gear question.

[namibia]

Good day, I was referred here by

Joost Nieuwenhuijse from PTGui.

 

I currently shoot landscape panos, genreally 180 to 200 degrees.

I use a Nikon D3

Nikkor 28, 50 and 60mm glass

mirror up

cable release f8 to f11

ISO 200

I print on a Epson 7900

 

I live in Namibia, so my subjects are spatially huge.

 

I want more detail, lots more detail I want to upgrade to a Epson 9900

 

Living as I do in the middle of nowhere I have zero access to gear to try.

 

I am trying to get Pentax to send me a 645D and Phase One to send me camera with a P45 back.

 

As I see it I have a number of choices, second hand 33 to 45 mega pixel  medium format,

 

(eg there is a guy in NZ with a Mamiya RZ Pro MK2 with a complete set of everything for 10g's and a leaf 33MP back.)

 

Technical Camera second hand with a 33 to 45 mega pixel  back, big learning curve for me as I know squat about technical cameras.

 

Nikon D800e

 

As a wild card I have a internet buddy who has dumped his heavy gear in favor of a fuji X1Pro and a lot more images to stich.

He swears its as good as it gets. (he's been doing this a long time so I cannot discount his opinion)

 

I cannot afford a Seitz 6 x 17.

 

With a budget of about 10,000 what system will give me the absolute best higest resolution images to stich together?

 

Any thoughts would be very much apprecitated.

 

Chris in Namibia

[Joergen Geerds]

On Saturday, April 27, 2013 6:07:17 AM UTC-4, namibia wrote:

Good day, I was referred here by

Joost Nieuwenhuijse from PTGui.

 

I currently shoot landscape panos, genreally 180 to 200 degrees.

I use a Nikon D3

Nikkor 28, 50 and 60mm glass

mirror up

cable release f8 to f11

ISO 200

I print on a Epson 7900

I think you can get great quality landscapes from stitching D3 images taken with the 28mm together. Get a good quality panorama head (i.e. Nodal Ninja 4/5 or a NodalNinja M1/2 with a RD16 rotator) (or a 360 precision adjuste giga) and a good tripod and you are set stitching it together with ptgui.

Using the NN RD16 rotator, you can use the 10-around (36deg click stops) setting for your 28mm lens. this will give you about 22000px for a full 360 around the horizon, and obviously a fraction of that for a partial (180 deg will give you 11000px). the height is something you can determine yourself, and decide wether you want to do one row, two or three rows. you can later decide in ptgui if you want to render it is cylindrical or mercator projection, or play with the panini projection. most of my work at luminous-newyork.com are mercator projections.

in regards to your printer, you can run a couple of small tests, and see how large you want your work, and how much resolution you need, but it probably will be something like 180, 200, 300 or 360 ppi, to a point where your photoshop and sharpening skills are more important than the actual resolution.

but even the worst case scenario (i.e. 11000px printed at 180 ppi will give you a very nice 60in/150cm wide print).

using a 50mm lens will get you more resolution, more images to stitch, more work, larger files, and a different look (since every lens is different), plus DoF problems in certain situations. I personally love the 35-60mm range, and almost every piece on my site above was shot in that range.

good luck with your work

[Chris Johnston]

Thank you for the comments, I have a delux manfroto pano head regularly shoot at 5degrees of rotation. I looking for far bigger far sharper images then my current system

Kind regards chris

Sent from my iPad

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[Erik Krause]

Am 27.04.2013 19:22, schrieb Chris Johnston:
> I looking for far bigger far sharper images
> then my current system

You don't need a new camera, only a longer lens. People shoot gigapixel
images with standard point and shoot cameras.

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Chris Johnston]

Good afternoon Erik,

I want to get huge files with extreme razor sharp detail of faraway
landscape objects in order to print massive panoramas on my soon to be
delivered Epson 9900. Point and shoot aint going to cut it. Do you have
any suggestions about what the ultimate landscape camera/lens/back
combination might be?

Kind regards,

Chris

[Erik Krause]

Am 29.04.2013 16:36, schrieb Chris Johnston:
> I want to get huge files with extreme razor sharp detail of faraway
> landscape objects in order to print massive panoramas on my soon to be
> delivered Epson 9900. Point and shoot aint going to cut it. Do you have
> any suggestions about what the ultimate landscape camera/lens/back
> combination might be?

