Panoramic shots Underwater

Hi,

You can check the specification of Sony NEX-5. It does very good panoramic shots automatically.

 

Sam

It does this with multiple images though, does it not Sam? Just stitches them in camera.

It does this with multiple images though, does it not Sam? Just stitches them in camera.

loftus,

Here is quote from a review;

Just press the shutter button and sweep the camera from side to side. The NEX-5 and NEX-3 shoot a high-speed burst of frames that are automatically

combined inside the camera to create a seamless panoramic still image containing depth information. Sweep Panoramas can be enjoyed in 3D when

the camera is connected to your 3D BRAVIA or any standards-compatible 3D TV.

Just simply, press the shutter once & sweep it until it stop bursting while you are holding the camera in normal way and it produce decent panoramic picture.

There are many good sample pictures if you search 'nex-5 panorama' in google. Quality of picture is good as it has same size sensor as Nikon DX sensor.

Sam

the x-pan is a nice camera for sure. but you need to work out if you just want a wide rectilinear angle of view cropped long and skinny... or ... a true panorama which a camera like the Widelux (or the cheapy Russian Horizon) or the pricey swiss Roundshot ...makes. they are very different things. The widelux/horizon/roundshot gives you more like a stitch ... a panoramic view with natural perspective by using a rotating lens behind a slit shutter.

the xpan/linhof/fuji/art panorama approach is simply a wide angle view with inherent steepened perspective, cropped long and skinny 1:2 or 1:3 proportion. if that's all you want, crop a 20mp full frame digital capture... by the time you shoot on film, with mismatched lens/port combos with an xpan in a makeshift housing, then do your scan... your res wont be too crash hot... the digi will be better I'd say.

I have a mate that built an UW rotating lens camera that used 220 film and shot 720degrees .. yes spun around twice ... so he could pull out a 360degree image that 'started' wherever he wanted it to.

very cool.

btw Ken Duncan's first book 'Australia Wide' was shot on widelux. since then I'm sure he's shot multiple camera types. including a recent panasonic 'tutorial' video on one of their UW point and shoot cameras. you can see it on YouTube if you want a laugh.

loftus,

 

Here is quote from a review;

Just press the shutter button and sweep the camera from side to side. The NEX-5 and NEX-3 shoot a high-speed burst of frames that are automatically

combined inside the camera to create a seamless panoramic still image containing depth information. Sweep Panoramas can be enjoyed in 3D when

the camera is connected to your 3D BRAVIA or any standards-compatible 3D TV.

 

Just simply, press the shutter once & sweep it until it stop bursting while you are holding the camera in normal way and it produce decent panoramic picture.

There are many good sample pictures if you search 'nex-5 panorama' in google. Quality of picture is good as it has same size sensor as Nikon DX sensor.

 

Sam

I understand that Sam, but it is still shooting multiple sequential frames and combining them through software in camera. What Cal is looking for is capturing an image where there is no time difference between different parts of the panorama, hence one panoramic image captured at the same moment.

Cal, this gives me an idea - what if you loan or rent two or more D90 with housing setups and set them up radially, and then rig up a trigger to fire them all simultaneuosly. Then if you combine the images with software you will have all images taken at the same time.

I understand that Sam, but it is still shooting multiple sequential frames and combining them through software in camera. What Cal is looking for is capturing an image where there is no time difference between different parts of the panorama, hence one panoramic image captured at the same moment.

Cal, this gives me an idea - what if you loan or rent two or more D90 with housing setups and set them up radially, and then rig up a trigger to fire them all simultaneuosly. Then if you combine the images with software you will have all images taken at the same time.

I've a suspicion that you will need substantial overlap due to corner problems and distortion induced by the dome port even if you could get hold of, and align, several housings. I'd like to watch this being done though .

The obvious answer is something like a housed Seitz Roundshot but getting hold of a housing might be tricky (see http://www.teamworkphoto.com/index.php?mai...oducts_id=12056 - it always worries me when it says 'call for price' and on the manufacturer's site its around €20k).

Thanks for all the responses!

Loftus - Interesting idea. Probably a little to hard to handle though. Getting them machined up so they triggered at the same time would be hard but once it was done it would be pretty cool.

I think i'll just see about tracking down a 5d mk 2 in a housing and cropping.

I wanted to steer away from cropping as I want the best possible final image but it seems like the only way to do it.......

Cal

I think i'll just see about tracking down a 5d mk 2 in a housing and cropping.

