HansKeesom wrote:

The MK Panmachine offers me such simple machine for 1180 with VAT, so that would be 1404 euro incl VAT
The VR Drive 2 will cost me 1800 (incl VAT?).

Are there any reasons to convince me buying one or the other?

Does my thinking misses something?

The VR drive for full spheres starts at 2700.-€ + tax.
The horizontal-driven version starts at about 2000.-€ + tax.

http://englisch.roundshot.ch/documents/ … e_list.pdf

best, Klaus

klausesser wrote:

when i told about my use of a 35mm. It´s obvious that a 35 or 50mm havs steeper downlook-angles than a fisheye.
Therefore the Nadir is much smaller. Test the VR-drive with a fisheye and the Nadir will look exactly like the one from LizardQ or Josef´s head.
bst, Klaus

That's wrong. If you have a NPP-aligned setup the focal length does not matter. The footprint of the motor is arctan(x/y) for all practical purposes.
If the x increase the footprint increase.
If the y decrease the footprint increase.
(Yes, I know the setup in the picture should have been be rotated 90 deg)

The trouble for Gigapan, Panogear and the LizardQ is their small y.

leifs

Last edited by leifs (2011-12-18 23:49:12)

leifs wrote:

That's wrong.

Believe me - it´s a fact. Try it youself!

It´s logical: a longer focal-length means a narrower FOV. And then you see less ot the foot at the same angle as with a fisheye.
Therefore the Nadir-hole ist smaller and more rounder because of more ímages.

best, Klaus

leifs wrote:

The trouble for Gigapan, Panogear and the LizardQ is their small y.

That´s the reason Josef designed a long "y" arm.  But of the same impofrtance is the position of the axis: if you position the axis very close to the edge of the rail you´ll get a steeper angle and because of that a smaller Nadir.
So it´s BOTH: the height (y) and the position of the rotating axis. The axis should be as close to the rail as possible to have a steeper look down (doesn´t solve the problem with the tripod-legs . . ).

best, Klaus

Destiny wrote:

Hi. .. can anyone tell me if the Nikon D90 will work with a VR Drive... The reason why I ask, my wireless remote has to be plugged into the GPS port...

Destiny...

Why would you use wireless remote to fire a camera on the head? You might use wireless for triggering the HEAD - the head fires the camera by a short cable.

But honestly: a D90 on a 3000.-€ head (2700.-€ +tax and customs and transport) seems a bit funny i mean.

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2011-12-19 02:03:16)

Destiny wrote:

Not sure what you mean Klaus.. I use my wireless remote for bracketed shots for LDR VRs... I don't have to touch the camera while shooting, only to rotate it on the NN4...

Again: a motorized head fires the camera itself. You control the head and the head fires the camera.
Using a manual head of course YOU have to fire the camera - manual heads can´t do that.

best, Klaus

Here is the compability-list for cameras on the VR Drive 2
http://www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/internet/ … 5/f589.cfm

All the Nikon cameras are there ofcourse. My Olympus E-P3 is not on the list but works fine anyway.
That's because it is actually all about the cable plug. E-P3 use the same remote cable as E-5, therefore it works too

btw: some of the Canons and Nikons have a HDR mark. That is because Seitz plan some built-in bracketing function.
I have not seen any description on what they plan to do, but it's in their price-list !
You can do bracketing with the cameras bracketing function without the HDR option, so it must more than that.

leifs

Last edited by leifs (2011-12-19 09:50:02)

Take a deep breath and have a look at the price-list at
http://www.roundshot.ch/documents/Round … e_list.pdf

You would want the 95xx Roundshot VR Drive "full" (fully motorised x and y) hardware
The 5 options quality + speed + turntable + video + HDR is software (in the head), upgradable via USB cable.

btw: you can rent it ! 
page 7: "for 1 week / für 1 Woche / pour 1 semaine CHF 600"

leifs

leifs wrote:

"Digital SLR cameras have a bracketing range limited to +/- 3 f-stops. For 32-bit HDR photography this is insufficient. The VR Drive "HDR mode" overcomes this limitation by controlling the camera software directly and allowing much wider bracketing options. It is an "all-in-one" solution - no additional devices are needed."