The largest images in the world - between 100 and almost 300 Gigapixels
- where shot with standard DSLRs, most of the time not even full frame
ones.

The Epson 9900 prints 44 inch wide. For a very good print quality you
need 300 ppi images, this is 13200 pixels. Your Nikon D3 gives images
4256 pixels wide. You would need 4 rows in portrait orientation to cover
your printer resolution.

A 100mm lens on such a camera covers 14� which is 305 pixel per degree.
Your 4 row panorama would cover a vertical angle of 43�, a bit wider
than a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera. If you use longer lenses you get
narrower angles or higher resolution of course. The mentioned gigapixel
world records where shot with 400mm to 800mm lenses. One of the
currently largest ones (Shanghai Ckyline) would print 75x32 meters at
300 ppi.

If you want to shoot such images you probably need a motorized panoramic
tripod head and a fast computer.

[Henrik Tived]

I used to seek to get the highest resolution I could possible get, which is
great when it works and you have no errors in the process.

But the more images you shoot the greater the likelihood of errors. It takes
a long time to shoot, the environment changes while shooting, the risk of
vibration increases with each movements, regardless of you using the best
techniques, the best gear.

However, when it does work it's amazing - which is why we keep doing/trying
:-)

If what you want to do is to maximise what your current printer can output,
then it's a pure math exercise, as Erik has worked out for you. Now you just
need to work out the best gear for that condition.

Best of luck and remember to have fun doing it :-)

Henrik

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[Henrik]

I used to seek to get the highest resolution I could possible get, which
is great when it works and you have no errors in the process.

But the more images you shoot the greater the likelihood of errors. It
takes a long time to shoot, the environment changes while shooting

-----Original Message-----
From: pt...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pt...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of

Chris Johnston
Sent: Monday, 29 April 2013 10:36 PM
To: pt...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [PTGui] Re: gear question.

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[Chris Johnston]

Thanks for the follow-up, I think what I am really after is the highest degree of critical sharpness at the small detail level at distance.

 

Cheers.

[Keith Martin]

On 30 Apr 2013, at 08:04, Chris Johnston <ch...@johnstonnamibia.com> wrote:

Thanks for the follow-up, I think what I am really after is the highest degree of critical sharpness at the small detail level at distance.

It still boils down to resolution, in large part at least. The higher the resolution of your finished panorama, the more detail it is capable of displaying when printed at a given size. Or, the larger it will be when printed at a specific 'effective ppi' resolution. But then you need to make sure you're capturing well-resolved data. At this point there are a few different factors to consider: resolution of the sensor (is it capable of capturing an appropriate level of detail?), the resolving ability of your lens (is it sharp enough to resolve what the sensor can capture?), and the number of shots you take to cover your chosen area.

The sensor part of the equation can get complex: smaller sensors can pack in a higher sensor density, but many people forget that it is also the quality of the data that's captured – the quality of the pixels generated – that we need to consider. That's why in many important ways the Nikon D3 gives much better results than a higher-megapixel compact.

Larger sensors make a lens effectively wider, so you'd need correspondingly fewer shots to cover a given area... but you'll need a higher resolution sensor to keep turning out the same size output. For example, I used my 10.5mm fisheye on a 12MP crop-sensor camera and got panoramas of over 11,000 pixels with six shots around. (Plus zenith and nadir.) Now I use the same lens, shaved, on a 24MP full-frame sensor and get panoramas of over 10,000 pixels. A little smaller, but I need just three shots around and one nadir photo.

There are two benefits of this for me: (1) faster shooting, which is great for crazy-busy spaces, and (2) significantly less chance for stitching problems. More shots mean more risk, both in terms of movement of things across seams and in terms of alignment glitches. It's not that everyone should always aim to shoot as few pics as possible, just that we need to be aware of the tradeoffs of going one way or the other.

