Strange behavior in PTGui PRO 13

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Hi,

I use PTGui PRO 13 the demo version. I have placed control points to a viewpoint image, only on the flat area. Everything went well, except for a small problem I joined 2 screenshot.

Any idea of what cause this problem ?

Thank you for the help.

[PTGui Support]

Hi Arnaud,

Do you mean the hole at the top right? That’s because that area is masked out in both images, it’s where the tripod foot is placed.

You could use the Patch Tool, it should work well here. See video tutorial #9 here:

https://ptgui.com/video

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse

ptgui.com

On 14 Aug 2026, at 15:21, Arnaud Cam Guyomard <parmen...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I use PTGui PRO 13 the demo version. I have placed control points to a viewpoint image, only on the flat area. Everything went well, except for a small problem I joined 2 screenshot.

Any idea of what cause this problem ?

Thank you for the help.

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[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Hi Joost,

Yes the hole at the top right.

 Thanks for the video, it was helpful.

Arnaud

[John Houghton]

Arnaud,  You should also take the positions of shadows cast by tripod legs into consideration and mask them out in addition to the legs themselves.

John

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Hi John,

I managed to hide a big lens flare with masking tool but it doesn't work for the shadows cast of the tripod i don't know why... I use a samyang fisheye 12mm and for professionnel work i think it is not really suited a little disapointed.. Can you recommand a better fisheye with a strong lens flare resistance for a Sony Alpha 7 ? The choice is limited maybe the Canon ef 8-15mm with mc-11 ?

Thank you

Arnaud

[John Houghton]

On Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 4:00:40 PM UTC+1 Arnaud Cam Guyomard wrote:

I managed to hide a big lens flare with masking tool but it doesn't work for the shadows cast of the tripod i don't know why...

I shoot the offset nadir from a direction at right angles to the direction of the shadows using a similar technique to that described here: http://www.rosaurophotography.com/html/technical6.html .  It's sometimes advantageous to take more than one shot from different positions, especially where there are multiple light sources.

 

I use a samyang fisheye 12mm and for professional work I think it is not really suited a little disappointed.. Can you recommend a better fisheye with a strong lens flare resistance for a Sony Alpha 7 ? The choice is limited maybe the Canon ef 8-15mm with mc-11 ?

I don't have practical experience of many fisheye lenses and mostly use the Canon 8-15mm fisheye.  This is not immune to flare either.  I deal with that by taking additional shots with either my hand held out to cover the sun (or lamp), or use a stick with a cardboard disk attached to the end to similarly shield the lens from the direct rays of the sun.  The stick is a telescopic radio aerial that conveniently collapses down to a small size.

John

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Thanks for the link—that’s interesting. I have so many questions, lol... I want to work with a 5-shot exposure series. Is it better to work directly with the RAW files in PTGui, or to process the photos beforehand using Photoshop or Affinity program—saving them as 16-bit TIFFs—before stitching the bracketed set in PTGui? I imagine the RAM usage would differ...

Thanks again for your time and helpful advice.

[John Houghton]

On Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 6:06:45 PM UTC+1 Arnaud Cam Guyomard wrote:

Thanks for the link—that’s interesting. I have so many questions, lol... I want to work with a 5-shot exposure series. Is it better to work directly with the RAW files in PTGui, or to process the photos beforehand using Photoshop or Affinity program—saving them as 16-bit TIFFs—before stitching the bracketed set in PTGui? I imagine the RAM usage would differ...

Arnaud, I think you should try different workflows to see what works best for you. I'm just an 87 year old amateur photographer and maybe somewhat stuck in my ways after using PTGui for the last 25 years.  I still prefer to process the raw images in Adobe Raw and output 16-bit tiff for PTGui.  And I'm not generally a fan of HDR processing!  But things don't stand still and PTGui is improving steadily as the years go by. . . .

John

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Hi John,

If I understand correctly, you’re the veteran of the community. As for me, I haven't used PTGui since version 4—I think that was 20 years ago; that certainly doesn't make me feel any younger... The workflow has evolved quite a bit, and I feel like I'm starting from scratch. Judging by my first attempt, you can do pretty much everything—or close to it—right inside PTGui now, which is a huge time-saver.

Keep at it and keep experimenting ;-)  it's worth it.

Arnaud

[Erik Krause]

Am 15.08.2026 um 19:06 schrieb Arnaud Cam Guyomard:

> Is it better to work directly
> with the RAW files in PTGui, or to process the photos beforehand using
> Photoshop or Affinity program—saving them as 16-bit TIFFs—before stitching
> the bracketed set in PTGui?

The things PTGui can do on raw files increased with every version.
Meanwhile it does a decent job reducing chromatic aberration and purple
fringing. It also has noise reduction, but there might be raw converter
who d a better job on that. F.e. green fringing and highlight
restoration are still missing, so it might depend on what you need. On
the other hand HDR merging is easier with linear image data, which is
the case for raw image files.

Ultimately, it depends on your requirements.

As for flare-resistant fisheye lenses, the Samyang 12 mm performs
relatively well in this regard, I use it almost exclusively. Find a
selection here:
https://www.360cities.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=outdoor&location_query=&contributor_query=Erik+Krause

It would likely be difficult to find a fisheye lens that is
significantly better, since fisheye lenses always have many highly
curved lens surfaces that cause internal reflections even with perfect
coatings. This is even worse for fisheye zoom lenses.

