Hi List, As some of you asked how to do Panoramas here's my little tutorial to start with:
First of all you need: - A tripod with a head that can turn 360 degrees (full circle) around it's Horizontal axis. I don't really recommend the use of ballheads as they tend to move freely in other directions as well... My setup is: Giottos MT 9361 + MH 5001 - A wide angle lens. The KitLens is perfectly fine to start with (kittens are not) but later on you might want to get a Ultra Wide Angle lens, like the Sigma 10-20, Pentax DA 10-17 fisheye or the Samyang 8mm Fisheye. The wider the lens the less picture you need to take -> makes life easier. Just an example: @18mm you need 12 pictures in each row (every 30 degrees), at least 3 rows + nadir and zenit. That equals 38 pictures. @8mm Fisheye you only need 1 row of 4 pictures and a Zenit and Nadir. That's 6 pictures. Zenit and Nadir is the all the way down and all the way up pictures. My setup is: Pentax DA L 18-55 kitlens for the Pentax K-r - A panoramic head attachment that allows you to rotate the camera with the rotation's center being exactly at the center of the front lens (called No Parallax Point). There are various options for this, most commonly the Nodal Ninja is used. If you just want to try Panorama photography, if it's your cup of tea or not, then I would advice to make your own version from a couple pounds. It won't be as precise as the Nodal Ninja and you might not be able to do interiors with it easily, but it wouldn't cost you 200+ GBP or $300+ ... I would say for very occasional Panorama works or for the learning process a DIY pano-head will do. I made mine based on Peter Loud's Nodal Samurai ( http://www.peterloud.co.uk/nodalsamurai/nodalsamurai.html ). My setup: DIY Pano-head :) So once you have all the setup together then find a good spot for the picture. To begin with panoramas I'd recommend large, open places first as the less space you have the more obvious the non-precision of the head will be. For example with my head and the kitlens doing interiors requires at least 2 more rows for the perfect results. What you need to create the panorama is enough pictures to have enough overlapping where the stiching software can blend the pictures. The more the overlapping the better the results will be. Sometimes the software does the job fully but sometimes you need to help it with giving control points manually. If you've done enough pictures with loads of overlapping the it won't be a problem. So I say spend a bit more time with the taking the pictures than spending hours to add control points or worst case scenario, abandon your project because the lack of overlaps. "Fail to plan and you plan to fail." The software I use is PTGui for Windows. I found a similar program for Ubuntu, called Hugin, but it's just not that good as PTGui. Unfortunately PTGui is not free (unless you do warez... :P), but it has a demo version you can try which adds Watermarks... Using the PTGui is pretty simple. Load the pictures, let the software align them and create the panorama! :D Then when you render your panorama there are various options to make the panorama, the most common is to create a spheric panorama that you can use to create a Quicktime VR-Cube where you can look around, or the one I posted earlier is called "Little Planet" If you have questions feel free to ask :) but as I am a beginner on this field (made only 4-5 panos so far) I might not be able to go into deep technical details :) Happy Panoraming! :D .timber ps.: oh and the kittens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-adI7I_bYVc -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
