DemonDuck
Posts: 418
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Registered: 10 Mar 2011
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 11:27 GMT
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David Hogg said: I guess the only problem with using the diagonal method is the corners of the lens are probably the weakest points in terms of image quality? Would it work to use enough up-tilt to cover the zenith with the camera in normal portrait mode, and then to just take a slightly larger nadir shot to cover the hole?
Here is the build-thread for my wooden pano-heads by the way!
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=698953
Thanks again for your help 
You are a fine craftsman. Lovely work!
But the fisheye adapter doesn't quite give you enough for a single row + nadir patch. Here's an example. In the example, the camera was tilted down about 15 degrees so that the bottom of the frame was just showing the panohead -- an NN3 similar to what you make.
You can see that there is still a large hole at the nadir and zenith to fill and I have not been able to find a way to avoid both zenith and nadir patch with the fisheye.
You are right that the corners are soft but for the sky that doesn't matter too much and might even help with clouds. And the nadir patch can take care of the softness there. But I can't tell you for sure that it will work because I don't have a rig that will allow me to angle my camera.
Maybe you could build a 30 degree wedge camera mount that would fit one of your panoheads so you could try it out.
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David Hogg
Posts: 7
Location: Surrey, UK, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 May 2012
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 12:51 GMT
updated: 8 May 2012 at 12:56 GMT
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Hi Demon,
Thanks for the sample! As the nadir will always need to be shot separately because of the tripod, I guess it would make more sense to tilt the camera up to get as much of the zenith as possible?
As 15° down seems to get you pointing more or less straight down, I assume 15° up would get you most of the zenith (allowing any remaining hole to be patched in Photoshop)?
Were you able to patch the zenith in your example with a single additional photo?
Cheers!
David
PS. Good point about the corners not really mattering with the diagonal approach ... I will have a think about how I could introduce some degree of rotation into the design
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DemonDuck
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 18:32 GMT
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Hi David,
I mis-remembered the angles. The sample was shot at -5 degrees. So +10 degrees would cover the zenith.
In the sample, I was able to patch the zenith with one shot but I usually take three -- one at the Sun and two, one off each side of the Sun so I can mask out the flare. The fisheye has moderate flare.
If you shoot the nadir hand held, then maybe two or at worst 3 down shots would cover the nadir with a good patch.
DD
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David Hogg
Posts: 7
Location: Surrey, UK, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 May 2012
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 19:12 GMT
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Hi DD (what's your real name by the way?!),
Thanks for the info When you patch the nadir / zenith, do you normally do it manually in Photoshop, or do you load your additional zenith shots into PTGui (or the like) and let it pick the best?
When I've previously stitched panoramas, I've used software called Cubic Converter to convert the 360° x 180° image into cube faces, then take the top and bottom cube faces into Photoshop to patch over the holes manually. Have you had much luck letting the stitching software patch the holes itself?
I also use the trick of removing the flare when the sun is visible in more than 1 photo
I will probably go with 10 degrees up and take things from there I'm not sure I'll make much progress with the mount as I'm off on hols at the end of the week, so no rush to finalise the design.
Cheers for now!
David
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DennisS
Posts: 1641
Location: Los Anglels, United States
Registered: 1 Sep 2007
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 20:23 GMT
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You can see that there is still a large hole at the nadir and zenith to fill and I have not been able to find a way to avoid both zenith and nadir patch with the fisheye Smooth has demonstrated that this lens covers about the same as the Nikon 10.5. Shoot 6 around at 0 degrees, tilt up for the Zenith, then tilt down for the Nadir. A hand held Nadir patches out the tripod. There is no advantage to tilting up or down for the 6 around since all you will do is either open up the Zenith or Nadir hole.
If you do not want to take a Zenith, you need to use a different lens.
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DemonDuck
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 8 May 2012 at 22:10 GMT
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David Hogg said: Hi DD
Thanks for the info When you patch the nadir / zenith, do you normally do it manually in Photoshop, or do you load your additional zenith shots into PTGui (or the like) and let it pick the best?
When I've previously stitched panoramas, I've used software called Cubic Converter to convert the 360° x 180° image into cube faces, then take the top and bottom cube faces into Photoshop to patch over the holes manually. Have you had much luck letting the stitching software patch the holes itself?
David
I do everything in PTGui including patching the nadir. Don't even own Photoshop. Once you figure out what to do, it's pretty easy using viewpoint correction and a few preliminary setup steps.
