707 Panorama - how many shot for vertical orientation

Question for those of you who shoot panoramas with the F707.

If I want to cover 180 degree at 38mm lens setting with the camera oriented vertically, and assuming about 30% overlap as some has suggested, how many shots do I need to take? wondering wither I want to get a pano bracket or not built for this.

Thanks,
MT

I'm not sure on number of shots as I use wide angle (9 for 360) but your overlap sounds about right. If you shoot enough pano head may be nice but can bet by without it. Here is some text from a pano page I have setup that discusses many issues

A Note on Handheld panos:

In bright lighting this is fine, the trick here is not to rotate around your body, but to rotate around nodal point (near front of lens). The way I do this is to stick my left foot forward (I'm looking through lens with left eye). My foot is pretty much under the front of camera lens. then I rotate around the around the front of my foot (and lens). I've only done this for single row but its always worked well.

Here is link to full page
http://www.inertia-llc.com/sandbox/magicarm/#handheld

Three shot hand held pano I took (with wide angle). One of best shots I have taken in regardes to dynamic range in bright conditions, don't know why this one came out so well.
http://www.photosig.com/viewphoto.php?id=184252

MT said:

Question for those of you who shoot panoramas with the F707.

If I want to cover 180 degree at 38mm lens setting with the camera
oriented vertically, and assuming about 30% overlap as some has
suggested, how many shots do I need to take? wondering wither I
want to get a pano bracket or not built for this.

Thanks,
MT

Click to expand...

--
David Goldwasser
http://www.inertia-llc.com

I have tried to calculate the number of frames needed:

The F707 field of view is 41x54 degrees in portrait orientation and wide angle (calculated only, I have not actually measured this to verify)
29 degrees to allow for 30% overlap.
180 degrees divided by 29 degrees = 6.2 images to cover.

My suggestion would be to use 7 images to cover the 180 degrees. That would allow you to shoot every 30 degrees which often will match the markings on a tripod if it has it, making it easy. My tripod has markings every 15 degrees, so every two markings would be a new photo.

--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp

Have no idea how many degrees each shot covers at 38mm equiv. But I'm gonna guess it will take you 10-12 shots.

You can get a nice pano head here http://www.stereoscopy.com/jasper/panorama.html
and the price is right.

MT said:

Question for those of you who shoot panoramas with the F707.

If I want to cover 180 degree at 38mm lens setting with the camera
oriented vertically, and assuming about 30% overlap as some has
suggested, how many shots do I need to take? wondering wither I
want to get a pano bracket or not built for this.

Thanks,
MT

Click to expand...

--
Whenever I feel blue......I start breathing again.

I just made a panorama using the 30 degrees between shots (7 images total) that spanned 180 degrees total, and it stitched quite well:



I had the white balance set to auto (by mistake) so you will see some color variations in the pano.

--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp

Thanks to all who gave good info, and especially Shay who actually went out and did some tests. (You did not need to go that far to answer my question but thanks!)

Question: The pano head is certainly superbly designed but at $189, afraid it is out of my budget. Anyone knows of cheaper alternative? Obviously a few aluminium L brackets drilled could be a poor man's solution but I'm not quite that handy even with something so simple.

Thanks again to all who responded - you guys are great.

MT

MT said:

Question: The pano head is certainly superbly designed but at $189,
afraid it is out of my budget. Anyone knows of cheaper
alternative? Obviously a few aluminium L brackets drilled could be
a poor man's solution but I'm not quite that handy even with
something so simple.

Click to expand...

==================

Here's my setup. No drilling – about $5 in hardware store parts.



best, gordon pritchard

Whooo whooo, that I can do. (grin)

Question: Before I run to home depot, what are those round circular metal item you screw into the the tripod hole called?

Also, did you actually get the 34-35mm nodal point in front of the tripod mount?

Thanks,
MT

Gordon Pritchard said:

MT said:

Question: The pano head is certainly superbly designed but at $189,
afraid it is out of my budget. Anyone knows of cheaper
alternative? Obviously a few aluminium L brackets drilled could be
a poor man's solution but I'm not quite that handy even with
something so simple.

Click to expand...

==================

Here's my setup. No drilling – about $5 in hardware store parts.



best, gordon pritchard

Click to expand...

MT said:

Whooo whooo, that I can do. (grin)

Question: Before I run to home depot, what are those round circular
metal item you screw into the the tripod hole called?

Also, did you actually get the 34-35mm nodal point in front of the
tripod mount?

Click to expand...

==============================

The round circular items that attach everything together are from an old light umbrella – but you can use any 1/4 x 20 bolt, as long as it's not too long! (Use washers if you can't find or cut the bolts short enough).

