Seligenstadt Klostergarten

Patrick Keogh schrieb...
Maybe you haven't noticed, but I have been deleting your images from Perfect Panoramas because the border/signature along the bottom does not meet the group's guidelines. Please do not submit more images like this without correcting this error. Future ones will be silently deleted.

Andreas Brett schrieb...
Ok, I've read a second time over the rules of "perfect panoramas" and quit the group. I don't like the idea of super-duper-moderators, deletion-threads and a "hall of shame". Instead of discussing about "what is a border" and what not, I'd rather take my hat and leave.

David Burrows schrieb...
Hi. I found you on Flickr while looking for 360 panos shot with a sigma 10-20. I recently got one and have been experimenting with it. I've done heaps of panos using my 17m lens with no problems however the Sigma is giving me some grief. I use the panosaurus too and a Canon 40D. I imagibe with the different body your 400D would need to be a different distance back on the pano arm than mine would.

I shot a pano yesterday and PTGui screwed it up but Hugin managed it with only a small stitching error. What do you mean in your info when you say (4 8 4)? is that how many shots in each row?

I generally do three rows of about 6 with the sigma. This might be too much now. I'm thinking I could get away with just 2 rows.

Andreas Brett schrieb...
Hi Dave!
I currently don't use the 400D and the Panosaurus anymore, I went for the 40D and the Nodal Ninja. But I think I can give you some hints on how to get almost perfect stitching results with the Sigma 10-20.

First of all you should adjust the position of the camera on the Panosaurus. It has to be placed so that it rotates horizontally and vertically around the nodal point. Information on how to find this point can be found in the Panosaurus manual. Basically you just take a photograph of 2 vertical objects - one near, one far away. Position the camera so that these 2 objects appear on the very left side of the viewfinder. For the next photo just pan the camera to the left, so that the 2 objects appear on the very right side of the viewfinder. After taking the pictures, compare them at a high zoom level. You have to adjust the position on the panosaurus, so that the distance between the 2 objects doesn't shift from one photo to the other. I therefore used the EOS remote utility to be able to instantly compare the 2 photos on the computer at 300% zoom and adjusted the Panosaurus so that there were no more than 1-2 pixels shift between the objects. This results in very few stitching errors.

On the amount of pictures per row there is some mathematics. It has to do with the horizontal and vertical angle your lens can capture. I chose to shoot in 3 rows with 4 pictures on the upper und lower row (=> every 90°) and 8 pictures on the center row (=> every 45°). For the upper and lower row I adjust the Panosaurus to +/- 45° (vertically). This captures enough overlap.

Your approach with 3 rows à 6 photos doesn't have enough overlap on the center row! There have to be 8 photos at least! There is another approach I haven't yet tried but it is commonly used by other Sigma 10-20 owners. 2 rows (+/- 30° vertically) à 6 photos (=> every 60°) and a photo of the zenith (90° upwards). This allows for just 13 instead of 16 photos and should be good in situations where there's no time (e.g. crowded places). However I haven't tried this yet.

David Burrows schrieb...
Thanks for your response. I've been further tweaking the camera position and am getting close but still have a few errors. When I get back home (I'm at work and some sites are blocked) I'm gonna check the pano tools wiki to see if they have any values I can use for positioning the camera.

I've recently found that rotating with the panosaurus instead of rotating the tripod head itself gives better results.

Will definitely try to get more overlap though as you suggest. Do you rotate by equal increments each time?

Dave

Andreas Brett schrieb...
IMHO the camera position and a perfectly fixed focal length is a MUST. I sometimes have minor errors just because I accidently touch the zoom ring. 10.5mm instead of 10mm can make a BIG difference!

Also I would NEVER rotate using the tripod! You have to use the Panosaurus, otherwise you will NOT be rotating around the nodal point!!! That's really important. And yes, I do rotate by almost perfectly equal increments. If I have to take 6 pictures in a row, I rotate the Panosaurus using it's builtin scale every 60° (360° / 6 = 60°). Another thing to keep in mind is to level the panosaurus on the tripod using the magnetic bubble level.

If you have leveled the Panosaurus and only use the Panosaurus to do all the rotating (horizontally and verticall), you should be fine. But remember to set the right position and please do not count on the tables with positioning values. They are good starting points but if you want to perfectly adjust the camera, you have to find the NPP for your specific camera+lens combination. I guess there are small differences between each camera and each lens, even if they are the same make and model!

David Burrows schrieb...
Thanks mate :) I did a quick pano of my dining room yesterday and it was perfect as far as I could tell :) BTW those people at the perfect panormas group are a bit fussy aren't they? :P

Andreas Brett schrieb...
Hey that's great news! After posting the comment here I also started adjusting my Nodal Ninja, since the NPP wasn't as good as I wanted. And what should I say, it's now at the right spot and stitching the photos is so much faster now :)

I also made a pano of my living room. This is a good test, since there are many objects very near. If the NPP isn't almost perfect, there are thus many stitching errors.

And about the perfect panorama guys.... well... just leave it that way :)

BTW: I love your photographs! You shoot really nice landscapes and as I can see in the panos with the 17-85: there seem to be some nice landscapes waiting for being pano'd with the Sigma 10-20 :)

David Burrows schrieb...
Thanks mate. I've just uploaded my latest pan. Even managed to patch in the nadir which I normally don't bother with.