Fed up stitching .. any pointers?

[ondebanks]

Hi Stefan,

I was very excited when you first said this:

Imagine it as a Mamiya 645 DF without mirror

- that would work with every single M645AFD-mount back, including mine.

But then you dashed my hopes when you said this:

But we use a connection cable - as we have All backs supported.

Oh dear; that's what I really didn't want to hear. The problem is, not all backs can take a sync cable! My Kodak DCS645M, and the Mamiya ZD back, being two examples. These can only be activated by their electronic contact strip, or tethered over Firewire. They do work perfectly on a Mamiya 645 DF; but from what you say, they do not work on your HCam. So it's not really "a Mamiya 645 DF without mirror" after all.

There are Mamiya adapters for the ZD back (to the RB67, 4x5 Graflox slider etc.) which do use the electronic contacts - I was hoping that the HCam did too. Like this:
ZD Back Adapter HX401

Ray

[Lester]

You guys and your fancy View lens and fancy set ups. Do you want to get 140+ degree, with one shot? Mamiya made a 24mm fisheye lens that is sharp all the way out to the edge. And it only cost about $700 at ebay. With the use of de-fisheye software, it make the image a super wide angle lens without the fisheye look. I am working on a set-up that will give me 200+ degree angle, with one shot. Going to Vegas to test it out.

[Stefan.Steib]

Ray

don´t despair !
If you really want this we can make it. It´s all a question of the price. There is this 701 adapterplate for the RZ Pro IID it has the mount for the M645 back with contacts, we could
put this plate to the HCam and connect the cables inside. The Plate is not cheap around 500 €, milling it to fit the HCam slider + some additional cabling work, I guess we could do it for around 1k €. It was just not necessary until now as our customers use mostly new Phase and Leaf backs on the HCam.
But- we always listen to our customers.........

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

[Stefan.Steib]

Lester -

the HCam can do 180 degrees up to 80 Mpix with one shot and the new 8-15mm Canon Fisheye Zoom. See here a sample shot on a tradeshow in Frankfurt,not yet optimized, just a fast tryout (still with a Canon Protoype - this was back in April):

http://www.hcam.de/downloads/15mmFisheyeonP45plus.jpg

There are several software packages to use to de-fisheye. Do you know this one ?

http://www.imagetrendsinc.com/products/prodpage_hemi.asp

quite interesting approach, not exactly a full rectilinear solution but still looking very natural as people outside of the middle will not be distorted as with other packages.

greetings from Munich
Stefan

[ondebanks]

Ray

don´t despair !
If you really want this we can make it. It´s all a question of the price. There is this 701 adapterplate for the RZ Pro IID it has the mount for the M645 back with contacts, we could
put this plate to the HCam and connect the cables inside. The Plate is not cheap around 500 €, milling it to fit the HCam slider + some additional cabling work, I guess we could do it for around 1k €. It was just not necessary until now as our customers use mostly new Phase and Leaf backs on the HCam.
But- we always listen to our customers.........

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

Stefan,

I am impressed!    Very impressed, in fact, that you show such flexibility and can-do attitude to problem solving. I think your company will go far.

Because of the cabling to the plate, I imagine that this special version would not work as a slider? - would it be like a B1-i? Would it also lose the ability to later on change the back plate mount to another platform?

Ray

[ondebanks]

You guys and your fancy View lens and fancy set ups. Do you want to get 140+ degree, with one shot? Mamiya made a 24mm fisheye lens that is sharp all the way out to the edge. And it only cost about $700 at ebay. With the use of de-fisheye software, it make the image a super wide angle lens without the fisheye look. I am working on a set-up that will give me 200+ degree angle, with one shot. Going to Vegas to test it out.

The 24mm is one damn fine lens, I can certainly attest.

But how are you going to get "200+ degree angle, with one shot" out of it?

Ray

[Stefan.Steib]

Ray

I think we could do this even with the slider. We already have a "hole" actually a kind of "channel" where the  transport holders of the slider run through.
If we use this to get into the back of the slider with the cabling and inside of the body some kind of a flex cable (like use in Printers) this should work.
Of course for the HCam-B1i this would be more simple to do when there is no slider.

The slider would be probably a special edition, but we can replace it completely with a standard one if you want to exchange later (the complete slider is about 900€+ work for exchange and calibration)

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

[Myko]

I know I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but have a look at this:  http://www.multistitch.com/

[Dick Roadnight]

I know I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but have a look at this:  http://www.multistitch.com/

Yes, I had thought about an off-set sensor board.
A very cheap simple fiddly solution that could be made and sold with a good profit margin for one third ¿or a quarter? of what they are charging?

[Myko]

At the tail end of it, yes.  This started as a solution to my own frustration with the small digital formats and has evolved into a business.  Wish us luck!

[Dick Roadnight]

At the tail end of it, yes.  This started as a solution to my own frustration with the small digital formats and has evolved into a business.  Wish us luck!

How long does it take to do a four-shot stitch?
I think the CAPcam does 4 or 6 shot remotely at the press of a button - as a built-in standard function of the camera.
Multi-stitch might be half the cost of a proper sliding back... but we could make our own for a hundred pounds?

[Myko]

How long does it take to do a four-shot stitch?
I think the CAPcam does 4 or 6 shot remotely at the press of a button - as a built-in standard function of the camera.
Multi-stitch might be half the cost of a proper sliding back... but we could make our own for a hundred pounds?

The shooting of 4 shots takes about the same time as loading and shooting 4 sheets of film.  In my experience stitching them together is a 5-15 minute process depending on image sizes and the computer being used.  Our main advantage over "proper" sliding backs is that we don't just slide, we go 2-over-2.  Having been down the development curve I can tell you that your hundred pounds won't get you very far unless you yourself are an extremely talented machinist and don't count your own time in.

I've taken a look at the capcam but have not found pricing info.  It seems an expensive item though and larger and heavier than your Sinar.  I have not found any info on how you actually compose a photograph with it.  If you can send anything along that sheds more light on it I'd love to see it.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Shifting lens will actually introduce parallax. To avoid that the camera body needs to be shifted and the lens be standing still.

If we shoot rotational panos with rectilinear projection the off axis images will be warped in software, so resolution will still be lost.

In essence, I agree with Bernard. Rotational panos, a decent "pano head" and great software makes a great solution.

Best regards
Erik

Why not use cylindrical stitching with a robust pano head like this one http://reallyrightstuff.com/ProductDesc.aspx?code=PG-02-LLR&type=4&eq=&desc=PG-02-LLR%3a-Pano-Gimbal-Head-with-LLR&key=it?

- you will only use the central portion of the lens and will have perfect sharp images from corner to corner with no light fall off,
- you will not need to shift the lens and will therefore only need to perform one lens calibration (or maybe none),
- you will not be limited anymore by the lens coverage,
- it is probably faster,
- if you stick to reasonnable field of views you will be able to do flat stitching which will result in the exact same geometry, less the distorsion of your current lens.

The only drawback is the need to purchase a good pano head.

Cheers,
Bernard