Not sure what you mean, are you just going to take a wide angle image and crop the vertical so it looks like a panorama, or are you planning a true panorama? Cropping a high MP image will not give you a true panorama. I think you are better off going the stitching route if you are really planning a true panorama

A true panoramic shot would be ideal of course but I need to shoot a single exposure and therefor i can't stitch . So I figure a high mp camera and crop to appear like a pano is the best option. Basically I'll be shooting in shallow water with lots of light dapples and stitching wont

Be able to align the light rays exactly.

So my options are - get a medium format film camera and crop , high mp (5dmkII or phase one etc) and crop or attempt to stitch with a high quality pano head tripod which could get messy as I want to print these large

Cal,

I took the shot below in high current hand held. It is three shots stitched in CS5. I was told by some extremely experienced photographers before I tried it, that it couldn't be done. "Fish move" I seem to remember was one quote.

I would suggest you give it a go first and see how it goes. For some reason CS5 doesn't always stitch, probably due to the distortion from the fisheye, but keeping some sort of horizontal line in the frame helps, so for shallow work, with a "horizon" where the reef meets sea, it might be just fine. Shoot lots of data to process and then spend a lot of time in front of the computer One of them will work out. Try to overlap about 20-30% as too much overlap with a fisheye lens seems to really confuse CS5. I have done this quite a few times and it works. Wrecks are really good for this, but this reef scene seems to prove to me you can't see the join, but my eyes are rubbish anyway so it's probably there and I can't see it

Good luck

Julian

Beautiful, Julian.

Shoot lots of data to process and then spend a lot of time in front of the computer One of them will work out.

I second to this!

To pick up where Loftus left, using two housings (or more) with a slight overlap and with identical prime lenses/port then triggering at the same moment via a cable release, I remember helping some one with a similar project, the idea was to trigger multiple camera at the same exact moment, it was dome by daisy linking them together (anyone remember SCSI chains links ) it would need rewiring of the bulkhead and I would recommend using Ikelite cord and bulkhead since both side are identical and that will make linking all of them much easier.

Never let anyone tell you that something's not possible, especially if they haven't tried it themselves! Great shot Julian!

Loftus - Interesting idea. Probably a little to hard to handle though. Getting them machined up so they triggered at the same time would be hard but once it was done it would be pretty cool.

Have you seen this, with 50 Canon DSLRs linked in an array? You are right, it does not look easy

loftus,

 

Here is quote from a review;

Just press the shutter button and sweep the camera from side to side. The NEX-5 and NEX-3 shoot a high-speed burst of frames that are automatically

combined inside the camera to create a seamless panoramic still image containing depth information. Sweep Panoramas can be enjoyed in 3D when

the camera is connected to your 3D BRAVIA or any standards-compatible 3D TV.

 

Just simply, press the shutter once & sweep it until it stop bursting while you are holding the camera in normal way and it produce decent panoramic picture.

There are many good sample pictures if you search 'nex-5 panorama' in google. Quality of picture is good as it has same size sensor as Nikon DX sensor.

 

Sam

hey guys

just thought this worth sharing

http://www.deepshots.co.uk/2010/12/nautica...water-panorama/

cheers

hey guys

just thought this worth sharing

http://www.deepshots.co.uk/2010/12/nautica...water-panorama/

 

cheers

Not top of the line quality I'm afraid. I can see the stitches even on this low resolution file.

Cheers

Karel

Not top of the line quality I'm afraid. I can see the stitches even on this low resolution file.

 

Cheers

Karel

that's the thing

the panoramic feature is useful for taking landscape pics,

in other words, when nothing is moving.

other than that, it pretty much sucked.

So I started this thread a while back and have been brooding over the idea for a while.

Just to recap - I want to shoot a SINGLE image and make a panorama out of it similiar to Ken Duncans style of photography. The reason I want a single image is because I will be shooting in shallow water with lots of dappled light rays. I need these rays to be perfectly aligned as i'm printing it large therefor stitching wont work as the lightrays get slightly distorted or jumbled.

So hows does this sound - I'll use a 35mm Nikonos V with 15mm or 12mm lens and then DRUM scan the negative at a few thousand dpi or so which will render a huge file (200mb or so). Can I then crop this file to produce a Panorama at 1m or larger?

I'm a film newb so please add any other thoughts or comments etc. I'm here to learn!

Cheers!

Cal

Hi Cal,

As far as I can tell that will work perfectly. You might be interested to know that I have printed at over a meter in size from a 60mb TIFF file produced by saving a .NEF file from a Nikon D3 that was processed in Photoshop with no discernible loss of quality, so you should be able to do it with a digital camera if you so desire.

Cheers

Julian