Dennis, I'm not exactly sure why I settled on the shooting pattern I use (-5;+70;nadir) I think it's because I have to shoot several Sun bracketing flare shots anyway for the zenith and the flare can stretch pretty far so I try to make a lot of pixels to work with. And with a smaller nadir, it's really easy to mask and patch. With a larger nadir patch, the edges get fussy to blend.
But you are right that there's a lot of different ways to shoot with any particular lens.
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DennisS
Posts: 1641
Location: Los Anglels, United States
Registered: 1 Sep 2007
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 May 2012 at 0:04 GMT
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... the flare can stretch pretty far ... Could be smeared finger oil on the lens. I check the lens prior to every pano shoot. You would be amazed how quickly the lens can get dirty. Running a lens cleaning cloth across the lens does not always get all of the finger oil. Reflect the sun off of the surface of the lens and you will see streaks if you have a dirty lens. Very aggravating especially when there is a lot of mist in the air.
I also get the pano to come out of PTGui with the Nadir fully patched. As you said, not too difficult if you do the prep work correct.
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DemonDuck
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 May 2012 at 0:34 GMT
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Might be some grease on the lens but mostly it is the reflections off the surfaces of each group inside the lens that makes a trail of flare islands.
Cheap lens -- for $99 can't expect too much. Three images usually gives me enough alternate pixels to just mask away the flare islands.
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David Hogg
Posts: 7
Location: Surrey, UK, United Kingdom
Registered: 7 May 2012
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 May 2012 at 22:15 GMT
updated: 9 May 2012 at 22:15 GMT
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Thanks for the great advice everyone! I've decided to go for the 0° of tilt approach and to just take the nadir and zenith shots hand-held. I won't be able to start the build for a while, but it's nice to have the design clear in my mind now
Thanks again for all your contributions!
David
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Smooth
Posts: 4024
Location: Mount Panorama, Australia
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 10 May 2012 at 4:22 GMT
updated: 10 May 2012 at 4:25 GMT
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Your only other option worth considering is fixed +10° with 33° angle roll (6 rotational shots) and two nadir shots 180° opposed. In theory this would work. But not always a good option for nadir shadows.
Regards, Smooth 
www.omnipix.com.au
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Speedtim
Posts: 2
Location: Bradford, United Kingdom
Registered: 9 Jun 2012
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 Jun 2012 at 9:21 GMT
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Hello everyone …I’ve just joined this site and I’ve bought this set-up of Sony Nex-C3, 16mm lens and fisheye converter but I don’t have the pro software yet so is there anyone out there who will stitch the images together for me if I send you a CD with the raw files on. And send me back the finished results on CD in ‘Flash or QuickTime movie’?
I will pay you £10 into your paypal account, I know its not much but this is just a test. Thanks, Tim (from the UK)
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DorinDXN
Posts: 3093
Location: Timisoara, Romania
Registered: 14 Nov 2006
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 Jun 2012 at 10:46 GMT
updated: 9 Jun 2012 at 10:49 GMT
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Hi speedtim,
PTgui have trial for download, with some watermark on the resulted pano, www.ptgui.com, could be ok for your test.
There is also Hugin open source software hugin.sourceforge.net/download/
I started with Hugin too.
DevalVR freeware standalone viewer (player) if you running windows can be downloaded from www.devalvr.com/paginas/productos/index.html
Also krpano has downloads for trial at www.krpano.com/download/ -the trial works offline.
Trying the above will gain you some valuable knowledges
cheers,
Dorin
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DemonDuck
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 Jun 2012 at 16:04 GMT
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I've got the same kit. You don't need to test the lens/camera. You do need to get a proper pano head and PTGui (disclaimer: Dorin gave you the alternatives -- save your time and just get PTGui)
Here's a sample of what that lens/camera can do.
pancyl.com/BridgeRail.html
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Speedtim
Posts: 2
Location: Bradford, United Kingdom
Registered: 9 Jun 2012
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 Jun 2012 at 17:17 GMT
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Very nice …was that taken with 16mm lens and fisheye converter?
With PTGui being sophisticated software does everything have to be bang-on level or will it auto correct? (I don’t have a bracket I’ve got a lens ring which does get my camera over the nodal point)
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DemonDuck
Posts: 418
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Re: Sony NEX + Sony Fisheye Converter: Cost $125.00 USD
Posted: 9 Jun 2012 at 17:27 GMT
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The better the alignment of your camera so that the camera rotates around the No(minimum)Parallax Point, the easier it will be to stitch. PTGui is very good but it can only do so much.
What lens ring do you have?
Yes, my pano is with the c3+16mm+NEX fisheye.
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