NoobPatel
Posts: 10
Location: Sri Lanka
Registered: 12 Jan 2012
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Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 17:48 GMT
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Hi,
I am a wedding photographer from Sri Lanka & I am thrilled about learning to shoot panoramas. Browsed thru the forums & seems to be a whole world of information. I was thinking of planning to offer panoramas for my clients along with regular photographs. I own a Canon 50D & Sigma 8-16mm & some other lenses. Is the Sigma 8-16 good enough for shooting full 360 panoramas? Or should I buy a prime fish eye lens?
How many shots would be good enough for Sigma 8-16 lens?
I understand from the forum that a panoramic head is a must for good quality panoramas. I visited the Nodal Ninja website which I guess most people here use, which one will suit my needs? Nodal Ninja 3 or 4 or R1? I am confused kindly suggest?
Thanks in advance,
Neil
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mediavets
Posts: 1980
Location: Isleham, Cambs., United Kingdom
Registered: 8 Feb 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 19:22 GMT
updated: 12 Jan 2012 at 19:23 GMT
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NeilPatel said: How many shots would be good enough for Sigma 8-16 lens?
Welcome to the forum...
This is a pattern for the Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm so it will give you a fair idea:
Recommended (1.5x, 1.6x): N, 4 images every 90° at -60° pitch, 8 images every 45° at 0° pitch, 4 images every 90° at +60° pitch, no zenith image required.
For other lenses see:
www.vrwave.com/panoramic-lens-database/
Andrew
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 20:28 GMT
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vrwave.com doesn't have any details for 8mm rectilinear lenses. Putting a few dummy images into PTGui shows that the images should have an fov of 85°x108°. 6 shots around will therefore be fine. A single row + zenith looks to be just possible but barely practical, so I would suggest a row at pitch +45° and another at -30°, so 12 shots in all + a nadir shot if wanted. No zenith needed. This may not be the optimum configuration for best quality, however, since a row at pitch 0° would be needed to use the sharpest part of the images for the central part of the panorama where the interest usually lies.
I did find a sample panorama taken with this lens posted a few days ago - see www.panoguide.com/forums/galleries/8838/ .
John
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DennisS
Posts: 1292
Location: Los Anglels, United States
Registered: 1 Sep 2007
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 20:54 GMT
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Recommended (1.5x, 1.6x): N, 4 images every 90° at -60° pitch, 8 images every 45° at 0° pitch, 4 images every 90° at +60° pitch, no zenith image required.
Nikon D300 (1.5x) - 8 around at zero, two Zenith straight up at 90 degrees from each other, two Nadir straight down at 90 degrees to each other. 12 shots instead of 16.
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 21:15 GMT
updated: 12 Jan 2012 at 21:16 GMT
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Something like a Sigma 8mm fisheye would cut your number of shots down to 4H+Z+N, four horizontal, a Zenith straight up shot and a Nadir straight down shot, 5 shots total
If you're suggesting shooting panoramas of weddings, the people moving around will be a problem that fewer shots will help reduce
A guy in Brazil is shooting panoramas of weddings in progress and chose a lens that could capture everything in 3 shots: the Sigma 8mm on a camera with a full frame sensor. For your cropped sensor you'd need a Sigma 4.5mm or a Sunex 5.6mm to do just 3 shots. But you'll give up a lot of resolution compared to the Sigma 8mm on your camera
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iam360Texas
Posts: 298
Location: Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Registered: 12 Jul 2006
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 12 Jan 2012 at 23:29 GMT
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Actually Sigma 8mm fisheye tilted up 5° you only need to take 4 imageas around.. for full sphere image projection.. with a medium sized hole in bottom .. where you can put an advertising tripod hole cap. Pano2vr will help you do this feature.
Dave still at 360texas.com
You wrote:
"Something like a Sigma 8mm fisheye would cut your number of shots down to 4H+Z+N, four horizontal, a Zenith straight up shot and a Nadir straight down shot, 5 shots total"
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 4:22 GMT
updated: 13 Jan 2012 at 4:23 GMT
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With his Canon, he'll need to tilt 7.5° to close the Zenith because part of the top of the curve is cut off with the smaller sensor
I've just gotten better stitches with a Zenith shot pulling the top of the image together with my Sigma 8mm on an XTi
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NoobPatel
Posts: 10
Location: Sri Lanka
Registered: 12 Jan 2012
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 6:07 GMT
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Thanks for the warm welcome from the community, really amazed with the support from everyone. More questions arise-
John Houghton said: A single row + zenith looks to be just possible but barely practical, so I would suggest a row at pitch +45° and another at -30°, so 12 shots in all + a nadir shot if wanted. No zenith needed.
Shooting with people is it possible to shoot 12 pics without errors? Do the images blend well in such case?
