Forum/thread	Message
Forum: Q & A Thread: New lens ?	Re: New lens ? Posted: 30 minutes ago go to thread jj31 It was announced in 2007 and has been on the market for a few months Its been mentioned in a few posts her on Panoguide.com. You should visit more often Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Settings for 303plus -5D with 17-40L & 24-70L	Re: Settings for 303plus -5D with 17-40L & 24-70L Posted: 17 May 2008 at 0:45 GMT go to thread Morphicx Unfortunately, Manfrotto doesn't support their Panoramic Tripod Heads in quite the hands-on way Nodal Ninja, 360Precision and some others do, like participating in forums like this one. That's probably why Nodal Ninja and 360Precision are the post popular rotators on the market John Houghton has a number of tutorials on his website www.JohnHPanos.com and there's one on how to go about setting the No Parallax Point or Nodal Point, depending on what you call it www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Panoguide website feedback Thread: what a nightmare trying to post a mesage on this forum	Re: what a nightmare trying to post a mesage on this forum Posted: 17 May 2008 at 0:31 GMT go to thread Reaper You can copy all or part of the text you've typed by placing the cursor at the beginning of the text you want to copy, scroll if necessary to the end of the text, hold down the Shift Key and click where you want the "select" to end. That will select the text, then touch the selection with the mounse pointer and right click to get the Windows Cut/Copy/Paste box Although I often wind up back a the Login Page after clicking Post reply, the posting usually gets posted. My experience is that it happens when I take a long time to complete the post, especially when I'm minimizing the Panoguide Window and open another to get a link or something. Its not worth losing your cool over though Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: advice request	Re: advice request Posted: 16 May 2008 at 18:27 GMT go to thread Robert Okay then it will only take 60 shots assuming no bracketing What's he shooting that needs that kind of resolution. If its a printed poster, there's enough resolution to print it life-size.... Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: advice request	Re: advice request Posted: 16 May 2008 at 15:16 GMT go to thread photo41 Do you know how many photos you're going to have to take to get full 360°x 360° coverage of a sphere or cube with that lens? With the 20 shots around horizontal mentioned in the previous posts, I'm guessing you'll need at least 5 rows...that's 100+ shots...without any bracketing. What in the world are you shooting? Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Is Flash the future?	Re: Is Flash the future? Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:58 GMT go to thread I've always liked the "slow stop" that FPP and Deval have instead othe sudden stop the other viewers have Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Is Flash the future?	Re: Is Flash the future? Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:23 GMT updated: 16 May 2008 at 14:26 GMT go to thread Mark Flash isn't the future of VR photography, its definitely part of the present and growing. But I don't see Java viewers disappearing anytime soon, the same with the QuickTime Player Deval is an excellent plug-in for viewing QTVR images, but just doesn't have the market penetration of Java, Flash or QuickTime. What I've observed is the general web surfing public is resisting the installation of single purpose plug-ins these days. I use iPIX which has both a Java Viewer and a plug-in. When I deliver commercial job, I used to give my customers working webpages with both the Java viewer and the iPIX plug-in. Part of this "two-viewer" approach was necessitated by their older Java Viewers having a limit how big an image it could display, so the iPIX Plug-In had to installed if the person viewing the images wanted to experience the larger images. That limitation in the Java Viewer largely disappeared at some point because ver. 3.22 can display 1.5MB images and iPIX/MEV just released ver 6. So I stopped including webpages that used the iPIX Plug-In even though the navigation was easier, rotation was smoother and the controls more intuitive. In some form or other almost all the major viewers support insertion of text and links to sound in one way or another. Personally I don't think offering a single technology is a smart decision if you're selling your Virtual Photography work. I'm not a big fan of Flash, mostly because I've seen too many websites where the Flash developer turned it into a demonstration of what they could do instead of a tool that serves their customer's best interest. My biggest complaint is Home Pages that take more than 30 seconds to load because of some multi-megabyte Flash movie. More than 15 seconds is really too long. I haven't quite made the decision of whether I've going to renew my