Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: dreed on March 10, 2013, 09:43:27 am

Title: Using multiple cameras for stiching.
Post by: dreed on March 10, 2013, 09:43:27 am
I was just wondering if anyone has used multiple cameras of the same make and with the same lens to do stitching with?

The idea being that rather than take one camera and move it n times to capture the areas you want, use several cameras together that each activate their shutter at almost the same time, making it easier to deal with movement, etc. Yes, this is a more expensive way to do this but... I was just curious :)
Title: Re: Using multiple cameras for stiching.
Post by: framah on March 10, 2013, 12:01:26 pm
Anything is possible if you have enough money and time.

Who knows... you might be the first.

your best bet would be to have them all tethered to a laptop with live view so  you can align the cameras.

That would be one heck of a tripod!!  More like an octopod or maybe a saw horse.
Title: Re: Using multiple cameras for stiching.
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on March 10, 2013, 12:03:45 pm
I was just wondering if anyone has used multiple cameras of the same make and with the same lens to do stitching with?

The idea being that rather than take one camera and move it n times to capture the areas you want, use several cameras together that each activate their shutter at almost the same time, making it easier to deal with movement, etc. Yes, this is a more expensive way to do this but... I was just curious :)

Hi,

This will inevitably (unless semi-transparent mirrors are involved) result in potential parallax issues, because the entrance pupils of the different lenses are at different perspective points. Some subjects can tolerate some parallax because their foreground (or background) is not that critical that it would be impossible to hide the errors when blending the overlap zone of the images.

For moving subjects it's the only way (although synchronizing the moment of capture becomes a challenge), so care has to be taken in the choice of foreground (or background), if possible. When constructing a rig with multiple cameras, it helps if the entrance pupils of the different lenses are positioned as close together as feasible (e.g. by crossing the direction of the optical axes i.e. left camera shoots image at the right and right camera the image at the left, and/or positioning high-end DSLRs with their pentaprisms next to each other instead of their battery compartments).

Strictly speaking, for stitching purposes the cameras don't have to be of identical make and model and even the focal lengths can differ, as long as the stitcher software cope with images having different focal lengths.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Using multiple cameras for stiching.
Post by: Riaan van Wyk on March 10, 2013, 01:03:27 pm
There was an article a few years ago in a National Geographic magazine with a story on the giant redwoods, the mag had a fold out photo of a stitch done with three DSLR's on a bracket that they rigged with pulleys to pull up to the top of the tree. The back page had the article on how it was done.
Title: Re: Using multiple cameras for stiching.
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on March 10, 2013, 03:30:26 pm
There was an article a few years ago in a National Geographic magazine with a story on the giant redwoods, the mag had a fold out photo of a stitch done with three DSLR's on a bracket that they rigged with pulleys to pull up to the top of the tree. The back page had the article on how it was done.

Hi Riaan,

That's correct. Here is a small clip (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/video/player#/?titleID=nichols-redwoods-gatefold). Search for the Latest video, called "Redwoods". I remember from the original televised series, that they spent a lot of time postprocessing as well.

What's different in this particular pano, is that the tree is mostly in one 'plane' and it was shot from multiple positions and heights. This allows a different kind of stitching (http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr_help_camera_position.htm) that competent pano stitcher software can facilitate.

Cheers,
Bart