Mirrorless camera's like the Olympic OM-D for Pano's

[tived]

Mirrorless camera's like the Olympic OM-D for Pano's

by tived » Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:04 am

Hi guys,

not really sure if this is the right forum or I should place this in the hardware section, but here goes

Due to a resent back injury, I am condemplating down sizing my camera kit, Canon 1-series with heavy L-lenses.

I have been looking at something like the OM-D from Olympus, as a small lightweight camera, and a set of fast prime lenses. but.....

what about bracketing, controlling the camera remotely... attaching it to the Merlin or other robots.

What do you use, how do you go about doing multiple exposures above and beyond the camera;s own capabilities, such as a Promote (which I do not think is compatible) are they any phone software, for either iPhone or Android? or some other device to solve this problem?

Thanks very much for your time

Henrik

PS: also what lenses do you use and why?

Last edited by tived on Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

[tived]

by tived » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:15 pm

Thanks ED,

There is a lot of info there :-) i'll do the last one first. I did have a 6x17 sold it 2 years ago - those things are heavy, very heavy. We do have a Xpan with 45 & 90mm which is great but thats my partners. You know there is Her's and Ours ;-) On one dusty shelf, in the corner of my den, I also have an older Imacon Photo scanner,which can do up to 6x17.

Film, I can;t remember but didn't Fuji stop production of one or two of the Velvia films just recently?

Alternative... ;-) these little Mirrorless are relatively cheap, what about setting up an array of these to capture the scene?

DOF, that is a bit of a problem, I am hoping to work this out when I got a robot, but this back has put a spanner in this too. I was imagining that with a Robot, I would be able to do both HDR and Focus Stacking, faster and more precise then I could move it by hand.

I haven't been so successful at doing pano's with hdr and focus stacking manually yet, I might be too ambitious in particular when the sun is setting and all the colors are at their best, time is of essense - this becomes more critical as the focal lengh gets longer.

I do like your garden Gnome and your measuring tape.... but i am still puzzled at why you have to do this, can you just focus with the camera via the view finder, or tethered to a computer or other visual device?

Thanks once again for taking the time to provide me with so much info, I will need to think about all this... I have been rather spoiled by the 1D, and i think its one of the best camera's for this application, had it not been for its weight

:-)

Henrik

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:55 pm

Hi guys,

not really sure if this is the right forum or I should place this in the hardware section, but here goes

Due to a resent back injury, I am condemplating down sizing my camera kit, Canon 1-series with heavy L-lenses.

I have been looking at something like the OM-D from Olympus, as a small lightweight camera, and a set of fast prime lenses. but.....

what about bracketing, controlling the camera remotely... attaching it to the Merlin or other robots.

What do you use, how do you go about doing multiple exposures above and beyond the camera;s own capabilities, such as a Promote (which I do not think is compatible) are they any phone software, for either iPhone or Android? or some other device to solve this problem?

Thanks very much for your time

Henrik

PS: also what lenses do you use and why?

Henrik - once you got so far as you did: don´t step back! You don´t need to carry tons of "heavy L-lenses" - an average 16/18mpx dslr-body (ff or DX) without a handgrip is lightweight and a set of 15, 35mm and 85mm on a FF or their aequivalents on DX are very universal. And all together fits a mid-size bag and work with small and lightweighted tripods.
So i guess in 85% of all cases you most unlikely really NEED more. Hasn´t to be bulky and heavy glasses - around f2,8/3,5 you get very fine lenses of rather small size and light weight as example old manual Nikon AIs.I use some of them and they work very well. Among others i use a 3,5/20mm and a 2,8/35mm which are really small and lightweight - and of excellent optical performance. Using f8 with theses lenses give you a lot of DOF - indoors as well as outdoors.
here´s with Nikon 35mm: http://www.360impressions.de/SchadowPlatz237/
here´s with Nikon 85mm: http://www.360impressions.de/Schadow237/
Both examples i used a 5D2 body without a handgrip - i wouldn´t take less than that anymore.

best, Klaus



Saving some few weight opposite to loosing features i think wouldn´t be really clever. Due to the very, very, very clever MagicLantern

