Panoramic shots Underwater

Cal, mate you are trying way too hard.

There is no way that, whatever scan resolution you use, will a scan off a single 24x36mm frame off a roll of 35mm film be a better result than a +/- 20MP raw capture available from a FF 24x36mm DSLR.

And can you please, please stop calling them Ken Duncan style panoramas. As has been discussed earlier on the thread, even the almighty Ken Duncan uses different techniques to make his panos.

You will not find much better advice than is available to you when you re-read your own Topic

cheers

Thanks guys!

"Cal, mate you are trying way too hard. " - No I'm really not ...........It was a just a question..... and a pretty legit question I think.

"

There is no way that, whatever scan resolution you use, will a scan off a single 24x36mm frame off a roll of 35mm film be a better result than a +/- 20MP raw capture available from a FF 24x36mm DSLR. "

I don't have $10000 to spend on housing a 20mp camera with a quality wide angle lens. I have a 12mp camera (it still rocks tho!). I think your right about simply cropping a 20mb file and if I could, I would in a heartbeat. I figured that scanning the 35mm would give me something close to a 20mp cameras resolution but I just found out how cost prohibitive drum scanning is (around $70 a shot). However I can get a decent nikonos setup with a wide angle lens off ebay for around $500. Hence the reason I asked the question in the first place.

Ah well - back to the drawing board

Film does not have infinite DPI, nor does any lens.

You cannot squeeze more out of it, than is there.

But a 1 meter print isn't so big is it??

Pete Rowlands (UWP number 34) has put some hand-held stitched panoramas into the magazine. It seems to work. I would guess that the same principles apply as above the water and a rectilinear lens/port combination (big dome, 35mm focal length on a cropped sensor, 50mm on a full frame, a tripod and rotation about the nodal point) would work best. I've not dared it beneath the waves, but this was shot hand-held last month returning from the Shetland Isles and stitched from 8 images in Hugin with manually chosen control points:

It's more challenging to make panoramic shots directly, of course, but is it necessary, except for a rapidly moving subject? The waves here stitched quite well, probably because they have a regular pattern. It might be worth experimenting with dappled reflections because they also have a mathematical pattern as caustic curves and might stitch together with less difficulty than is anticipated...

Tim

" It might be worth experimenting with dappled reflections because they also have a mathematical pattern as caustic curves and might stitch together with less difficulty than is anticipated..."

Thats a very good point!

I'll have to give it a few more shots.