iPIX Interactive Studio license in Sept 08 and am really looking at RealViz Stitcher Unlimited (I already have PTGui 7.2) becasue of its broad range of output formats and file types. That's why I have the iPIX Format Pack for IIS, it lets me output a number of formats & file types. In particular the Shockwave W3D format both IIS and RVSU can produce has proven useful in a Macromedia/Adobe Director Projector I had made to play from a CD. It becoming a valuable way to demostrate my work and doesn't require the user to have another "player" preinstalled, like QuickTime. The W3D format works in Director 8.5 and later with no Plug-Ins (Extras). My appraoch had been to have as many formats & file types available as pratical, while recommending the one I think will serve them best. One other reason not to offer just Flash is if you want to do work with companies like Marriot or Starwood Hotels (Sheraton and Westin), their websites only support Equirectangular Projections viewed with the Java PTViewer. Marriott also supports iPIX. Last I knew, neither was supporting Flash Virtual Tours. Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping	Re: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping Posted: 16 May 2008 at 4:55 GMT go to thread Michael I meant what were the EV steps In a high contrast situation like a normally lighted living room with bright windows or a bright sliding glass door, I usually shoot +2,+1,-0-,-1,-2,-3,-4,-5,-6 and -7 and typically composite shots +2,+1,-0-,-1,-2,-3,-4 and -5 in Photomatix Pro 2.5.2 using the HDR/Tone Mapping function. That usually takes care of the shadows Shooting outdoors I can usually get away with +2,+1,-0-,-1 and -2 because there's less contrast because of the sunlight In the Tone Mapping funtion you can lower the Color Saturation and the Stength (lowers the Contrast) Later Doug Aurand alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping	Re: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping Posted: 15 May 2008 at 18:36 GMT go to thread Michael What kind of a bracket set are you using? Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users	Re: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users Posted: 15 May 2008 at 14:48 GMT updated: 15 May 2008 at 14:49 GMT go to thread Mike I never saw a big benefit to using the "slant" technique Shooting level with a Sigma 8mm in portrait position on a Canon APS-C size sensor does leave a "hole" at both the Zenith and Nadir. On the Nikon APS/DX sensors I've seen a "dimple" in the sky a the Zenith and one on the Nadir too. Tilting either camera solves the Zenith problem in both cases, with one more horizontal shot than the "slant" and provides more overlap for stitching and alignment. And since the rotator/tripod or rotator/tripod/hole are going thave to be edited out anyway, why go to the effort of slanting? Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping	Re: Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping Posted: 15 May 2008 at 14:24 GMT updated: 15 May 2008 at 14:29 GMT go to thread Jorgen You should try both and see which results you like best One consideration is what type of lens you're using The Photomatix HDR/Tone Mapping function includes the "black" around circular images. This produces a hazy look to the images. In the case of my Coolpix 5400/FC-E9 there's a full circle image with lots of "black". For the Sigma 8mm there are "black" corners. The "full frame image" from the Nikkor 10.5mm, and I assume the Sigma 10mm, doesn't have any "black" around the photo so it doesn't have a problem. I'm guessing you have the new Photomatix 3 since you're calling it "Exposure Blending" instead of "Combine" like my ver 2.5.2. "Combine" will composite circular images without the same haze that he HDR/Tone Mapping funtion does, but the image aren't as vivid and sharp. I've been using Erik Krause's Enfuse Droplets to blend my 5400/FC-E9 source images and it a very good compromise between the Photomatix's Combine and HDR/Tone Mapping, very good color with the right set of images (some trial and error to get the hang of it) but not quite as crisp as the HDR/Tone Mapping. But much sharper and more vivid than the Cobine function. Also, the basic Enfuse Droplet is much faster than either function in Photomatix Pro which is really helpful in production work like real estate tours. If the colors in the Tone Mapping Preview are too intense, you can get a more "natural" look by lowering the Color Saturation. Hope that helps Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users	Re: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users Posted: 14 May 2008 at 20:28 GMT go to thread Mike You can get coverage at the Zenith with a Canon 1.6 crop sensor. Yt just takes a little more "tilt". I've gotten good results with a +10° tilt and the Nadir "hole" is only about the size of the tripod head which I edit out anyway. No extra work. If I recall the thread correctly, 360Precision's new Atome is going to have the appropriate tilt already builtin for the Sigma 8mm, although Matt Rogers didn't say exactly what the angle would be. Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users	Re: Canon EOS 40D & Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Users Posted: 14 May 2008 at 2:42 GMT updated: 14 May 2008 at 2:46 GMT go to thread Steve Part of my plan is to expand to other areas, too. That's why I have domains for VirtualTaos.com, VirtualNewMexico.net, VisitLasCruses.com, VirtualColoradoSprings.com and VisittheSprings.com. I stopped spending money for domains after that, although San Antonio, TX is tempting and El Paso, TX would be easy to fit in there. My goal is to have 5 "virtual" websites generating $500 to $1000 a month each in net profit. But if you want the local area to support the website, you really need the "area" to be in the name of the website. When people find your site, they arrive at the home page and have to figure a out what your site is about. If it take more than a couple seconds, you may loose them and they'll click BACK to the Google search that got them there Mine had some of the same problem, except my webmaster just took it where it needed to go. You have to decide what the purpose of you website is. Is it a business site promoting your virtual tour work or is a a tour of the Toledo area? It won't serve both masters very well. I'm planning to phase out most of the pages that promote my virtual tour business, or at least put that content in the background, with the Tour of Albuquerque being very much in the foreground, showing off my work to everyone who visits the site. Nothing could serve my virtual tour business better than a lot of people seeing the benefit of my work while they take a tour of Albuquerque. I just added a fairly bold slogan to some of my marketing materials, "VirtualAlbuquerque.com, Showing Albuquerque to the World" and its getting some really positive notice Talk to ya soon Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Tips & Tricks Thread: high res panormaic shots ?? Help!	Re: high res panormaic shots ?? Help! Posted: 14 May 2008 at 1:45 GMT updated: 14 May 2008 at 1:47 GMT go to thread Andre Since you already have the camera, all you need is a fishey lens and a rotator. The Sunex 5.6mm would be a good choice for high quality real estate tours, understanding that real estate tours are usually of lower quality than say hotel & resort tours. The lens and rotator total $1000 and produce full 360°x 360° spherical images from 3 fisheye shots. The work would be a very noticeable improvement over the Nikon Coolpix 5400/FC-E9 combo I use for real estate tours If you search for "sunex" on this forum, you'll find a very long discussion when Sunex announce the lens and some links to samples they have online. Even downloadable souce photos you can test stitch The Sigma 8mm f/3.5 is one of the mainstays of higher quality virtual imaging. Its US$600-630 depending on where you find it. A Nodal Ninja 3 would be about US$225. With a 10-15° tilt up on the Nodal Ninja, you can get almost a full 360°x 360° image with 4 shots. There will be a small "hole" at he Nadir (south pole) where the tripod will be in the stitched image. Note that 360Precision is going to release their Atome for the Sigma 8mm in a month or so and if it live up to its pre-press, you won't have to do any adjusting to set the No Parallax Pont. I think its suppose to be about US$300. Either one of those options will stay within you budjet and be faily simple to use. Douglas Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Raynox DCR-FE 180 PRO ??	Re: Raynox DCR-FE 180 PRO ?? Posted: 14 May 2008 at 1:29 GMT go to thread Steven It took me a while to "get it" that just about any old DSLR is better than the best compacts. The difference isn't the resolution, its the size of the sensors. I found it hard to believe a Nikon D100 with a 6MP sensor a VR photographer wanted to sell me, was better than a Nikon Coolpix 8700 with an 8MP sensor. But when I learned that the sensor in the D100 is 23.7 x 15.5 millimeters compared to the 8700's 8.8 x 6.6 Similarly, the G9 has a 9.5 x 7.6 mm sensor compared to the XT's 22.2 x14.8 mm sensor. So the photosites on the D100 and XT are 3 to 5 times the size of the ones on the 8700 and G9, so they're more sensitive and can tolerate more light before they become saturated. Just how sensitive is apparent when you compare the smallest Aperature setting available. My 8700 doesn't go past f/8 but my Canon XTi will go all the way to f/22. The G9 only has a range of F2.8 - F4.8 so it won't funtion any where near as well in low light. When I shot my first photos with my Canon XTi I immediately saw much more subtle colors than my Nikon 8700 or 5400 AEB is just a convenience, larger APS-C sized sensors like the D40, D40X, XT & XTi have is what makes them much more serious cameras than the best compacts. Doug Aurand Albuquerque, NM alert moderator