People do many creative things with 360-degree cameras. Athletes can take the compact cameras skiing, scientists can rocket them into space, and as Insta360 has shown in a new video, professional drivers can throw them around corners at breakneck speed.
Filmmaker Alexey Orlov, creator of the incredible LexiMount, and driver Matt Field teamed up to film incredible footage of Field and other drivers throwing high-end drift cars around the winding corners at the iconic Laguna Seca racetrack in California, including the track’s famous corkscrew.
Using the Insta360 X3 action camera on Orlov’s LexiMount, which is machined to allow g-force to push the camera in the opposite direction of the vehicle, the drift footage is incredible and dynamic. Add in clever editing to make the footage look like it is straight from a video game, like Forza or Gran Turismo, and viewers are treated to a real spectacle.
The X3 captures 5.7K resolution 360-degree video and can shoot still images at up to 72 megapixels. The X3 sports a dual-camera design and larger sensors than its predecessor. Although it launched in 2022 for $450, the X3 is now available for $400.
Insta360 has also shared a behind-the-scenes video to show how the featured drifting video was created.
For the petrol heads in the audience, Field’s drift car is quite interesting. However, the car he’s working on now is even cooler. Field is building the world’s first manual transmission Chevy Corvette C8 drift car, and he started with a car with a flood title.
The four-time Formula Drift winner has been building the car for a while now and the journey is documented on his YouTube channel. Most recently, Field finalized the car’s fuel system. Although still a work in progress, it is coming together well, and Field expects to test it on the track this year before possibly entering it into professional competition in 2025.
Field’s current car, as seen in the videos in this article, is a heavily modified C6 Corvette.
The LexiMount is far from the first time someone has gotten creative to capture amazing drift photos and footage. In the video above, motorsports photographer Larry Chen drifts his Nissan 350Z at Apple Valley Speedway in California while capturing photos of himself using a Canon EOS R3 and a set of Pocket Wizards.