Here is a comprehensive list of all available fisheyes, partly with
links to reviews: https://www.thefisheyelist.com/

Avoiding lens flare is more a matter of skill, which involves covering
the source of the flare, as John describes. I try to cover the sun with
my hand in every single image, and then take an additional image with
the sun positioned exactly in the center, so that all lens flares are in
the same spot. In PTGui, I mask out my hand in all the images and use
the sun image solely to cover the gap that results.

If it'snot possible to cover the light source, then it's a good idea to
shoot more images at lower angular increments (more overlap). Since the
reflections move it should be possible to mask them in all images and
still have the relevant parts covered.

A bigger problem is dust on the lens, which causes a lot of tiny
aperture formed specs. So carry a lens cleaning cloth and clean the lens
before shooting into the sun.

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

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

"Good work, Erik! Thanks for sharing your technique, I'll try it out for flare.

As for dust on the lens, I didn't know it caused flare. I'll make sure to take care of it. 

Regarding the aperture, should I shoot at f/8 or f/11 to get the best sharpness from this lens? I haven't run the tests yet. Also, I find the manual focus ring isn't very clear. So far, I've tested at f/8 focused at infinity—or at least I think so based on the photo; can you confirm?

Do I need to readjust my nodal point setting if I switch to f/11 ?

Anyway, that's enough questions for tonight. Thanks for sharing—it's much appreciated.

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[Erik Krause]

Am 16.08.2026 um 20:49 schrieb Arnaud Cam Guyomard:

> Regarding the aperture, should I shoot at f/8 or f/11 to get the best
> sharpness from this lens? I haven't run the tests yet.

I'd go with f/11. Although the depth of field is quite large, it might
still be a bit blurry for near things if focused at infinity. Especially
since usual depth of field considerations don't apply if you allow to
zoom in. I sometimes even use f/16

> Also, I find the manual focus ring isn't very clear.

The focus ring is the weak point of that lens, it sometimes comes badly
adjusted and then doesn't show the correct distances. It might even be
impossible to focus to infinity. You check focus wide open of course.

> So far, I've tested at f/8 focused at
> infinity—or at least I think so based on the photo; can you confirm?

Place your camera on a table and position a measuring rod underneath it,
making sure the zero mark is aligned with the sensor plane (indicated by
the crossed-out circle on the camera). Then adjust the focus ring to 1
meter. Take a photo wide open, and see where the sharpest region is on
the measure. This way you can see how much off the ring is, and in what
direction.

Another weak point is the front lens, which got loose on my version. In
this case, just tighten the ring around the front lens with a toothpick
in one of the tiny holes.

> Do I need to readjust my nodal point setting if I switch to f/11 ?

Not between f/8 and f/11. The no-parallax point is the center of the
apparent entrance pupil as seen through the front lens. Technically, if
something obstructs the light rays before or after they pass the actual
aperture, the entrance pupil location changes. It looks like this is the
case with the Samyang at aperture settings below f/5.6. However, since
the entrance pupil location depends on the angle the light enters the
lens anyway, this might be less relevant.

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Well, I’ve got some work ahead of me. Thanks again for sharing this.

I tested the chromatic aberration correction in PTGui yesterday, and it works really well—what an evolution over the last 20 years... An interesting addition to PTGui Pro might be "Unsharp Mask" during RAW preprocessing, though I’m not sure if it’s better to apply that to the output equirectangular image in third-party software instead.

I have another question regarding control points for the offset nadir shot. How does PTGui handle rocky terrain that doesn't really have any flat ground?

Regarding the Samyang lens: do you remove the lens hood when tightening the front element with toothpicks?

A huge thank you for your help.

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[PTGui Support]

On 8/17/26 06:54, Arnaud Cam Guyomard wrote:
> I have another question regarding control points for the offset nadir
> shot. How does PTGui handle rocky terrain that doesn't really have any
> flat ground?

Viewpoint correction requires a flat surface. On the other hand, rocky
terrain is very forgiving to stitching errors so you might actually get
a usable result. In this case add only a few control points around the
missing part of the nadir, so you get reasonable stitching in that area.
Don't add too many control points or the optimizer will start to throw
other parts of the panorama out of alignment in order to get better
alignment of the nadir.

The Patch Tool also works very well for rocky surfaaces. See video #9 here:

https://ptgui.com/video

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse

www.ptgui.com

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Ok thanks for the advice for the control points around the missing parts.

Have a good day and congratulations on this brilliant software.

Arnaud Cam Guyomard

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[Erik Krause]

Am 17.08.2026 um 06:54 schrieb Arnaud Cam Guyomard:

> How does PTGui handle rocky terrain that doesn't really have any flat
> ground?

In such cases I always try to be not too far off the viewpoint of the
other shots. I usually place the tripod slightly outside the three
points where it stood before, extend on tripod leg and adjust my
panoramic tripod head such, that it extends horizontally in one
direction - over the point I took the other shots.

A weight on the extended leg - most of the time my foot - prevents it
from tipping over. This way I keep the parallax to a minimum. But still
I keep control points close to the hole and try to place them on
features in a horizontal plane. PTGui Optimum Seam usually does a
wonderful job routing around any problems.

> Regarding the Samyang lens: do you remove the lens hood when tightening the
> front element with toothpicks?

I shouldn't be necessary. Mine is quite hard to remove.

Be careful: I used a steel pin the first time, and scratched -
fortunately - only the mounting ring. But that was really close…

[Arnaud Cam Guyomard]

Okay, the key is to keep the control points close to the hole, or worst case export the nadir view to Photoshop or PTGui and use the patch tool.

Can't wait to try all this out! ;-)

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