There's been a lot of online chat about the Nikon D800, saying that its 36MP sensor 'reveals the limits of many lenses'. That's undoubtedly true, but it would mean that you've moved your quality limit UP to the limit of the lens rather than it being limited by what the sensor captures. (It doesn't, as I've read in some blogs, mean that the quality does down. :)

It's on my shopping list. Well, wish-list for the moment.

k

[Chris Johnston]

Hello Keith.

 

My panorama work is limited to landscapes, with the exception of clouds or moving shadow or sunrise, they are static.

 

I use a Manfrotto deluxe head generally shoot 5 or 12 degree shots with one of three lenses, 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4 or 60mm micro Nikkor and my D3

 

I am using a Epson 7900 but want to step up to a 9900 to print high end commercial and residential decor landscapes

 

I am typically stitching 6 t 20 images in a final pano, generally less than 250 degrees, more often 180 or less. Normally my exposures are 30 seconds or less.

 

Where I feel the D3 and my lenses let me down is in deep background edge detail.

 

The thing I have been hoping to get from someone on this forum is a concrete suggestion, e.g., get a Phase One Mamiya P45+ and the 80mm lens or a Mamiya RZ Pro 2 with the 110mm lens or a Hasselblad H3D 39mp and their version of the fast 80mm. Something specific that address my specific question.

 

I am also obviously interested in using the same camera system for other purposes, product, fashion, portraiture, and yes even occasionally animals I do after all live in Africa. But the prime purpose of this is to shoot the majestic desert landscapes of Namibia.

 

All the best.

 

Chris

--

[Erik Krause]

Am 30.04.2013 11:55, schrieb Chris Johnston:
> The thing I have been hoping to get from someone on this forum is a
> concrete suggestion, e.g., get a Phase One Mamiya P45+ and the 80mm lens or
> a Mamiya RZ Pro 2 with the 110mm lens or a Hasselblad H3D 39mp and their
> version of the fast 80mm. Something specific that address my specific
> question.

The concrete suggestion is that you don't need this cameras for what you
want to achieve. You not only don't need them, you will eventually get
better results from your current camera, because it has a wider depth of
field. You need a longer lens and eventually a motorized pano head if
you want to get higher resolution.

F.e. the Mamiya digital has 22 megapixels on a 48x36mm Sensor. This is a
pixel density of 113px/mm. Your D3 has a pixel density of 118px/mm,
which is slightly better. Any prime lens should resolve this pixel
density. Using the same focal length on both cameras you need to shoot
two images with your D3 to get the same size as one image from the
Mamiya. Plus you have less edge light fall off and less chromatic
aberration wi8th your Nikon, since it uses only the inner part of the
image circle.

If you want to buy a new camera in any case, get a D800. You can re-use
your lenses and you get the best sensor currently available.

[Joergen Geerds]

I guess we are all a bit puzzled, and I am wondering where the breakdown in communication happened. Keith, Erik, and I all have outlined that resolution is strictly dependent on the lens you are using. longer lens means more pixel (and more tiles). and it is really not complicated math to think about your target size in pixel, or how large you want to go. 

I've done work at around 6 gigapixel, that printed nicely at 730cm width, and most of my work can be considered relatively large:

from http://newyorkpanorama.com/2011/06/01/lumin-o-city-solo-exhibition-in-portugal/

and all the others that have given you advise so far are extremely knowledgable photographers as well, they all have done projects like this.

but in the end, you really have to decide yourself what you want and need. if you feel like going MF, go for it.

I personally think you are affected by "lens fever", where you have your mind set already onto an imaginary target, and it doesn't really matter anymore what we suggest.

The only thing I want to add is that the lens & camera body only make about 60% of your image. mount, pano head, stabilization, and most of all, proper focus all affect the quality of your product way more than you make me believe you know. I hope you have put some budget aside to upgrade your computer infrastructure (if not done already), since working on 500-6000 mpx files needs quite a bit of computer resources.

[Joergen Geerds]

sorry, forgot to include tived in my prev reply.

[Hambagahle]

Ok, I'm going to repeat some of the advice you've been given and then open a different can of worms.

The repeat:  Based on the equipment list at the start of this thread, you do not need to change camera body...  I agree with Erik: I believe you need a longer lens.

