Adam wrote:

Nobody understands what I'm saying, even myself. Never mind.
I don't think I will be taking spherical panoramas and whatever other kind there are. I just want to photograph nice vistas, like panorama camera does. At least not now. What equipment could I use then?
How do you know that Jasper Eng. is no good.

Well - then your problem is the camera´s maximal resolution. You really would profit from shooting several rows and colums - to get high-resolution panos.
The other way would be to buy a real expensive camera which gives you a high horizontal resolution, use it in portrait-mode and mount just single-row panos.

I´m quite shure time will show you the way . .

P.S.: you should realize that shooting multi-row doesn´t mean shooting spheres!

You just shoot a fraction of a sphere (like any usual lens do) and render a planar-projektion (like any film-/chip-plane also does).
The planar-projection of multirows is the same as a one-shot on chip or film.

Last edited by klausesser (2008-11-16 23:27:34)

oooooppppppssssssssssss I forgot to paste this link
http://www.all-in-one.ee/~dersch/Marbur … urgQT.html

Adam wrote:

oooooppppppssssssssssss I forgot to paste this link
http://www.all-in-one.ee/~dersch/Marbur … urgQT.html

Yup, those are spherical panos.

Shoot enough images to cover 360x180 FOV using a proper multirow pano head.

Stitch them using, say, APP.

Convert the resulting equirectangular pani image (all 360x180 panos are equirectangular with aspect ratio of 2:1) into a VR format  - typically Flash or Quicktime and display in/on a Web page. The simplest tool to do this is Pano2VR:
http://www.google.com/search?q=pano2vr& … lz=1I7RNWE

Last edited by mediavets (2008-11-17 01:19:20)

Adam wrote:

Can you show me an example of multi row multi column panorama, but would also like to see individual images?
Thank you!

I have made my firsts tests on a Nikon D70 and a 18-75 mm lens @ 18 mm.
Here are examples of my results… Good or bad, what interested me was to succeed before investing in a fisheye lens or a more precise panohead
http://www.panolab.com/index.php?action … g=8f67a298
3 rows… 12 picts at 0° - plus a row at minus 45°, a row at plus 45°… then you take a one picture for the ground (Nadir) and an other one for the sky (zenith)
This is 38 picts shot… Lots of moving objects and lots of time spent in Picture taken and more post processing, but a very good beginning to verify your skill in pano shooting
Note that the following pano as one missing missing picture, I had to assume  that !…
I could not hear that my shot was taken because of the noise made by the boat elevator…
Never mind, this was a good experience anyway…
http://www.panolab.com/index.php?action … g=938922e0

Keep shooting and your mind and intelligence will do the follow…

I'll try to find shots made at that time, please be patient

Last edited by beeloba (2008-11-17 03:08:46)

Adam wrote:

What is an advantage of multi row pano vs one row. Is multi row pano taller? If I'm shooting city skyline from across a river and am getting more than I want in the picture already, why would I shoot multi row and column?

If you want to increase the resolution for a DEEPZOOM pano you will need to shoot multirow.

Adam wrote:

What is an advantage of multi row pano vs one row. Is multi row pano taller? If I'm shooting city skyline from across a river and am getting more than I want in the picture already, why would I shoot multi row and column?

here´s an example of shooting a multirow for plan-projection. FOV is about 160deg. The picture was to be printend 25m long @50dpi - so the resolution had to be very high. In fact it was about 700MPx. I shot 5 rows of 40 pictures with bracketing. So it was about 600 pics total. I made HDR first and then stitched the 200 pictures in APP.
This would have been absolutely impossible without multirow.
One advantage of shooting multirow is to be able to make geometrical corrections with good quality. I rendered this picture as planar-projection and squeezed the outer left and right afterwards in Photoshop - because such extreme wide-angle shots always are heavily distorted to the sides - which is normal and also happens using an ultra-wide-angle lens.

(when you click into the picture you´ll get some insight views).

http://www.klausesser.de/FrontMarta.html

Adam wrote:

Will I be able to take pictures like this with manual gizmo? It would probably take a long time. Especially pano with 200 images.  with this gizmo Merlin. What do you use to trigger shutter?
Anyway,

Adam,

1. Yes, you could take panos like this with a manual pano head - like the NN5L which allows multirow.

2. Yes, it might take you a while to shoot a 200 image pano with a manual head - it takes a while with a robotic head! The advantage IMO of a robotic head for panos requiring many shots is that you don't have to think about it. The largest pano I shot with a manual head was only 36 images and even then I tended to lose track of where I was in the shooting sequence - had I completed a row?; had I taken the shot after moving the head to the next position or not? May be down to my age?! Makes it easier for you (the photographer) to appear in your pano too if that's your wish.

3. Klaus is a pro photographer - but I'm a rank amateur.

4. With the Merlin head the Papywizard software that drives the head causes the shutter to be triggered automatically via a connection between the camera and the head - either a direct wired connection if your camera can accept an external wired remote control (like your D300 and D70s) or via an IR gizmo (I use the gentled-jump for my D40) if your camera can only use IR remote control.

Here is my dilemma what to buy for a pano head.
How heavy is Merlin? How hard is it to program? What else do I need to run it? When I went to school they thought Pascal and Basic for programing.
Will NN-180 w L bracket work for me to get my beak wet in pano photography?
Wait til you get my age!
I'am really surprised to find such a nice people, like you, and willing to share their knowledge. Never happened on any other forum.

Hello,
Just talked to Bill at NN and he said that NN3 MKII is enough for me to start doing multi row panos. It has a new rotator RD-12 or RD-8. Pretty pricey stuff any NN.

I'm pretty close to your age.
I'll wait for a board to come out for Merlin that doesn't require any soldering. Let me know when it is out. How do trigger shutter? Is it automatic?
So, what's total cost of Merlin package?
Did you read my previous post? Bill from NN said that I can use NN3 MKII. I'm thinking of getting it with RD-12 or RD-8 rotator.

Not only this, but he said that he will give me 75% in trade-in any time. I think I'll get it soon. No hurry though as I don't shoot so much in Winter time. Like I said, I have a lot to learn on this subject. However, I already did some. Now I know Nadir and Zenith are. Now what is 360x90, etc?

I had another friend in Ipswich, UK I met on Qimage forum years ago. He was only 47 and died last April. His name was Andrew also.
Anyway, back on the subject. I would Panosaurus for $80, but not sure if it will do multi image panos. Like I said, I want to learn first and the maybe I'll feel mor comfortable spending more money.

http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm

Last edited by Adam (2008-11-18 00:52:50)

Hey Andrew,
I think Panosaurus head might be to flimsy for my equipment. It accepts only 3.2 LB. Any other alternatives I should consider? Don't want to be penny wise and dollar foolish.