[tived]

by tived » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:49 pm

Thanks Klaus,

I guess I am a sucker for fast glass, I don;t think i have anything slower then f/2.8 for normal shooting I love the shallow dept of field... but some of this may have to be reasset.
The 5D isn;t that much lighter then the 1D.... is it? ohh, yes it is, just compared it to the 5D Mk I,

I guess, I could get a new 5D Mk III, and use it with my current gear if that does not go - pass it to my partner and she can replace her 5D Mk II

but lighter lenses? Hmm

As for DOF, I usually will shoot my pano's at f/8-11, occationally I have dropped down to faster f-stops as it had gotten darker, to get the shot faster, but I have learnt that its a little selfdefeating

I very much like your 85mm pano, its very good! You do good work, very natural looking

thanks

Henrik

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:02 pm

Thanks Klaus,

I guess I am a sucker for fast glass, I don;t think i have anything slower then f/2.8 for normal shooting I love the shallow dept of field... but some of this may have to be reasset.
The 5D isn;t that much lighter then the 1D.... is it? ohh, yes it is, just compared it to the 5D Mk I,

I guess, I could get a new 5D Mk III, and use it with my current gear if that does not go - pass it to my partner and she can replace her 5D Mk II

but lighter lenses? Hmm

As for DOF, I usually will shoot my pano's at f/8-11, occationally I have dropped down to faster f-stops as it had gotten darker, to get the shot faster, but I have learnt that its a little selfdefeating

I very much like your 85mm pano, its very good! You do good work, very natural looking

thanks

Henrik

Hey Henrik!

First of all: thx!

The 5D series is remarkably lighter than the 1D series because you can unmount the handgrip. Real smart add-ons like PromoteControl or MagicLantern exist for DSLRs with LiveView only.
I wouldn´t like mising them!

I can´t see any advantages in mirrorless cameras - but definitely i see advantages in established and approved systems for which you can get lots of peripheral gadgeds.

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[leifs]

by leifs » Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:53 pm

Hi guys,
I have been looking at something like the OM-D from Olympus, as a small lightweight camera, and a set of fast prime lenses. but.....

what about bracketing, controlling the camera remotely... attaching it to the Merlin or other robots.

What do you use, how do you go about doing multiple exposures above and beyond the camera;s own capabilities, such as a Promote (which I do not think is compatible) are they any phone software, for either iPhone or Android? or some other device to solve this problem?

PS: also what lenses do you use and why?

I've used a OM-D for time (after using a E-P3).
It has AE, WB, FL, ISO and ART bracketing. It can do 5x1EV or 7x0.5EV AE bracketing.
There is no solution like Promote as far as I know.

The rumors says there will be a "professional" OM-D in 8 months: http://www.43rumors.com/page/3/
Olympus does not consider OMD E-M5 a professional camera (like the SLR E-5).

For fast lenses: there are some. like the f0.95 17.5mm and f0.95 25mm from Voigtlà¤nder (without AF) and the Panasonic Leica Summilux DG 25mm f1.4, which is my favourite for outdoor spheres. And you can use fast glass from any brand using adapters.
Kipon even produce an adapter for Canon lenses which control the aperture (not AF) http://www.dl-kipon.com/en/articledetail.asp?id=56
Since the stabilization is in the body any lens from whatever maker will be stabilized !

For gigapixel partial panos I use the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L. Because the OM-D is crop 2 this lens doesn't vignett even fully open
This pano is shot using this combo, @400mm (800mm equiv) http://www.rundskuer.no/panotour/ulsteinvikframosvarden/virtualtour.html

leifs

btw:
for fun you can read Steve Huffs "Crazy Comparison! The Olympus OM-D E-M5 vs Nikon D800 vs Leica X2 for High ISO"
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/05/31/crazy-comparison-the-olympus-om-d-e-m5-vs-nikon-d800-for-high-iso/

Last edited by leifs on Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[leifs]

by leifs » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:37 pm

BTW Leifs,

Do you use the set to manuall focus, turn of/turn on camera = hyperfocal distance logged in, trick of the Pana stable as well......now that is a great idea......allbeit a non documented one.

Greets, Ed.

