom’s blog, which is chock full of his 360 degree photography. As Tom says, “the world we live in is far too big” for conventional photography. He might be right, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it"”until now.

–Dan Steckenberg