Pano technique for architecture

[BernardLanguillier]

Is the camera kept perpendicular to the pano rig or are you rotating around as you shoot the 16 frames?  I've used a sliding rail for flat stitching 2-3 frames before, does your software correct somehow for parallax or if everything is far away enough it wouldn't be an issue?

This is how it works:

http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/07.html

By positioning the entrance pupil point of the lens on top of the rotation center along the 2 axis, you are able to take images without parallax issue.

Good pano softwares like Panotools, PTgui or Autopano pro able to stitch perfectly images that were corrctly shot with such a gear. By perfectly, I mean that there are zero visible artifcats, and that the pixel sharpness of the resulting merged image is 95+% identical to that of the individual frames making up the panorama.

Cheers,
Bernard

[bill t.]

People cloning is part of what makes panos the next best thing to a "Where's Waldo" book.  I rarely de-clone my shots.  And even dramatic lighting changes have a way of seeming logical, I have shots with elements shot on either side of the sunset that look perfectly reasonable.  And with those longish focal lengths every part of the image is basically the optical sweet spot...eat your hearts out Super-Angulon Boys!

[SeanBK]

This is how it works:

http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/07.html

By positioning the entrance pupil point of the lens on top of the rotation center along the 2 axis, you are able to take images without parallax issue.

Good pano softwares like Panotools, PTgui or Autopano pro able to stitch perfectly images that were corrctly shot with such a gear. By perfectly, I mean that there are zero visible artifcats, and that the pixel sharpness of the resulting merged image is 95+% identical to that of the individual frames making up the panorama.

Cheers,
Bernard

I second Bernard's setup. I have been using RRS Ultimate Pano (Multi-row panos) setup, flawless & quality is great, albeit slightly expensive but worth every penny.

[Guillermo Luijk]

I have no words Bernard, simply impressive.

Could you please show us one of the original images in the corners (e.g. top left) just to imagine how strong the perspective correction was at stitching?

BR

[button]

I have no words Bernard, simply impressive.

Could you please show us one of the original images in the corners (e.g. top left) just to imagine how strong the perspective correction was at stitching?

BR

Take a look at this:

http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=5297

I haven't played with any hybrid rectilinear projection yet, but I would like to soon.

Bernard- great shot!  I really like the composition- sort of like an abstract steel hourglass.  Well done.

John

[BernardLanguillier]

I have no words Bernard, simply impressive.

Could you please show us one of the original images in the corners (e.g. top left) just to imagine how strong the perspective correction was at stitching?

BR

I'll try to upload something tonight. This is a planar projection, and corners can indeed get pretty soft when trying to go too wide, but I didn't notice any major softening with this one.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Take a look at this:

http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=5297

I haven't played with any hybrid rectilinear projection yet, but I would like to soon.

Bernard- great shot!  I really like the composition- sort of like an abstract steel hourglass.  Well done.

Thanks for the link and the comments.

This "new" projection is very interesting. I'll have to give PTassembler a try once this is released. Do you know whether an OSX version is in the works?

Cheers,
Bernard

[button]

Do you know whether an OSX version is in the works?

Cheers,
Bernard

Sorry, no idea.  I actually use PTGui on Vista 64, and I would like to see these hybrid projections make their way to this program.  I really should give PTassembler a try, though.

John

[JeffKohn]

Take a look at this:

http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=5297

I haven't played with any hybrid rectilinear projection yet, but I would like to soon.

Bernard- great shot!  I really like the composition- sort of like an abstract steel hourglass.  Well done.

John

This looks very promising. I've found that many times I'm not happy with the cylindrical or spherical projections for wide FOV's, something like that "hybrid" projection seems like just what I'm looking for.

[Huib]

I don't understand, Bernard.
You wrote that you use 16 images. That means 8 bits 16 x 70 Mb=1120 Mb. You finish with only 180Mb???
Did you use more then 1/3 overwrite? Or did you use 4x4 images for HDR?

[BernardLanguillier]

I don't understand, Bernard.
You wrote that you use 16 images. That means 8 bits 16 x 70 Mb=1120 Mb. You finish with only 180Mb???
Did you use more then 1/3 overwrite? Or did you use 4x4 images for HDR?

Hello Huib,

The image is not 180 MB, it is 180 megapixels (if I recall somethin like 14,000 x 12,500 pixels) which translated in an image that is indeed around 1GB (there is some overlap between the frames)...

Cheers,
Bernard

[brianc1959]

Just some thoughts....

The nice motives you show here is perfect for stitching, and therefore very seductive

but,
Have you ever noticed how much the light can change in 3 minutes    
How much the shadow moves in 3 minutes
How fast and far the clouds are travelling in the sky in 3 minutes
How many trucks that can park in you images in 3 minutes
How many people that can walk in the wrong places in the image in 3 minutes
How many people that can leave the right places in the image in 3 minutes
and so on.......  

It's a very common misunderstanding that we architectural photographers have all the time in the world to do our images - a very few times we have, but often you can prepare a take in an hour, wait for an other half for the clouds to leave a hole for the light and then leave you with 10 seconds before a truck enters the scene and after using some minutes to get it to go away -  no more lights / or the light moved too far creating to long shadows......

Its not for fun, that you see us running around sometimes to get everything as perfect as possible.

I stitch quite a lot with my Alpa, but seldom more than two images, that's normal durable on most scenes, but relay on making 16 images or 8 for that sake on every scene....

Very best,
Adam

Something not often appreciated about stitching, particularly for architectural subjects, is that it *helps* you to control unwanted people/cars/etc. in the image.  For example, I once photographed Monticello, which was completely swamped with tourists the day I was there.  But because I was shooting 20+ image mosaics I was able to wait for each sub-image to have no people.  The result was the image I wanted - strictly architecture and no people.  This would have been impossible using a single-shot technique.