I always set it to manual focus, for AF lenses after focusing.
Indoors I use the 8mm fisheye or the 12mm, and focus is not a problem.
Outdoors I use the digital nagnification to help focusing (some old lenses has to be focused on infinity). I use the Fn1 button for manual focus on/off, Fn2 button to magnify on/off.

leifs

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Aug 04, 2012 6:36 pm

So how do you focus on a point on a marble floor lets say 4.5 meters from the camera.....

Very simple: i use the live-view and it´s magnifier. (that´s ways better than using a loupe on the groundglass of a LF camera . . .)
Then i focus on a near-point and after that a far-point. If they´re too far ways from each other - which they rarely are - i decide:
1) can i live with an unsharp foreground? Yes - i even prefer it unless there´s vital information in the foreground . . which rarely is.
2) if there´s vital information in the foreground: do i need focusstacking or not. Usually i don´t using a 35mm @f8/11.
3) what´s vital in the image - can i let the background be a little blurred preferring the foreground? Sometimes that´s fine - making the background
dsefinitively blurred visualizes spatial deepness. We all know that.
4) IF - which happened only ONCE in the last 4 years - i need large DOF from 1m to infinity it took me 2 steps of focusstacking. That
added the same amount of images - which added about 30min to the whole process including stacking . . . no problem at all.

But for spheres i prefer a slightly blurred foreground which gives more spacial feeling - as it is in "usual" photography: a photograph which is sharp all over
most of the time is somewhat boring . . unless it´s a technical documentation of course.

best, Klaus

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Aug 04, 2012 6:48 pm

Then a next row of the panorama can be shot......after some 24 shots, the procedure starts again.....at the end of the pano you visualise a Japaneese product manager who concocted the half assed fly by wire focussing and an army of Throin Oakenshield gnomes on his hiels.......of course I could focus on the tape measure......but that is somewhat finicky (no viewfinder on a GF1).
.

A very clever item is to have the head stopped at the end of each row, do the focussing and proceed. When there are little japanese product managers around i watch them on my fieldmonitor and stop the shoot until they´re having their sashimi or shushi and get too drunk for running around again . .

Actually i´m coaching some very small assistants - so small you wouldn´t see them on the picture unless you zoom in 500% - who throw little darts at product-managers or other people walking into my shoot . . their agents, the Brothers Grimm, are doing a fine job providing us with those "mother´s little helpers" . .

BTW, Klaus could a garden gnome also be called a smart peripheral gadget .

It definitely is! :cool: connected via their Thunderbolts

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Sat Aug 04, 2012 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Aug 04, 2012 9:06 pm

Klaus has anyone told you sometimes your genious is wasted?

No. But i hoped you to be more funny . .

best, Klaus

[tived]

by tived » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:35 am

Hi guys,

Thanks for a very informative and humors thread here, its good to see the lighter side of life here while debating the pros and cons of change, and I think along the journey we all learn something.

Ed, I am not sure I follow your angles and DoF calc... Which may explain my own DoF issues :-) I do similar to klaus, as using the live-view. Now what I have concluded recently, is that I need to shoot the ground shots repeatingly at different focus distances.
At the moment, and this is purely philosophical, as I have not yet been out to test this, I would then shoot the multiple rows at the bottom. Here comes the issues

I have all these image, bracket for HDR, row by row. I will sometime move each row into separate folders, work them stitch and merge or the other way around. I then take the result. And merge these together in Photoshop. This is in complex situation where I find that I have problems doing it all in one hit.

Should the workflow for HDR, focus stacking panos, be, HDR/fusion first, then focus stack and finally stitch, or would we HDR/fusion files first, then stitch the panels, then finally merge the different focused panels and then focus stack these??

Did any of this make any sense? It's early here down under :-)

As for gear change, I think I will take the wait and see approach for the time being and see how I go, and find out what I can or can't do.

Thanks guys it's been a fun morning :-)

Henrik

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:59 am

I come from film (and Velvie 50 rocks......as does 100 and Provia 100 all are in my fridge) and what you can pull out of slide film using a drum scanner is amazing:

I use a drumscanner for years. And: yes, it´s impressing what he reads out from a Velvia50 in 4x5 and 8x10". But: shooting even just 3 steps of Bracketing as RAW and doing a careful tonemapping takes you definitely further. And that is physically just obvious. I did many tests comparing 8x10" Velvia50 and 5D2 files tonemapped also as Hasselblad H3/39 files as RAW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO9mbnITU8Y

I advise any old ham photographer to have their old slides drum scanned or use a Nikon scanner and 3 scans (with different beam output) to get the most of information out of them in order to digitally do what analogue technology blocked for ages, you'll be amazed.

