Hi,

After having shot many GigaPixel panos with Gigapan equipment, I've replaced my (outdated and worn-out) Gigapan with a brand new PanoGear, controlled via Papywizard.

While test shooting (pitch before yaw) panos, I've noticed a tremendous drop in pitch from column to column. I thougt it's due to a non balanced weight of my camera and 300mm lens. So I've made sure the total weight of my camera equipment (1.2 kilo) is definitely at the center of the PanoGear axis.

Today I went out to shoot a "real" GigaPixel pano - this time not pitch before yaw, but vice versa without CR checked. My pano was 30 pictures horizontally and 8 pictures vertically. The shot started top left - then to the right, one row down, to the left, one row down a.s.o.

I've noticed that the yaw got an offset to the left of almost (or should I say exactly) one picture for each row shot. So the pictures of each row are moved one picture to the left, ending up with a total POV that looks like a parallelogram...

Any hints on this problem - I suppose it's just an error I made with setting up Papywizard correctly (Papywizard newbie...), but why is this and how can I prevent it?

thanks for all your input and knowledge,

Thomas

It's a Papywizard software 'bug'/undesirable feature which arise when using longer focal length lenses- but despite a lot of 'forensic' effort the developer was never able to find it, or work out why it happens. I think we discovered that it wasn't there in Papywizard 1.7 (as I recall) but appeared in later versions.

See: http://www.kolor.com/forum/t8952-merlin-does-not-center-correctly-when-taking-shots

As I recall you can prevent it by disabling the Alternate drive on Yaw and Pitch axes, see screenshot, but this increases the shooting time.

Or you could allow for it and crop later.

A more radical solution would be to use a T&C Touch controller.

_________________
Andrew Stephens
Nikon D40, Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye, Sigma 8mm f3.5 fisheye, Nikkor 18-55/50/35mm lenses, Nodal Ninja 5 Lite, Nodal Ninja 4 with R-D16, Agno's MrotatorTCS short.
Nikon P5100, CP5000, CP995, FC-E8, WC-E63,WC-E68, TC-E2, Kaidan Kiwi 995, Bophoto pano bracket, Agno's MrotatorA.
Merlin/Orion robotic pano head + Papywizard on Nokia 770/N800/N810 and Windows 8/XP/2K.

Wow, thanks, that was quick! :-) I'll try to disable the alternate drive so,... thanks a lot for another worhful hint, medivets!
thomas

Hi!

I definitely suggest to use a T&C controller. I used PW for quite a time with the Merlin and shot some gigapixels with it.

I had two issues:
1) using a 300mm lens the Merlin/PW was extremely slow.
2) it produced differences between the xml-positions and te mechanical positions. Sometimes it was almost impossible to get a good stitch without hours and hours of editing.

Switching to the T&C controller was the first big step regarding reliability/precision and speed. It´s very small, needs no adressing via BT or WLan but uses a cable from
5cm up to 15m, gets powered from the head´s accus and it´s power consumption is VERY low.

I made a short description of it´s functionality - not yet finished but containing the main items:
http://www.panoneed.com/S4.html

There´s a Merlin-version and a Panoneed-version.

best, Klaus

PS:

It´s not my intention to promote the TC and Panoneed. I just use both of them intensely for professional/commercial producing and never had any issue with one of them - and i´m again and again impressed by the consequence and ingenuity both of them provide.

_________________
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”
― Coco Chanel

Thanks Klaus for your detailed information!
So far everything runs fine for me now, fast and accurate, no stitching problems and also accu life time is perfect.

I still have the first Giga pano I shot where I didn't deactivate the alternate drive yet (set to 7 degrees), but I can't succeed in stitching it. It was shot right to left, yaw before pitch. Since I can't repeat this shooting and I would really love to have it stitched, is there a way to make it work? Is it possible to alter the Papywizzard xml file?

This would really be great - all panos I shot after that, do word perfectly,

Thomas

It should stitch with the XML file using the Papywizard Import filter/wizard but it will exhibit the 'stepping' you mention, and there is no way around that..

When you have an exact angle and the focal length it might be worth a try simulating the sequence . .

Did you try without PW-xml import? In the end there still is the "old school" way . .

Did you try other stitchers?

Can you show an example of what you achieved so far?

best, Klaus