You should get a bit of felt to go between the L bracket and the camera base. That protects the camera against scratches. Same kind of felt that is used to protect furniture from heavy objects. I know, costs are starting to rise!!

Use the level to make the tripod head level first. Then use it as per my set up to fine tune the camera so that it is horizontal. Rotate the camera and watch the bubble to see how close you are to horizontal -- you don't have to be perfect.

To find the nodal point–you can guess its location based on the photo of my setup, or use a simple technique that takes only a few minutes and only needs to be done once.

When I first build my pano-gizmo I pointed the camera towards two sticks in the ground. One about 3 feet in front of the camera, the other about 15 feet away.

The sticks were all aligned so that when the closest stick was centered in the camera frame it would block out the view of the furthest stick.

I then pointed the camera so that the sticks were at the far left of frame and then pointed the camera so that the sticks were at the far right of frame.

If the lens is at the nodal point then the farthest stick will always be blocked by the closer one. (If you're not at the nodal point then parallax will make the far stick visible).

Once I adjusted to find that point I then marked my pano-gizmo brackets so that I could always get it set up correctly when I'm in the field.

I always use the widest angle to do panoramas – as I believe most people do since you can zoom into the finished pano if you want – so there is no need to worry about the nodal point changing position.

best, gordon pritchard

MT said:

Thanks to all who gave good info, and especially Shay who actually
went out and did some tests. (You did not need to go that far to
answer my question but thanks!)

Question: The pano head is certainly superbly designed but at $189,
afraid it is out of my budget. Anyone knows of cheaper
alternative? Obviously a few aluminium L brackets drilled could be
a poor man's solution but I'm not quite that handy even with
something so simple.

Click to expand...

What about just trying with your hips?

You'll see, it becomes very natural My worst pano, from the time where I had a 707 was done using a tripod. I haven't been able to buy a better tripod since, and I don't really want to carry one anyway. I have done all my panos hand-held since and I like the results. I got used to it and I think I am getting better at it. Usually shooting a long pano takes me just a couple minutes. I first take one shot to check out the exposure values before I go manual, then I take the others very quickly and as level as possible. I want a lot of overlap so it's rare that my panos have less than 10 pics.

My 2 cents, but YMMV, as we say.

Of course, a pano very late at sunset in low light would not be easy to get that way but it works very well for me in mose cases.

David.

--
Canon D30
My photo gallery: http://www.pbase.com/davidp

Hi,

I am new here and new to digital photography as a whole. I was wondering what software do you use to combine panorama shots and why do you shoot with the camera placed vertical.

Is there any good and cheap software ( free would be better) that i can down load from Tucows or something?

Oon

irfanview - it's free....autostitch for panos. Does lots of other things too.

Better than most photo progs.

oon the kid said:

Hi,

I am new here and new to digital photography as a whole. I was
wondering what software do you use to combine panorama shots and
why do you shoot with the camera placed vertical.

Is there any good and cheap software ( free would be better) that i
can down load from Tucows or something?

Oon

Click to expand...

Shay Stephens said:

I have tried to calculate the number of frames needed:

The F707 field of view is 41x54 degrees in portrait orientation and
wide angle (calculated only, I have not actually measured this to
verify)
29 degrees to allow for 30% overlap.
180 degrees divided by 29 degrees = 6.2 images to cover.

My suggestion would be to use 7 images to cover the 180 degrees.
That would allow you to shoot every 30 degrees which often will
match the markings on a tripod if it has it, making it easy. My
tripod has markings every 15 degrees, so every two markings would
be a new photo.

Click to expand...

Shay: Would it follow that in landscape orientation it would be 54X41 degrees.

I shoot only in landscape at wide angle and use 6 images to do 180 degrees. Stitch looks pretty good.
I am not sure what the the exact overlap is for landscape at these settings?
Any information?
Thanks
Richard Cooper

Shay Stephens said:

--
Shay

My Sony F707 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp

Click to expand...

Gordon Pritchard said:

The sticks were all aligned so that when the closest stick was
centered in the camera frame it would block out the view of the
furthest stick.

Click to expand...

Just a small comment on this to improve accuracy. Instead of starting with one stick behind the other start with just a very thin sliver of light between them. If the sliver disapears or gets bigger your not at the nodal point. With the stick hidden approach there is a little fluff area that allows you to be off and not no it, varies based on thickness of stick; however in most cases you can be off a little on still get ok results.

--
David Goldwasser
http://www.inertia-llc.com

See http://www.panoguide.com/ for software reviews and all kind of links and info panoramic.

oon the kid said:

Hi,

I am new here and new to digital photography as a whole. I was
wondering what software do you use to combine panorama shots and
why do you shoot with the camera placed vertical.

Is there any good and cheap software ( free would be better) that i
can down load from Tucows or something?

Oon

Click to expand...