Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL for 360x180 Pano

[Bob]

Is the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL a good lens for making a 360x180 pano for virtual tours?

I just bought a Nikon Z9 and the current fisheye availability for the Z mount is paltry.

Looking at the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL you get a shooting pattern of

Elevation    Shots

+60               3

0                    5

-60                 3

Then you need to add a couple of offset nadir shots

So it looks like 11 shots.

Does anyone have experience using the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL for a 360x180 pano?

Any sense on how this might work?

Thanks for your insight and help.

Bob Bryer

[Erik Krause]

Am 01.03.2022 um 19:51 schrieb Bob:
> Looking at the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL you get a shooting pattern of
>
> Elevation Shots
> +60 3
> 0 5
> -60 3
>
> Then you need to add a couple of offset nadir shots
>
> So it looks like 11 shots.
>
> Does anyone have experience using the Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL for a 360x180
> pano?

No personal experience, sorry...

Using a rectilinear super wide angle lens is perfectly possible for
spherical panoramas, just like any other lens. However, you should know
that you will not get a higher resolution despite the amount of images
shot, compared to a fisheye lens with same focal length. With a
(hypothetical) 9mm fisheye you could shoot the whole sphere with 6
images or eventually less, if you use special techniques. If you don't
need the Laowa for non-panoramic shooting too, you can use a much
cheaper Samyang (Bower, Rokinon, Walimex) 8mm fisheye and get almost the
same resolution.

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

[Bob]

Thank you Erik

I appreciate the insight about resolution

I will probably get the TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye - currently the only fisheye available for the Nikon Z mount.

[Erik Krause]

Am 03.03.2022 um 11:35 schrieb Bob:
> I will probably get the TTArtisan 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye - currently the only
> fisheye available for the Nikon Z mount.

The Z9 is a full format camera? Then a 11mm fisheye would be a good
choice. The Samyang 12mm should be usable with a cheap adapter, though.

[Wingman Media]

Can you please share one shot with this lens as I want to check what vignetting look like.
I have Laowa 10-18mm which could be a great lens for 360 photography but it comes with a blue hallo around lens hood and it makes vignetting in blue. Then when stitched there are blue shown in the stitched 360. To get rid of it I need to zoom to 14mm which need way more shots than 10mm. Adjusting vignetting curve helps a bit but blue is still in all pictures ruining them.

[Erik Krause]

Am 11.10.24 um 07:38 schrieb Wingman Media:

> Then when stitched there are blue shown in the stitched 360. To get rid
> of it I need to zoom to 14mm which need way more shots than 10mm.

Both the 10-18mm and the 9mm Laowa are rectilinear lenses that require
more shots for the same resolution than a fisheye with the same focal
length, as I wrote earlier in this thread.

For the blue fringe problem: In PTGui pro you can use masks to hide the
blue areas. Paint it in one image and save it for later use. You can
apply it to all images on Source Images tab. But this will reduce the
field of view, too.