The New Can of Worms:  I would like to know how you approach focusing, and the scale of the scenes you're trying to capture...  I know Namibia a little, and I suspect you are dealing with distances in a range from perhaps 200 metre to perhaps 2,000 metre.

I am using a Nikon D300 (12mp) and for a slightly smaller range of distances my favorite lens is the Nikkor 105mm F2.8 VR.  I have to keep my output .jpg below 30,000px because I am still using PhotoShop CS4.  If you're shooting at Dune 7, Rooikop, the Kuiseb etc, a wide angle lense is not going to help you achieve the goal I understand you to be interested in.....

Namibia is a big country; where are you based?

Regards

[Chris Erskine]

I'm going agree with everyone else.

though you could add a d800e (and its worth going the e version). and it will give you a nice boost in resolution, and you can go a longer lens as well if you like.

though I will say if you go a d800, get a colour chart, I don't like the colours that come out of the box with... way too much green. I've also been using a d3x and I've found the default camera settings getting much nicer colours from the d3 series.

though none of this is a big deal if you shoot a colour chart and make a profile (per shoot) in lightroom. looks much better after that.

the one thing you get from a medium format that you won't get by stitching, is the tilt/shift movements and allowing you to change the focal plane and get it all in focus. and tilt/shift isn't a good idea for stitching with a pano head (as far as i understand).
 

chris

  

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[Matthew Ward]

Hi

the detail may not be sharp if you are shooting through warm/hot air, I would suggest trying a test at dawn when the air is cool.

You can only get genuine sharpness on an infinitely narrow plane of focus so I would suggest critically focussing using zoomed live view.

One reason why medium format is sharper in the detail is because they do not have an anti aliasing filter >  800e?

Also I would recommend downloading the trial version of Capture One, (Phase one). The processing engine in it can pull out sharper detail from some Raw files

There is a good example of this on the DPreview site, Nikon 800e, roughly page 30.

You will also need some silly glass

http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/shop-by-brand/zeiss/lenses.html

for example.

Also a tripod too heavy to lift and lock the mirror up, which is a right pain for panoramas (but you knew all that)

Have a look at

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/05/05/an-unfair-fight-nikon-d800e-vs-leica-s2-p/

Best

Matthew

Ward

[Chris Johnston]

Hello Mathew,

 

In my early field geologist days, my duties included surveying in mining claims with a Bruton pocket transit and a plane table/stadia. The inherent issues with heat distortion was pounded into our heads at university and actual field tests proved heat distortion is a bad thing. Fortunately here for me in Namibia I shoot early and late when heat influences are minimal at worst.

 

I use a heavy tri-pod with weights.

 

Mirror lock up and remote trigger are a given.

 

It is interesting that I have now heard back from both Phase One and Pentax about loaners to test. It seems clear that at least with certain manufacturers, the public forums are something that they pay very close attention too. Nikon has still not replied, I guess they have too much money to care. For me it’s telling, given how much money I have invested in their kit and my loyalty through the dark days when Canon was king.

 

I enjoyed the unfair fight review, thanks for that.

 

And I am well familiar with Mr. White in the UK.

 

Kind regards,

 

Chris

 

From: pt...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pt...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Ward
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2013 8:27 AM
To: pt...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [PTGui] Re: gear question.

 

Hi

[Ellis Vener]

"It is interesting that I have now heard back from both Phase One and Pentax about loaners to test. It seems clear that at least with certain manufacturers, the public forums are something that they pay very close attention too. Nikon has still not replied, I guess they have too much money to care. For me it’s telling, given how much money I have invested in their kit and my loyalty through the dark days when Canon was king."

More likely it is a combination of factors
A) both Phase One and Pentax have gear they are trouble moving
B) Nikon actually does not have piles of money or gear sitting around (I know both of these as facts)
C) Who did you contact at Nikon? Nikon Japan, is well, Japanese and and in their culture saying a direct "no" is considered rude. It may also be that your request landed on the wrong guys desk.

 the D800 is terrific but as others have pointed out, your best bet is long lenses and multi-row stitching no matter which system you choose to go with.

best luck,

Ellis

On Saturday, April 27, 2013 6:07:17 AM UTC-4, namibia wrote: