mediavets
Posts: 215
Location: Isleham, Cambs., United Kingdom
Registered: 8 Feb 2008
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Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 8 Feb 2008 at 23:09 GMT
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I am still trying to decide which pano head to buy to use with my Nikon D40 and Nikkor 10.5 fisheye.
I am attracted to the new Nodal Ninja 5 Lite on basis of features and price but I have been unable to find sets of sample images taken using the Nodal Ninja 3, or the new 5, with any sort of fisheye lens.
What I am trying to find out is whether the bottom rail or vertical rail appear in shots taken at zero degrees tilt with fisheye - eiither full circular or full-frame - when using either the Nodal Ninja 3 or 5 pano heads.
Obviously the bottom rail will be seen in 90-degree down shots.
How do others recommend handling the down (nadir) shots.
I note that Karl Harrison - Oxford Panoramas - shooting with a 360Precison head takes two 90-degree down shots rotating the head 180 degrees between the two shots.
But I find that I still have ghosting of the bottom rail after stitching with APP with Smartblend using his sample images shot with Canon 5D and 15mm Canon full circular fisheye.
I want to do a minimum of post-processing so I would prefer a head that did not show the bottom or vertical rails with fisheye lenses.
I think one can avoid the issue with an Agno's MrotatorTCS/TCP head because the bottom rail is offset to the rear on Agno's heads, as opposed to being in line with the axis of rotation which appears to be the case with most (all?) other brands of pano head.
So which head to choose to avoid additional post-processing?
What is the optimum workflow to handle the appearance of the bottom rail in 90-degree down shots for nadir? I don't mind seeing the small circular top of the rotator base and perhaps some of the tripod legs in a finished pano at this stage, but I do not want ghosted appearnace of the botton rail nor do I want issues arising from capturing the vertical rail in shots either.
Andrew
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Hans Nyberg
Posts: 701
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
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Re: Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 8 Feb 2008 at 23:42 GMT
updated: 9 Feb 2008 at 0:05 GMT
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To avoid interference from the rotator or bottom rail you just shoot the 6 around at -10 or 12 degrees.
This means you just shoot 6 around + the zenith.
There is still enough overlap for the zenith image and you do not shoot any nadir at -90 degrees.
around -10 degrees gets you everything you can see with a fullframe fisheye.
Just tilt down until you can see the rotator at the bottom.
The missing part for the nadir is very small and can in most cases be done by cloning but you can of course also shoot a nadir handheld or using other methods for example using viewpoint in PTGui Pro.
Hans
www.panoramas.dk
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Scott DuBose
Posts: 18
Location: San Jose, CA, United States
Registered: 22 Jan 2008
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mediavets
Posts: 215
Location: Isleham, Cambs., United Kingdom
Registered: 8 Feb 2008
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Re: Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 9 Feb 2008 at 9:25 GMT
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Hans,
Thank you so much for the explanation of how to avoid the problem.
Will this technique be equally effective with the NN5 - with a taller vertical rail - as with the smaller NN3?
Regards,
Andrew
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michael medina
Posts: 207
Location: United States
Registered: 27 Jan 2008
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Re: Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 9 Feb 2008 at 9:56 GMT
updated: 9 Feb 2008 at 9:57 GMT
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i would imagine that it would work better with the taller rail. you're a bit farther, so the footprint could be a tiny bit smaller.
by the way i often have the bottom rail in my shots, but they get blended out almost always flawlessly. i did see a darkish spiral in some shots over the snow once.
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Nick Fan
[NodalNinja]
Posts: 221
Location: Hong Kong
Registered: 26 May 2006
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Re: Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 9 Feb 2008 at 15:17 GMT
updated: 9 Feb 2008 at 15:27 GMT
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aiwetir said: i would imagine that it would work better with the taller rail. you're a bit farther, so the footprint could be a tiny bit smaller.
NN3 and NN5 both have a nadir footprint of about 18 degrees. This is very small compared to other models in the market. The vertical arm of NN5 is longer but the rotator base is also larger. They cancel out the effect of each other.
BTW, here is a review of NN3 by VRmag
www.vrmag.org/vartist/VR_industry/REVIEW_OF_NODAL...
there are many ways to take the nadir shot on NN. Here is one
Nick
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Rosauro
Posts: 226
Location: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 15 Dec 2006
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Re: Nodal Ninja users?
Posted: 9 Feb 2008 at 19:26 GMT
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Here are my techniques for long exposures...
Induro CX-214 tripod
Rosauro
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Hans Nyberg
Posts: 701
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
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