That´s a bit more complicate: the camera internals must accept to be overidden. I bought a PromoteControl which overrides my 5D2 internal features and allows more than 21 bracketing steps with max 2 EV each.
My 20D doesn´t let Promote do that.

So if Seitz implements those advanced HDR features it´s not guaranteed that a D90 accepts it! Check the Promotesystem´s site for information which camera-model allows to be controlled this way. If it doesn´t accept PromoteControl it much unlikely will accept the Seitz advanced HDR-feature.

In the end it´s much more clever to pay about 300.-€ for a Promote and use a motorized head of your choice - like Merlin as an example - if extended bracketing in panos is needed.

Besides: there´s a site which shows how to nag away a part of the Merlin´s base to make it smaller and have a steeper downlook angle which gives a much smaller footprint not only for fisheyes.

But definitely the Seitz is better and faster of course . . .

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2011-12-19 20:05:42)

Destiny wrote:

if it was that top price of 4710 Eur... that will be just over $6000 Aus... I am assuming it won't be more...

+ lens... oh hum...  .. its 3 am here... just tying to figure out a way of getting out of yucky teaching to do better photography to be able to afford to pay for my little girls education.. emmm... Looks like plan B... buy a red light bulb, screw it into the porch light and sit and wait for passers by.....

D..

Plan B.......that bad already....

Destiny wrote:

I see you mentioned the 18mm lens.. is it this the type of lens which  I should be considering...?? I will have to use my kit lens for now... if i buy the VR Drive...]

The Nikkor 50mm f1.8D is compact, lightweight and relatively inexpensive but has excellent optical performnce.

This makes it a good candidate for shooting higher-res sphericals using a robotic pano head.

Since you like to read his opinions here's what Ken Rockwell has to say about it:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm

.........

One of the potential problems of using zoom lenses is the possibility of zoom and/or focus creep at higher +/- pitch angles.

Last edited by mediavets (2011-12-20 13:12:56)

mediavets wrote:

Is it really necessary to patch the nadir in a hi-res spherical pano?

Depends of course. Full spheres in my eyes make sense up to 4-5 gigapixels. If you have a scene where it´s essential to look down also . . it´s wise to make it available. But the only way here to me seems retouching the Nadir - highres shots of a Nadir are extremely complicated.

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2011-12-20 13:38:14)

Hi all,

A little update on the DIY motorized pano head project with servos mentioned on second page (seems already ages ago in this thread).

So far I set up the servo for panning, I went for a digital servo (5645MG) which provide enough torque to move a dSLR with fisheye very easily, modified for 360 rotation, added an external potentiometer to control speed  and connected it to an arduino controller when I need to control the head in a more sofisticated way.
The external pot is able to drive the servo in both clockwise and CCW direction, the speed is adjustable to a good degree - very slow to very fast - the fastest I tried was 1 round per second, way too much of course.

When the head is controlled with arduino, the fun begins. You can do variable speed, set up acceleration/deceleration ramps for speed, program stop-shoot-move actions with a wireless shutter, an a lot more I have not investigated yet (such as adding the tilt servo for full motion).

The mount is a DIY one made of alu, very similar to a NN3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-hIqFw8ma8 (just an example)

I think its getting good so far for a fun project,  it uses the same principles as the big expensive heads - programmable - but with a ridiculous budget:

The mount was maybe 5$ worth of material, servo is around 41$, wireless remote 15$, arduino $20, programming is free being opensource.

One question for someone who had already tried continuous shooting with 360 rotation:

I am using the wireless remote to continuously fire a burst of shoots while the head rotates, what is the lowest shutter speed required to get decent results, say at 2 to 4 seconds for a full rotation? I seem to be stuck to not lower than 1/1600th to get sharp images that can be used for stitching....

Last edited by dex2009 (2011-12-20 20:50:29)