Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: KevinA on April 30, 2010, 08:42:08 am

Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: KevinA on April 30, 2010, 08:42:08 am
What is the widest lens available on any platform, I will include shift and stitch. I keep getting impossible jobs of big buildings in narrow streets, so I would be interested to know what is the widest you can get. Pan and stitch does not work for me, it's just like a Fisheye. I do have Sigma's 12 - 24mm on a FF Canon is there wider to be had?

Kevin.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Dick Roadnight on April 30, 2010, 09:13:16 am
Quote from: KevinA
What is the widest lens available on any platform, I will include shift and stitch. I keep getting impossible jobs of big buildings in narrow streets, so I would be interested to know what is the widest you can get. Pan and stitch does not work for me, it's just like a Fisheye. I do have Sigma's 12 - 24mm on a FF Canon is there wider to be had?

Kevin.
Use a 10m, 20m or whatever tripod...
use my virtual view point technique... photograph each floor from a different height with a different shift, so the stitched image looks as if was taken from 2, 4 ... or whatever times as far away as the actual view point, with correct perspective and parallax.

¿Shall I draw you a diagram?

...Our parliamentary candidate is here for tea this afternoon, so I had better tear myself away.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: CBarrett on April 30, 2010, 09:23:59 am
Quote from: Dick Roadnight
Use a 10m, 20m or whatever tripod...
use my virtual view point technique... photograph each floor from a different height with a different shift, so the stitched image looks as if was taken from 2, 4 ... or whatever times as far away as the actual view point, with correct perspective and parallax.

¿Shall I draw you a diagram?


I'd rather like to see that diagram.

: )
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: fredjeang on April 30, 2010, 09:25:08 am
Quote from: CBarrett
I'd rather like to see that diagram.

: )
So do I.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: KevinA on April 30, 2010, 09:30:35 am
Quote from: Dick Roadnight
Use a 10m, 20m or whatever tripod...
use my virtual view point technique... photograph each floor from a different height with a different shift, so the stitched image looks as if was taken from 2, 4 ... or whatever times as far away as the actual view point, with correct perspective and parallax.

¿Shall I draw you a diagram?

...Our parliamentary candidate is here for tea this afternoon, so I had better tear myself away.

Er it's a wind up right?

Kevin.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Doug Peterson on April 30, 2010, 09:32:10 am
The HartBlei Cam (disclosure: we are dealers) allow the use of a 17mm on a P65+ (full frame 645) with a mm or two of movement. I've not personally used this combo (though I have used the HartBlei cam) and the LL review (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/hartblei-cam.shtml) says the corners are not great (not a shock given it's utterly extreme wideness)

17mm on a P65+ is the same as an 11mm lens on a FF dSLR with a small bit of room for movements (especially if your subject is not filling the frame in the horizontal direction).

That's the widest rectilinear lens I know of (probably isn't the widest in existence so please jump in if you know of wider).

Doug Peterson  ()
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Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Doug Peterson on April 30, 2010, 10:41:38 am
Another option would be a fisheye lens with De-Fishing software.

The quality is not great as the data at the edge is extremely stretched.

Just brainstorming for you ways to shoot REALLY wide.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: CBarrett on April 30, 2010, 11:12:54 am
That makes me wonder if you could adapt a Canon lens to the view camera.  I know that Sinar had a Nikon adapter board, but you needed their shutter.  Could a Canon 17 be mounted in, say, a Copal 3 shutter?  That on the P65+ would just be wicked!

Fun...
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Jack Flesher on April 30, 2010, 11:52:05 am
Quote from: KevinA
Pan and stitch does not work for me, it's just like a Fisheye.

Then you are not choosing the proper projection in the stitching software...
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: KevinA on April 30, 2010, 12:01:46 pm
Quote from: dougpetersonci
Another option would be a fisheye lens with De-Fishing software.

The quality is not great as the data at the edge is extremely stretched.

Just brainstorming for you ways to shoot REALLY wide.

Does not the de fish software crop the image as well?

Kevin.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Doug Peterson on April 30, 2010, 12:03:45 pm
Quote from: CBarrett
That makes me wonder if you could adapt a Canon lens to the view camera.  I know that Sinar had a Nikon adapter board, but you needed their shutter.  Could a Canon 17 be mounted in, say, a Copal 3 shutter?  That on the P65+ would just be wicked!

Fun...

...that's exactly what the Hartblei cam is (though with a focal plane shutter not a copal shutter)
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: KevinA on April 30, 2010, 12:06:58 pm
Quote from: Jack Flesher
Then you are not choosing the proper projection in the stitching software...

What do you suggest? I'm shooting at 12mm often struggling to get the top of the building in portrait with the camera level, a shot left and right stitched together I can't see how it could look anything but Fisheye, please enlighten me. I have Realviz cut down version.

Kevin.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Luis Argerich on April 30, 2010, 12:11:17 pm
I think the widest rectilinear lens is the TSE 17mm on a FF camera. Shifting in both directions gives you more FOV than the Sigma 12mm.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: CBarrett on April 30, 2010, 12:27:49 pm
Quote from: dougpetersonci
...that's exactly what the Hartblei cam is (though with a focal plane shutter not a copal shutter)


Yeah, but a Copal shutter would let me put it on my Arca!

; )

Doug, Man... when are we gonna get to build me a new tower?  CS5 is definitely quicker with the extra RAM it gets.  Using the patch tool on 400 mb files is instant!

