How to do panoramas 360 degree

A guy wants me to do pictures of a looong room (my work), as a 360 degree picture. I said it might be a little weird with such a long picture..

I will go and try it out, but got some rookie questions:

Should I use the same aperture all the way around, even though the room are very small but long and only got windows on one side? Guess flash would be very good, but I dont own one. If it cant be done without, Ill see if I can borrow one.

Am I placing the camera on my tripod, and then "just" turn it, snap, turn, snap, turn, snap and so on?

You will need to use the exact same setting on all pictures. Remember they have to match where they all meet. Also be sure to Shoot in portrait mode so that you Will have room to crop the top and bottom of the picture.


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On panoramas it's important to keep the same aperture and shutter speed going around view. Find the midpoint if lighting changes, get your exposure reading there and set it manually. You can make adjustments in postprocessing.

Also, it's critical to keep the camera perfectly level throughout, so make sure your tripod is level, and then check the camera level at 90 degree increments. Also, if you can manage to set the rotation point so that it's at the front of the lens and not at the camera you will avoid the barreling that comes naturally with panoramas. If not, expect to either crop or content aware fill, so if you can get a little more than you need at the top and bottom of your photos that will help.

BackdoorHippie said:

Also, if you can manage to set the rotation point so that it's at the front of the lens and not at the camera

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What do you mean by this?

nevermind

wud said:

What do you mean by this?

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If you just put your camera on a tripod head and spin it around you'll see that the image capture spot (the first element in the lens) does not remain in the same place but instead moves at a point anywhere from a couple inches to up to a foot in front of the pivot point. This is why all panoramas look accordianed when stitched together. Try it! Put your camera on the tripod, shoot a photo and then rotate the camera to the next position. The point at which light is received by the camera has now moved some distance from where it received the last photo, and it will do it again with each movement. So, when stitching occurs, the software must adjust for this by manipulating perspectives and sizes to make everything match, which is why you get top and bottom bowing.

But, if you use a tripod mount that allows the camera to be shifted back to a point where the first lens element is now directly over that pivot point, as you rotate the camera the capture point does not change, only the view does. A Gimbal head like this one greatly facilitates this.



Is it absolutely necessary? No. You'll just need to plan accordingly. But if you're doing internal architecture there's often nothing "extra" high or low that you want to cut out, so this is where a head like this is your friend.

BackdoorHippie said:

If you just put your camera on a tripod head and spin it around you'll see that the image capture spot (the first element in the lens) does not remain in the same place but instead moves at a point anywhere from a couple inches to up to a foot in front of the pivot point. This is why all panoramas look accordianed when stitched together. Try it! Put your camera on the tripod, shoot a photo and then rotate the camera to the next position. The point at which light is received by the camera has now moved some distance from where it received the last photo, and it will do it again with each movement. So, when stitching occurs, the software must adjust for this by manipulating perspectives and sizes to make everything match, which is why you get top and bottom bowing.

But, if you use a tripod mount that allows the camera to be shifted back to a point where the first lens element is now directly over that pivot point, as you rotate the camera the capture point does not change, only the view does. A Gimbal head like this one greatly facilitates this.

Is it absolutely necessary? No. You'll just need to plan accordingly. But if you're doing internal architecture there's often nothing "extra" high or low that you want to cut out, so this is where a head like this is your friend.

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Smart! (And expensive). Thought I would try to use the 2 waterpas (correct word?) in my tripod.
But maybe I should show this to the technic guy working there, maybe he could fix me one

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I believe a regular set of tripod rails might work just as well with a smaller lens. Once you get to the 70-200mm you could be out of luck.

BackdoorHippie said:

I believe a regular set of tripod rails might work just as well with a smaller lens. Once you get to the 70-200mm you could be out of luck.

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I'll see if the technic guy has something/can make something, which could turn the camera.. He is awesome, he can do all kind of crazy stuff, he made an entire platform which goes up/down when we press a bottom, he created the PCB and everything else himself. Also changed a big bolt, as it didn't fit on the railing we got.

I would use the 35mm and then I would try the wide at both 24mm and 14-16mm, just to see. Cant do it this week, place is busy, me too.



Its the flaps around the lift he made:

What program are you going to stitch with? If its PS, use the widest rectilinear lens you have. If your panorama has objects reasonably close to the lens, you will need to know the entrance point of the lens and rotate around it. If you don't do this, you will have parallax errors and it will be difficult to stitch correctly.

We are ready to see the pano. I have been wanting to do a spherical panorama but have not found the right subject yet.

Tracsoft - Don Kuykendall said:

We are ready to see the pano. I have been wanting to do a spherical panorama but have not found the right subject yet.

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For spherical pano's you definitely want a gimbal head!!

Epoc said:

What program are you going to stitch with? If its PS, use the widest rectilinear lens you have. If your panorama has objects reasonably close to the lens, you will need to know the entrance point of the lens and rotate around it. If you don't do this, you will have parallax errors and it will be difficult to stitch correctly.

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PS, yes. I should focus manually right? So it will be the same sharpness all the way around, right?
Not sure what you mean about the entrance point?

Btw, have you seen pictures like this? Pretty cool

Melbourne Skyline Spherical Panorama | Pixelwhip.com.au

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ToEMY1t3T...AARU/Ctm8hAKc07E/s1600/Spherical+Panorama.jpg

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Set focus to infinity and lock it. What lens are you using?

The entrance point of a lens is the point about which a lens is rotated where close and distant subjects focused on the film plane maintain their relative positions to one another. Successful panoramic photography requires that the axis of the camera's rotation be positioned at the entrance pupil of the lens. Otherwise, foreground and background subjects change their relative positions when the camera pans, causing misalignments and stitching errors between shots.

wud said:

Btw, have you seen pictures like this? Pretty cool

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Yes, when done correctly, it does create an interesting look. It is basically 360º x 180º equirectangular or spherical panorama that has been remapped to a vertical fisheye using a PS plugin called PT Tools. The equirectangular panorama is rotated in PS 180 degrees prior to applying the filter so the ground is at the top of the image.