Running a 360 booth outdoors

Most advice about 360 booths assumes a dark reception room, and most of it is
about getting more light. Take the booth outside and nearly all of that
reverses. You have more light than you could ever want, it comes from one
direction, and you cannot move it.

Garden weddings, festivals, school fetes, brand activations in a car park. They
are some of the best looking clips you will ever shoot, and some of the easiest
to get wrong.

Why is the sun a problem for a 360 booth?

Because the camera goes all the way around the guest, and the sun stays where
it is.

For the part of the spin where the sun is behind the camera, your guests are
beautifully lit. For the part where the sun is behind your guests, the camera
is shooting straight into it, and they become dark shapes against a bright sky.
Same take, same guests, opposite results.

This is the "light on a stand" case from
lighting a 360 booth, except the stand is the
size of the sky and you cannot pick it up. Indoors the fix is a light that
travels with the camera. Outdoors that does not work, because no light you can
carry is brighter than direct sun.

What actually fixes it?

Shade. Not more light, less direction.

Direct sun is one bright point. Shade turns it into light arriving from
everywhere at once, from the sky, the ground and whatever is nearby. Light from
everywhere has no side to be behind, so there is no part of the spin where your
guests turn into silhouettes.

In practice that means:

Put the booth under cover if there is any: a marquee, a gazebo, a covered
terrace, the shade of a building. Even thin fabric overhead helps.

An overcast day is a gift. Cloud is the biggest diffuser there is. The
flat, even light that looks dull to your eye is close to ideal for a 360 booth.

Mind the low sun. Late afternoon and early evening sun comes in almost
sideways, underneath most cover. The golden hour that photographers love is the
hardest time of day for a 360 booth in the open.

What does direct sun do to the phone?

Makes it hot, and a hot phone slows itself down.

A booth phone is already filming, rendering and uploading for hours. Add direct
sun on its back and it heats up faster than it can shed it. Phones protect
themselves by throttling, so rendering slows and the queue backs up. The app
does not manage device temperature and no booth app can. It is the hardware
protecting itself.

Keep the phone in shade even if the platform is not. Take the case off,
because a case is insulation. Give it airflow rather than a mount pressed
flat against its back.
What goes wrong at a 360 booth has the
full list for a phone that is struggling.

Does flicker still matter outside?

Not in daylight, and yes after dark.

Sunlight does not flicker. Flicker comes from lights running on mains power,
and the sun is not one of them. So a daytime outdoor event is the one situation
where you can forget about banding entirely.

That changes when the sun goes down and the festoon lights come on. Many string
and festoon lights run on mains and can band exactly like indoor fixtures.
Check that your booth's flicker setting matches the country you are working in
before the evening part of the event.
Why your 360 clips flicker explains the
setting.

What about the ground, the wind and the power?

These are the outdoor problems that have nothing to do with the camera, and
they are the ones that end an event early.

The ground. Grass is rarely flat. A spinning arm on uneven ground wobbles,
and a wobble shows up in every clip. It is also a safety problem with guests
stepping on and off. Bring something rigid and level to stand the booth on, and
check it before the first guest rather than after.

The wind. A light stand is a sail. So is anything tall. Weigh down every
stand and keep an eye on it as the day goes on, because wind picks up.

The power. The socket is usually far away, sometimes a generator, sometimes
nothing. Plan the cable run before you arrive and assume the phone will not
last the day on its own battery.

The wifi. Usually none worth relying on. Decide in advance how clips will
reach guests without it.
Running a booth with no wifi covers
what to set up beforehand.

The rain. Obvious, and still worth saying. Have cover for the electronics
even if the forecast is clear.

How should you set up when you arrive?

Find shade first, before you unpack anything. Where the booth can go is
decided by where the light is kind, not by where it looks best.

Level the base and check it with the platform empty and again with someone
standing on it.

Record a test take and watch the whole spin back. Outdoors, the problem is
almost always one side of the orbit. You will only see it if you watch the
entire take, not the first second.

Check again as the sun moves. A spot that was in shade at two o'clock can
be in full sun at five. Outdoor setups drift in a way indoor ones never do.

The short version

Indoors you fight for light. Outdoors you fight its direction. Find shade, keep
the phone cool, level the ground, and watch a full test take every time the
light changes.

Get those right and outdoor clips are often the best you will shoot all year,
because once the sun is soft there is no light like it.