Forum/thread	Message
Forum: Q & A Thread: Most Accurate Lens for Not Distorting Background	Re: Most Accurate Lens for Not Distorting Background Posted: 9 Jun 2008 at 9:39 GMT updated: 9 Jun 2008 at 9:40 GMT go to thread I agree, there is no right or wrong. You have to decide for yourself how you want your picture to look, and John's example above gives you an idea of how the focal length will affect that. The reason people here use very wide angle lenses so they don't have to take very many images to cover the whole scene. Maybe what you're asking is what is the equivalent focal length is on a 35mm camera that gives you the same view as our eyes do? If so I think it's something like 50mm. But, assuming your standing at the same location, when you're making a pano it doesn't matter if you use a 50mm lense or a 10mm lens, it will look the same when you stitch the images together. But you'll have many more images with the 50mm version. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: 180 Pano Picture Frames - W/Mat -- Ideas? Sizes? On-Line?	Re: 180 Pano Picture Frames - W/Mat -- Ideas? Sizes? On-Line? Posted: 28 May 2008 at 15:09 GMT go to thread 4:1 and 3:1 is the standard pano size. sorry I don't have a source. I do have a suggestion, though. I recently heard of someone printing multiple panos on the same page, so say 3 4:1 panos on the same print. you would have to cut them yourself, but you might save some money on printing costs. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTgui problems	Re: PTgui problems Posted: 28 May 2008 at 15:03 GMT go to thread sorry if this is obvious, but it looks like your camera was not quite pointed down enough, so you did not cover the entire vertical area? did you include a nadir shot? if you tell ptgui to output a 360X180 pano, but your images don't cover all of it, this is what I think would happyen. in any case you either need to patch or crop it out, so it doesn't really matter. also, it looks like parts of your tripod aren't lining up, which I think means your nodal point is a little off. this could be part of the reason, too. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Tokina 10-17 with poor quality	Re: Tokina 10-17 with poor quality Posted: 26 May 2008 at 13:23 GMT go to thread sorry, I see now that the 1st comparison is the border, the 2nd the center. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Tokina 10-17 with poor quality	Re: Tokina 10-17 with poor quality Posted: 26 May 2008 at 12:09 GMT go to thread I would tend to trust the photozone tests much more than some random persons comparison. The second set of images look nearly identical. Certainly if you didn't see them side by side you would never notice a difference. Which part of the image are these crops taken from? alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Finding -0- EV or the First Shot	Re: Finding -0- EV or the First Shot Posted: 23 May 2008 at 9:04 GMT go to thread You might decide where to line up the bright source depending on how your lens shows ghosts and flare. It might be better in one position than another. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping	Re: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping Posted: 19 May 2008 at 15:27 GMT go to thread When I said that I use Photoshop to do expsoure blending, I didn't mean that I use PS to create an HDR file, though this is possible. What people do is load the multiple exposures into different layers. Then there are a number of different ways to morph these exposures into the final images, but it is not HDR per say. In the simplest case, say you have one exposure that has the trees looking good, but the sky is blown out, and a second with a nice sky but the trees are too dark. By using layers and masks you can let the trees show through from the first, and the sky from the second. Is it better? I think so, generally, but different people care about different things, and surely there are people using HDR all the time and they are happy with it. Certainly it's far easier and faster to create an HDR file and tone map it than it is to blend the exposures by hand. If you do some web searches for PS and exposure blending tutorial or neutral density filter, something like that, you should come up with plenty. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: advice request	Re: advice request Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:05 GMT go to thread The 5D is full frame, so I think he should be able to do a 360 with 3 rows. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping	Re: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping Posted: 16 May 2008 at 8:00 GMT go to thread I spent a ton a time trying HDR, including photomatix, and others. I had various problems, I don't want to go into detail, that led to lower image quality. In the end I learned how to blend exposures by hand in photoshop. Once you get the feel for it, it doesn't take very long, and I'm happier with the end result. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Fake HDR and PTgui	Re: Fake HDR and PTgui Posted: 8 May 2008 at 15:56 GMT updated: 8 May 2008 at 15:58 GMT go to thread Another idea would be just to do your fake HDR after you've already stitched it. edit: no, you should do this with the RAW files... sorry! alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Choices	Re: Choices Posted: 8 May 2008 at 12:36 GMT updated: 8 May 2008 at 12:39 GMT go to thread Wow, the CA from that sigma 8mm is really bad! After seeing these images I would only purchase it if I knew it could be well corrected. Though I always heard that CA isn't much of an issue these days because it can be easily fixed, I've found with one of my lenses that CA does not correct very well because it is not uniform over the frame. By the way, although I really like my D40, if this is your first camera I'd get a canon because of the AEB feature. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Multi row vs single row	Re: Multi row vs single row Posted: 18 Apr 2008 at 12:14 GMT go to thread All of my tiny planets at www.tinyplanetphotography.com are 3 row shots at 18mm. There is nothing hi res online, though. I always bracket +2,0,-2 and so end up with something like 110 shots per pano. It's not that bad. I want to be able to make large prints, so the resolution is important to me. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PanoHead Agony	Re: PanoHead Agony Posted: 16 Apr 2008 at 11:52 GMT go to thread Your lens at 24mm is either too long, or just at the limit, to do a 3 row spherical pano, plus nadir and zenith. If it's just barely wide enough for 3 rows, you may run into problems finding control points between the rows. Anyone happen to know if 24mm is OK on the 30D? If it's too long, and you have to do 4 rows, you'll need many images, and might also be a pain. But... if you don't care about doing spherical panos none of this really matters! By the way I also have the Panosaurus and it works fine, though I'm under the weight limit. But, I wish I would have spent the extra cash on the NN3, simply because it is more compact. The Panosaurus is kind of big. It would be nice to have the detents, but this does not effect the quality of the final pano. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Did I buy the wrong lens?	Re: Did I buy the wrong lens? Posted: 16 Apr 2008 at 10:34 GMT go to thread At 18 mm the standard 360 X 180 pano is done with 3 rows plus nadir and zenith. While I don't own anything wider than 18mm, I think the wide zooms, like the sigma 10-20 are a nice compromise between quality and ease of stithcing. You only have to shoot two rows, this is a big advantage over 18mm because as already mentioned you no longer have the problem of having sky only images. Now, it's not a problem to locate sky only images by hand by entering roll, pitch, yaw, but it takes a little more time. You get more resolution than shooting with a single row fisheye. Plus, I would love to have a wide zoom for normal use, and a fisheye less so. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: need help finding nodal point of new lense	Re: need help finding nodal point of new lense Posted: 10 Apr 2008 at 7:27 GMT go to thread I had an idea for aligning the other day. I have used the scotch tape on window technique. It occurred to me that it would be much easier to tape a cloth or paper tape measure across the window. Haven't tried it yet, though. alert moderator