canadian
Posts: 19
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Apr 2008
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First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 1:21 GMT
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I first started looking at doing panoramas about a year and a half ago, and unfortunately didn't really do as much homework as I should have. I'm here today to tell anybody who wants to get into this hobby to SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR QUALITY EQUIPMENT. Allow me to explain.
When I first started looking at what it would take to do quality panoramas, I figured you just needed a camera that could accept any old fisheye lens, a tripod, panoramic head, and software and you'd be set. WRONG.
I first purchased a tripod with a ball head for a decent price on eBay (I still use it today and it works fine), followed by a first generation Nodal Ninja. Next was the camera and lenses. This is where being cheap didn't pay off.
I bought a Kodak Z7590 since it had a "manual" mode along with an Opteka 0.22x fisheye lens. My thinking was that even though this wasn't expensive, that it would do. I purchased a copy of PTGUI and PhotoMatix and started on my quest to make panoramas. I will tell you that this can work. The quality is not like anything you will see here, but in certain specific situations, the panorama will turn out decent enough to display on the web embedded in a page.
The main problem is that PTGUI had to work harder to get a decent stitch due to the quality of equipment. I will say that it does a fantastic job with what it had to work with. I couldn't be happier with it. I also purchased Photomatix to do blended images due to interior windows being blown out and thinking that this would solve the problem of cheap equipment. It sort of worked.
I started reading more... more... more... I decided to start looking for a camera that could do RAW images and found a Powershot G3 on eBay thinking I would re-use the Opteka fisheye and not have to do bracketing since I could use the RAW image. The day after I purchased it, a Nikon D50 / 18-55mm lens popped up on eBay for a price I couldn't pass up, so I ended up buying that.
So, that's three cameras I've got (two of which I'll be reselling to recoup some of my money), and finally one quality camera that I can use to do panoramas with. I decided to try a circular panorama tonight with the regular lens to see how good or bad it would be. I have to say that even taking images every 30 degrees to get enough overlap it took me less time to take the pictures than it did to do the 6 around with my old Kodak.
PTGUI breezed through the control points and alignment of the images (much quicker than with the Kodak images) no doubt due to quality of the image itself. It only required a little manual intervention simply because there was not enough information in the image to link on which is not a PTGUI issue.
A little blending in CS3 and here is what I came up with:
The full image can be found at
http://www[dot]warrenbowley.com/photography/edgewater-3-great-room.jpg
I picked a point on the wall to the left of the main doors to use as a mid-point and locked the exposure, then fired off 12 images around.
So, for anybody looking to get into doing panoramic photography take it from me and save your money until you can get a quality camera and lens. I'm starting to save for the 10.5 nikkor or 8mm sigma to reduce the number of images I have to take. Does anybody else use a first/second generation Nodal Ninja with a D50?
Thanks for listening/reading to the ramblings of a newbie.
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Glen Do
Posts: 18
Location: Canada
Registered: 26 Mar 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 6:02 GMT
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hey canuck (what part of canada btw?)
how did you do the windows in your pano? thanks!
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canadian
Posts: 19
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Apr 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 12:23 GMT
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Originally from just outside Niagara Falls, but have since moved to the west coast of Florida to escape the snow. As for the windows, they are shown "as shot" with no Photoshopping required. Most likely due to taking the pano at around 5:45pm when the sun wasn't the brighest. I have yet to do a mid-day pano which will most likely require some minor modifications to make sure they aren't blown out.
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John Houghton
Posts: 2265
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 12:53 GMT
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The panorama is good but does need levelling. You can level the original PTGui project and regenerate the output, or you can start a new project with the already stitched image. See:
www.johnhpanos.com/levtut.htm
John
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canadian
Posts: 19
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Apr 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 14:18 GMT
updated: 11 Apr 2008 at 14:31 GMT
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That's the one thing I didn't check before starting to shoot, but I also had a difficult time making sure that the camera itself was level on the Nodal Ninja. I'll have to get another level to make sure the camera itself is parallel to the ground before doing the next one to reduce the amount of post-processing work required.
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Glen Do
Posts: 18
Location: Canada
Registered: 26 Mar 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 14:29 GMT
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hot shoe spirit levels from honk kong on ebay are <$5
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John Houghton
Posts: 2265
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 14:30 GMT
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There is no need for the camera to be level. It does not need to be parallel to the ground in order to produce a nicely levelled panorama.
John
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canadian
Posts: 19
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Apr 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 14:38 GMT
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After looking at your link, I see what you mean. What is your recommendation for the number of t1 points to put on any given image?
Does each image in the panorama require a t1 point, or do you just select one image and optimize that for the vertical lines and PTGUI then deduces the rest?
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John Houghton
Posts: 2265
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 15:00 GMT
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Put a pair of t1 points each on a minimum of two vertical features. The levelling will not work if the chosen two features are separated by exactly 180 degrees of yaw. Around 90 degrees separation is ideal. Putting t1 points on three vertical features is safer. It doesn't matter whether t1 points are placed in the same images or different images. You are placing the points on features wherever they happen to be. The two ends of the side of a door, say, might be in different images, but you put the two points of a t1 pair at each end regardless.
John
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canadian
Posts: 19
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Apr 2008
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Re: First panorama with quality equipment.
Posted: 11 Apr 2008 at 15:06 GMT
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Thank you for the tips, I will give them a try and see how it looks.
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