UW Panos?

I am wondering if anyone has done any UW panoramas and if so what lens, technique, etc. thay used. Iam most interested in how you made the capture not the post processing.

I am in the preliminary stages of panning a project that might include a pano or two in the effort.

I have found that the Nikon 16mm or the Sigma 15mm fisheye are by far the best lens for shooting panoramas on Nikon DSLRs. They seem to provide an ideal range of coverage and their corners are much more suitable than those in rectilinear images.

Alex

To add to Alex' post, fixed exposure parameters and a large amount of overlap between adjacent frames is necessary with such wide lenses. Otherwise, the pano software may not stitch the images properly...

I have found that the Nikon 16mm or the Sigma 15mm fisheye are by far the best lens for shooting panoramas on Nikon DSLRs. They seem to provide an ideal range of coverage and their corners are much more suitable than those in rectilinear images.

 

Alex

When considering the fisheye's available why not go wider with either the 14MM or the 10.5mm?

Hi Nemo,

I think Alex said that the corner softness was a problem w/ other lenses, like the 14mm. I think that would make for a funny pano. The 15 and 16 have around a 100 degree coverage on a DX sensor, I believe.

The 10.5 may be a bit too extreme with the stretched corners. I can't speak from experience though, as I haven't used that lens (or the 15mm on my Canon 5D) for panos.

Cheers

James

Try this link:

http://thedecostop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20479

I think this is an awesome pano (I actually bought 2 copies)

there is some insight into the technique used too.

Try this link:

 

http://thedecostop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20479

 

I think this is an awesome pano (I actually bought 2 copies)

there is some insight into the technique used too.

Thanks I have seen this image floating around the web but hadnt read the discription of how he did it. There was no mention of the lens he used and I was surprised to read that he shot it hand held.

When considering the fisheye's available why not go wider with either the 14MM or the 10.5mm?

I've actually tried to do panos with the 10.5mm, and found that the software I use is fooled by the 180º of view and cannot stitch the images properly, regardless of the amount of overlap I used. This may just be a problem with the software I use, though...

I shot the pano on my home page with 10.5mm. I stiched it with DoubleTake (on Mac).

I shot the pano on my home page with 10.5mm. I stiched it with DoubleTake (on Mac).

Nice image. How many images did you stitch together and did you shoot it in one row or multiple rows?

I have found that the Nikon 16mm or the Sigma 15mm fisheye are by far the best lens for shooting panoramas on Nikon DSLRs. They seem to provide an ideal range of coverage and their corners are much more suitable than those in rectilinear images.

 

Alex

Alex,

Which Sigma 15MM are you thinking of the 15MM EX or the 15MM EX DG. It seems the EX DG would produce different results than the Nikon 16MM would.

Mike

That was just one row of vertical frames (4 or 5 if I remember correctly).