Doug Aurand said: Something like a Sigma 8mm fisheye would cut your number of shots down to 4H+Z+N, four horizontal, a Zenith straight up shot and a Nadir straight down shot, 5 shots total
If you're suggesting shooting panoramas of weddings, the people moving around will be a problem that fewer shots will help reduce
A guy in Brazil is shooting panoramas of weddings in progress and chose a lens that could capture everything in 3 shots: the Sigma 8mm on a camera with a full frame sensor. For your cropped sensor you'd need a Sigma 4.5mm or a Sunex 5.6mm to do just 3 shots. But you'll give up a lot of resolution compared to the Sigma 8mm on your camera
What are the typical final resolutions of your panos? And what maybe the result I get with my 15mp using Sigma 4.5mm? What resolution is good enough for web viewing? How challenging is it to shoot with Sigma 8mm with crowd? Generally how quickly do the pros like you here click one pano?
iam360Texas said: Actually Sigma 8mm fisheye tilted up 5° you only need to take 4 imageas around.. for full sphere image projection.. with a medium sized hole in bottom .. where you can put an advertising tripod hole cap. Pano2vr will help you do this feature.
I tried pano2vr trial and looks easy enough to me(compared to the rest of the process  ) Generally how big hole is generated with 5deg tilted up? Sorry for bombarding with all these questions because I cannot make a trial as I dont have the lens in discussion. Depending on your inputs here I can buy the necessary gear & get back with workflow related queries.
Coming to the Pano head, I felt Ultimate R1 maybe useful for quickly changing camera orientation to horizantal for scenes with people. Any suggestions for head? Another query here is does the stitching software accept images with different orientations?
Thanks in advance,
Neil
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 8:52 GMT
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NeilPatel said: Shooting with people is it possible to shoot 12 pics without errors? Do the images blend well in such case?
For subjects with a lot of movement you would want to use a lens with a wider angle of view to minimize the number of seams and allow a generous amount of image overlap. A fisheye would be the best option. For the 8-16mm rectlinear lens, the best you could do would be to have a level row of 6 shots plus two rows of 3 at pitch +/- 60 degrees. Using a smart blender such as Smartblend will help in routing seams around the edges of objects in order to minimize stitching errors. Masks can also be used to do the same manually.
what maybe the result I get with my 15mp using Sigma 4.5mm? What resolution is good enough for web viewing?
Based on a sample set of images from a D300, the maximum panorama size would be 5268x2634, which is possibly just big enough for fullscreen viewing. 6000x3000 is generally regarded as a minimum, though the image quality of the lens is also a factor.
does the stitching software accept images with different orientations?
The stitching software can handle images shot in mixed orientations, but it's best if the images are supplied to the stitcher all in portrait or all in landscape. This is because the lens parameters (e.g. horizontal field of view) will then be consistent for all the images.
John
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Tim Eastman
Posts: 133
Location:
Registered: 13 Nov 2006
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 15:04 GMT
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NeilPatel said: What are the typical final resolutions of your panos? And what maybe the result I get with my 15mp using Sigma 4.5mm? What resolution is good enough for web viewing? How challenging is it to shoot with Sigma 8mm with crowd? Generally how quickly do the pros like you here click one pano?
Final resolution is very much a matter of personal opinion.
Like John H says, you'd get between 5000x2500 to 6000x3000 with the Sigma 4.5mm on a 15mm sensor.
These links are real estate tours I did recently, the images are 3000x1500 at 75% Quality
vabq.com/10CalleArbolito/TourWeaver_10CalleArbolito.html
vabq.com/6504CalleCandelaNW/TourWeaver_6504CalleCandelaNW.html
The images in the tour of the Pit (Basketball Arena) are 3500x1750 at 80%.
vabq.com/GoLobos/TourWeaver_ThePit.html
You can decide for yourelf if they have enough resolution for web viewing
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Vilmer
Posts: 451
Location: Argentina
Registered: 23 May 2007
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 19:41 GMT
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Yes,
3000x1500 is a perfect resolution.
When you're using an iPhone.
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 20:35 GMT
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My Realtor customers and their customers, the home sellers, are all happy with it.
Just got a nice compliment from the seller of a small ranch south of Albuquerque through the Realtor who hired me.
Thought his ranch looked "fantastic"
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Vilmer
Posts: 451
Location: Argentina
Registered: 23 May 2007
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 20:59 GMT
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But do they use those pano's scaled/embedded on a page or as full screen? I can't imagine you'll get a reasonable quality at 3000*1500 using a modern screen.
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Doug Aurand
Posts: 3282
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
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Re: Is Sigma 8-16 good enough
Posted: 13 Jan 2012 at 23:45 GMT
updated: 13 Jan 2012 at 23:47 GMT
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Depends on what you consider a modern screen
This link to Web Analytics that Hans posted a few weeks ago show that the majority of screens being used are about 20" or less
gs.statcounter.com/#resolution-na-daily-20101101-...
My Google Analytics shows the same thing.
The computer I do my photo and tour work is 1280x1024, falling right in the middle of the mosted used screen size in the report, and full screen looks fine.
To be honest, when I demostrating my work to Realtors and often home owners when I shooting their homes, I have them find the sample tour themsleves and have seen very few click the Full Screen button unless I suggest it
The iPIX Viewer doesn't have a Full Screen function, so for a while I was making two versions of each image on VirtualAlbuquerque. The larger "Super-Size" images got viewed about 1/10 as many times as the "Standard" size
So I don't see a reason to size my images for a viewing size that isn't the primary viewing size peopple use.
If you're observing different activity by the people who are viewing your work, I can understand why you might want to make the images larger
Later
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