Homebrew Panoramic Setup
Ian Bee
I'm going to give Panoramics a shot with my Canon EOS 300 ( Rebel ).
Got all the Software to stitch the scanned slides.
Got the real Good Manfrotto Tripod, ( the heavy one ) 550 or something,
can't remember.
Have always used a Manfrotto ball head, but just bought the 229 3 way
mount, seemed like a nice unit, until I rotated the Pan a few times,
fucking thing simply locked up solid. Aluminium against Aluminium,
always a recipe for a disaster.
I own a Sheet Metal & Welding Workshop, tools are not a problem, I
dismantled the pan unit, machined it down a few thou, inserted a
cylindrical Nylon wear plate, now as good as gold, no, even better than
gold. Still sucks paying Aus $330.00 and having it fuck up in one week!
Now, I've spent heaps of time on the net, downloaded all I can find on
Panoramic Brackets, and made one to fit. All machined and Powdercoated.
Works a treat, got all my lenses calibrated for
Parralax............sweet.
Question................
Why is it that with nearly all of the sites dedicated to Panormics using
35 mm. SLR camera's, the cameras are mounted in the Portrait Position?
There must be a logical reason...........
Is it something to do with increasing the resolution by 50 % for any
given width ( 36 mm. as against 24 mm)?
For my money, I would of thought that cutting down on the stitching
would of been more paramount, therefore taking the shots in Landscape
mode.........
Cheers
Ian
Ken Chandler
"Ian Bee" <ian...@anon.com.au> wrote:
>
> Now, I've spent heaps of time on the net, downloaded all I can find on
> Panoramic Brackets, and made one to fit. All machined and Powdercoated.
> Works a treat, got all my lenses calibrated for
> Parralax............sweet.
Oooh sounds schweet. Got any spare "prototypes :-)
> Question................
>
> Why is it that with nearly all of the sites dedicated to Panormics using
> 35 mm. SLR camera's, the cameras are mounted in the Portrait Position?
My guesses
a) As you noted - to increase the "resolution"
b) To reduce the "letterbox" effect - ie a panorama much longer than it is
tall. With the camera in portrait mode you can have slightly taller pano
while still covering the same horizontal field of view while panning.
> For my money, I would of thought that cutting down on the stitching
> would of been more paramount, therefore taking the shots in Landscape
> mode.........
For me, depends on the subject. If doing multi-frame panos that contains a
lot of movement (boats on a harbour etc) then I would shoot landscape for
less joins and therefore less potential movement at the joins.
Regards,
Ken
Rob
> Have always used a Manfrotto ball head, but just bought the 229 3 way
> mount, seemed like a nice unit, until I rotated the Pan a few times,
> fucking thing simply locked up solid. Aluminium against Aluminium,
> always a recipe for a disaster.
>
> I own a Sheet Metal & Welding Workshop, tools are not a problem, I
> dismantled the pan unit, machined it down a few thou, inserted a
> cylindrical Nylon wear plate, now as good as gold, no, even better than
> gold. Still sucks paying Aus $330.00 and having it fuck up in one week!
I'd be disappointed with it too, question is why didn't you just take it
back for exchange, both mine have never locked up.
> Why is it that with nearly all of the sites dedicated to Panormics using
> 35 mm. SLR camera's, the cameras are mounted in the Portrait Position?
>
> There must be a logical reason...........
VAOV, even a 15mm or a rectilinear corrected 16mm FF Fisheye is too
narrow sometimes.
Cheers,
Rob
justathought
online for us all to look at.
Use the portrait format 'cause you tend to crop from the top and bottom.
Shane
"Ian Bee" <ian...@anon.com.au> wrote in message
news:1fizcbn.5rs0x11gcrd1eN%ian...@anon.com.au...
Wilfred Kazoks
Otherwise your panorama will curve up or down. Also don't forget to set the
camera on manual exposure since you are in effect only taking one exposure
(picture). You don't want the foreground or even toned sky varying in
between shots.
Regards Wilfred
Dave W.
important to get everything level.
The tripod base must first be level. I do this with a CD attached to
the base of the center pole. There's a ¼ x 20 bolt on the bottom I
secure it to with a large plastic wingnut, and use a small level
around it until the base is correct. I also use the level on the
center pole itself to double check it.
The pano head itself is then checked by using the same little level
and the use of a spirit level (B&H and Calumet have them for $20 or
under) on the camera itself.
When stitching is done, you'll know just how well you did with the
leveling. A proper setup will reveal no more than a few pixels off in
the vert. plane.
Backing up what was mentioned, use of manual exposures is also
critical. Even though some shots will be under exposed and another
might be over, its best to get an average of the extremes. This will
allow the stitching software an easier time to breeze through the
process without having to make adjustments that will usually turn out
very unnatural looking. Especially important if you'll be doing 360°
panos. The near-final result can always be run through various PS
steps.
Portrait orientation won't necessarily mean doing more shots IF you
use a wide angle lens. At 24mm (35mm camera) that would mean 9 or 10
shots (10 with ~35% overlap). At 50mm in landscape, you'd need to get
about 14 - 16 shots.
The result of wide angle portrait will be a taller image, instead of a
hugely long strip, and easier to look at.
I will also mention that you will need to remove barrel distortion
from wide angle shots prior to stitching. De-Barrelizer or Helmut
Dersch's Correct plug-in filter are good for this. Don't try stitching
WA images without doing that first.
Pano's are an interesting learning curve!
- Dave W.
>>>>>
"Wilfred Kazoks" <Wilfred[NOSPAM]@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message news:<%fkl9.3461$kd3....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...