Rim
Posts: 16
Location:
Registered: 24 Mar 2007
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Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 17 Jun 2007 at 10:11 GMT
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Hi,
I want to shoot a spherical pano of a hotel room at dawn. Because of low light conditions I suppose I should use a f2.8 aperture to let me use a fast shutter speed in order to avoid a blurry handheld nadir shot. My question is: How can I use a f2.8 aperture on this conditions and still get a sharp and nice focused pano? I'm using a D80/10.5 and a 360P. I understand the hyperfocal distance for this setting should be around 1.96 meters but that is not enough to get everything in focus... Is there a better way to do this kind of panos? Should I use a f8 aperture, longer shutter speed and forget about my handheld nadir shoot?
Any help would really be appreciated!
Thanks,
Rim
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John Houghton
Posts: 2308
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 17 Jun 2007 at 12:08 GMT
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Rim said: I understand the hyperfocal distance for this setting should be around 1.96 meters but that is not enough to get everything in focus...
Do you really have things closer than 0.98m (the closest focusing distance)? Anyway, one approach is to take two nadir shots on the head, incrementing yaw by 180 degrees. This will cover everything except the tripod area. Then use the tilted tripod technique to cover that: you shift the tripod sideways and lean it over at a crazy angle so that the camera points vertically down at the now unobstructed nadir. Extend the outside tripod leg and stick your foot on the bottom to stop the tripod toppling over. It works very well.
John
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Rosauro
Posts: 238
Location: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 15 Dec 2006
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Re: Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 17 Jun 2007 at 13:28 GMT
updated: 17 Jun 2007 at 13:56 GMT
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Rim
Here's the tilted tripod technique that John was describing...
Notes on the image above:
1 - Adjust the two front tripod legs.
2 - In case the tripod's legs slips, ready your left hand to catch the camera.
3 - The right foot is the main holding point. The left foot prevents the front tripod legs from slipping back.
Use a remote to trigger the shutter.
This may or may not work for you though. I'm guessing you have the 360P Absolute. With this technique you'll need to angle the upper arm of the pano head to get a leveled shot.
Here's another technique, with the same set up as above, avoiding shadows.
rosaurophotography.com/html/technical6_1.html
Rosauro
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John Houghton
Posts: 2308
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 17 Jun 2007 at 16:00 GMT
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I think it's better to add alpha channel masks to the two nadir images to mask out the head and tripod, and then stitch these images along with all the others. You can also keep the camera pointing vertically down when taking the shifted shot. After defishing, the image will then already match a rectilinear view of the nadir extracted from the stitched equirectangular reasonably well. Only minor tweaking is needed to make the patch perfect. It's easier to edit areas with straight line features like tiles without the fisheye distortion.
John
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Rim
Posts: 16
Location:
Registered: 24 Mar 2007
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Re: Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 18 Jun 2007 at 6:25 GMT
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John and Rosauro,
Thank you very much for your time and helpful advice!
I'll definitely try to use this method in low light conditions.
My only concern comes with my pano head (Rosauro was right, I'm using a 360P Absolute), the base is very big, so I think I will have to tilt the tripod a lot to stop the base from covering my nadir. It will be very difficult to obtain a -90 degree camera angle at the desire height to captue the necessary nadir space. From what I undestand from Rosauro's tutorials there is no problem if I put the camera in a -45 angle and a bit farther from the nadir center. Then I can make the editting in Photoshop. I'm I right?
I'm also supposing that after tilting the tripod, the camera height can be a little lower compared to its original height and this won't be a problem if its still covering the space I need...
Thanks again for your help!
Best regards,
Rim
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Rosauro
Posts: 238
Location: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 15 Dec 2006
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Re: Sharp pano v.s. handheld nadir shot at low light conditions?
Posted: 18 Jun 2007 at 9:22 GMT
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Rim said: From what I undestand from Rosauro's tutorials there is no problem if I put the camera in a -45 angle and a bit farther from the nadir center
There is no exact degree or angle that the camera was placed at. In that particular tutorial, avoiding shadows, it was angled enough so that the camera was angled enough and placed closed enough to the nadir so that there was no shadow.
Then yes, you can edit in Photoshop.
Rim said: I'm also supposing that after tilting the tripod, the camera height can be a little lower compared to its original height and this won't be a problem if its still covering the space I need...
Yes it can be a "little" lower. But remember you'll have to "transform" in Photoshop. Most nadir shots that are shot hand held or with a horizontal tripod center column are normally a bit off from the original height. So no worries.
Rosauro
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