Lovin Me some new P'Shop,

CB
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Dick Roadnight on April 30, 2010, 12:38:10 pm
Use my virtual view point technique... photograph each floor from a different height with a different shift, so the stitched image looks as if was taken from 2, 4 ... or whatever times as far away as the actual view point, with correct perspective and parallax.
Quote from: CBarrett
I'd rather like to see that diagram.

: )
See new topic [a href=\'index.php?showtopic=43338\']Virtual Viewpoint Technique[/a]
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Jack Flesher on April 30, 2010, 01:24:41 pm
Quote from: KevinA
What do you suggest? I'm shooting at 12mm often struggling to get the top of the building in portrait with the camera level, a shot left and right stitched together I can't see how it could look anything but Fisheye, please enlighten me. I have Realviz cut down version.

Kevin.

I don't know Realviz.  I use Autopano, and there you simply choose a planar projection and input the focal length of your lens as 1000mm regardless of what you used and the projection will be perfectly rectilinear.

If you post three 800 pixel jpegs of overlapping captures I can show you.  Note that with any rectilinearizations, you will get "pinched" sides and centers to correct the native barrel distortion, but the final effect is no different than a capture with a hyper-wide rectilinear lens -- you just need to shoot loose to make sure you have enough image for the crop after the pinch.  This is why most folks will shoot with their cameras in portrait orientation.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: ErikKaffehr on April 30, 2010, 02:54:46 pm
Hi,

As far as I know it's about 14 mm on full frame you can get. The Sigma 12-24 doesn't really cover FF (24x36) IMHO, corners get pretty bad.

You can do panos, but trying to get anything near to 180 degrees rectilinear is simply impossible. Mathematically, it would be called a singularity.

Assume that you stand in front of two railways rails. You turn left and they will converge, you turn right and they will converge. But, rectangular perspective says that they are parallel! So you would need to enlarge the left and right side of the image infinitely to be able to produce a rectilinear image with a 180 degree horizontal view angle. It cannot be done. Could it be done, it would look very artificial.

Best regards
Erik


Quote from: KevinA
What is the widest lens available on any platform, I will include shift and stitch. I keep getting impossible jobs of big buildings in narrow streets, so I would be interested to know what is the widest you can get. Pan and stitch does not work for me, it's just like a Fisheye. I do have Sigma's 12 - 24mm on a FF Canon is there wider to be had?

Kevin.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: JoeKitchen on April 30, 2010, 03:11:05 pm
Quote from: Dick Roadnight
Use my virtual view point technique... photograph each floor from a different height with a different shift, so the stitched image looks as if was taken from 2, 4 ... or whatever times as far away as the actual view point, with correct perspective and parallax.

See new topic [a href=\'index.php?showtopic=43338\']Virtual Viewpoint Technique[/a]
That is a lot of math and angles to figure out to make it work right correctly.  Looks like you need to know how far away the building is from where you are shooting and the distance between floors of the building you are shooting from, not to mention the vanishing point created behind the lens based off of you perspective (the starting point of your angle) and a good deal of knowledge of trig and maybe calculus.    

My degrees are in math and I dont think I would want to put that much effort into shooting.  But thanks, maybe one day I will have a job where I absolutely need that.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Doug Peterson on April 30, 2010, 03:33:38 pm
[--]
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: haefnerphoto on April 30, 2010, 03:58:59 pm
Attached are examples of the Canon 17mm t/s and a stitched image with the shift left and right added.  It's pretty wide!  Also, a few months ago there was mention of the Canon 24 t/s  and the Hartblei camera.  Apparently the 24 has a much greater image circle than the 17 and can be shifted significantly, while keeping the corners sharp.  Jim

[attachment=21764:pm1_015.jpg]
[attachment=21765:Indian_W...no_1_dc2.jpg]
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: Dick Roadnight on April 30, 2010, 04:15:03 pm
Quote from: JoeKitchen
That is a lot of math and angles to figure out to make it work right correctly.  Looks like you need to know how far away the building is from where you are shooting and the distance between floors of the building you are shooting from, not to mention the vanishing point created behind the lens based off of you perspective (the starting point of your angle) and a good deal of knowledge of trig and maybe calculus.    

My degrees are in math and I dont think I would want to put that much effort into shooting.  But thanks, maybe one day I will have a job where I absolutely need that.
Just needs a little bit of basic trig...

From the height of the building, the height of the tripod, the max accessible distance from the building and the FOV of the lens you calculate the (max) distance to the Virtual view point, but it gets more complicated when you have a three-dimensional problem creating a perspective/parallax view ¿so that you can stitch without having to scale? ... this would call for accurate surveying.

I think GCSE (16 year old) maths should suffice.
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: mtomalty on April 30, 2010, 05:10:31 pm
Edited.  Not relevant
Title: Wide non Fisheye
Post by: chiek on May 02, 2010, 11:22:14 pm
Quote from: CBarrett
That makes me wonder if you could adapt a Canon lens to the view camera.  I know that Sinar had a Nikon adapter board, but you needed their shutter.  Could a Canon 17 be mounted in, say, a Copal 3 shutter?  That on the P65+ would just be wicked!

Fun...

So I made this cam.
custom MF body v3.0, prontor3 professional, canon EF mounts for contax645 digital back (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=42099)
Customer who architecture photographer in europe, are satisfied in this feature.
He uses 17mm TS and this cam.

17mm TS lens sample shot with shifts. (0mm, 6mm up, 10mm up)

zero shift with 17mm lens has similar view with 11mm wide lens / 35mm camera