Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Anyone interested in shooting panoramas? I am going to work on shooting some large scale panos( 2000 photos and up) around Toronto as the weather gets better.

Im always interested in panos. Top of a hill with a huge vista works best. I also want to go back and shoot night scene of Toronto skyline again.

This is an interesting project for anyone shooting panos.

http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Panoramic-Tripod-Head

I am planning to go back to the island for another Toronto skyline pano. I did a 300 shot pano but started just after the sunset so ended up with a huge variation in light as it took me about an hour to get all the frames.
http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/78616

funny about the plywood pano head you posted. that was my 1st before the upgrade.

Wow eddie that pano of yours is incredible. Its so clear you can even see a couple people making out through the windows. Can you tell me a few specs on your shot. Lens, settings etc. Oh, and what upgrade did you do in the way of pano head?

I went with the GigaPan EPIC Pro http://www.gigapan.com/cms/shop/epic-pro

Shot details are:
Original image pano size before the slight crop: 75580 X 14220, total 1074 Mega pixel
Field of view 67.2 degree wide by 12.7 degree high
Input images: 297 (33 columns by 9 rows)
Individual image size: 4256 X 2832
Capture time: 70 minutes
Focal length: 420 mm
Aperture: F8
Exposure time: 5 seconds
Image overlap: 36%

That is some pano head. Your output proves how efficient it is. Great job. Looking back at the three sticks I offered is pretty silly.

Nothing wrong with the three sticks. It worked fine for me and I was happy with my build but I hit the limitations early on. I haven’t even scratched the surface with this thing. There is a 272 Gigapixels , 12000 image pano on the Gigapan site. I have a long way to go.

Ah, Ive seen those gigapan pics. Cities like Paris take from atop the Arc de Triomphe where you can zoom in forever and see incredible details. Awesome stuff.

It's not bad, but it is very poorly edited.
I mean the most easily spotted of errors lies on the CN tower.
Last time I checked it didn't step to the east at varying heights.

You can't rely on software to do everything for you.

Not sure if I wanted to get into discussing the errors in the image (there are many) as I did not post this in the Critique Corner and takes my post OT , but you missed the most easily spotted errors Don’t know if you read the description at the bottom of the image but there are a number of factors that contributed to the issues in the pano and yes, editing is one of them. So the question remains, are you interested in shooting panos?

Eddie, was this stitched using the Gigapan software? If so, it seems to absolutely hate the CN Tower. I've got a friend who has had the exact same problem. Except he was shooting during the day with short exposure times and calm winds (where sway in theory should be a non-issue).

I assumed those were the factors as the gigapan software is the only thing available to me. The software may be ignoring the slight curve in the tower. I like to give up on the gigapan software but unfortunately the alternatives either can’t handle the volume of images/ file size or a bit too expensive with no trial version to test. I just got a version upgrade with gigapan but haven’t had the chance to try it.
What software does your friend use?

I'm in

Me 2

I am.
But I don't have the gear for which to "easily" create.
Too much PP.

I assumed those were the factors as the gigapan software is the only thing available to me. The software may be ignoring the slight curve in the tower. I like to give up on the gigapan software but unfortunately the alternatives either can’t handle the volume of images/ file size or a bit too expensive with no trial version to test. I just got a version upgrade with gigapan but haven’t had the chance to try it.
What software does your friend use?[/quote]

He was using the Gigapan software as well

I thought you meant he switched software after he had issues with Gigapan. that's whay i ask what software. Oh well, search continues.

most of my single row panos before Gigapan were done with a ball head and stiching done by Micorsoft ICE (freeware). you should do ok, as long as you keep the camera level and give the images a good 35% to 40% overlap.

I am going to come up with a list of places to visit. I will firm up the date once I know what we are shooting. I’ll bring extra cables for canon as well, so you guys are welcome to try the gigapan.

it's really easy to correct the vertical distortion (when pointing camera up during shooting) in any advanced pano software, just needs a bit of manual work, in fact PtGui can do it for you most of the time. I've shot a bunch of panos of skylines this way, mind you I only have experience with up to 12 shots or so

Will the gigapan zoom around 360 degrees if you set it to? Alex, I DO NOT want critique on the crappy PP job on this one!


Planet YYZ by !Bart, on Flickr

Downloaded PtGui demo and it craps out after loading 300 images. It also really gets confused with the large multi row panos.

Yes, for normal panos, you set the top left and bottom right shots and gigapan figures the rest. For 360 panos, you would set the top most shot and bottom most shot and it will do the rest.

My favorites are gigapans done with electron microscopes. Have a look at this one. http://gigapan.com/gigapans/27105

cool

Anyone have any advice/recommendations on Pano heads?
I don't think I really want to lug a gigapan around with me.