The problem is: as long as you don´t have a drumscanner on your own it getsomewhat expensive to get excellent (!) drumscans.
I still love analogue photography and do it many times. But it´s no question at all that digital technology has many advantages here. Definitly in
product photography. To get the same results as using a H3/39 or even a 1Ds3/D3x or 5D2 it takes 8x10" shooting several exposures and have them drumscanned. After all the tests i did i´m convinced that in terms of technical perfection - which i live from as an advertising photographer - i´d never use analogue again. No matter which size.
But i very often use film for people-shoots. In fact clients sometimes demand it - i understand that . . it ha a certain style.

I mean that basically it´s nonsense to compare analogue and digital photography - both of them have a meaning. If you treat them right.

best, Klaus

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sun Aug 05, 2012 7:47 pm

I would like to invest in a old drumscanner though......just for the challenge of getting it to work and to master the skil.

Hi Ed!

The point with drumscanners versus linescanners: 1) they use an extremely fine lens (microscope-lens). 2) they use photomultiplier for each color - so less noise and more dynamics. 3) they have an aperture and they can be focused
manually and by using an autofocus.

But most important are the lens and the photomultipliers.

The shortcomings: they´re big and heavy (mine weighs about 60Kg), mounting the films is rather time consumpting using oil or gel and cleaning all the mess up afterwards - drum and films using filmcleaner and drumcleaner and a lot of wipes . .

Hard stuff - but nevertheless great . . .

best, Klaus

[tived]

by tived » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:34 am

OK guys,

Film is very nostalgic - it has its time and place... i love our little XPAN, I have to say I still hope that FUJI will do an Xpan style digital camera, even with the same manual lense and I will be all over it.

We are living in exciting times, when we start to combine different techniques via multiple exposures, opportunities rises for those who are not afraid to trail it, experiment and triumph ;-) but its not without casualties ;-)

Now, I happen to live in a place where 12 O'clock sun isn't that nice unless you do an add for Western Australian Tourism, where they insist on blue sky. I on the other hand prefer to shoot early and late.... its too bloody hot otherwise and it makes for more interesting images, but again not without casualties.

HDR or fusion, with the later being more forgiving and more natural looking. HDR aka Flicker HDR is awful, very much like cartoons. I highly recommend reading Christian Bloch's HDRI book, also see his website www.hdrlabs.com, it has some really good information there. I know I have at times fallen victim of the increasing saturation which is almost addictive in HDR processing... but its often the lack of real Black that causes the real issues.
In Panoramic photography, HDR has its true place, as we often shoot very wide to 360 images, with a very large contrast range, with rising or setting sun, and at certain times a year./month you can have both the sun setting and the moon rising in the same photo, but I don't need to preach to Klaus about this :-) grin, as Klaus style in his HDR work is almost that its not visible to the viewer, to me thats great. However, when shooting at the ends of the day, we all know that we can not capture the dynamic range (DR) and contrast range that nature offers us at that time of day. So we can with great certainly say, this has to be HDR or Fusion... because our cameras are simply not able to capture this DR in one shot.... I think its only for two times 10-20 minutes that we can shot landscape in one shot that ends of the day, as all good landscape photographers know ;-), back in the film days we used filers on the lens and dodge and burn in the darkroom, but luckily we have Photoshop to day where we can sit with a cup of coffee or whatever beverage one might fancy, cold beer... OH, thats like in the darkroom ;-)

Film vs Digital, that battle was won by digital many years ago, its only the hardliners that still hangs on to film, but its for nostalgic reason, not real reasoning. Don't get me wrong Film is beautiful, but its not commercial anylonger. Its like we don't ride horses to go to places, we use cars. I don't sit on a bench and work, I use a Herman Miller Embody chair... its evolution and we move forward as technology allows us to move.
I have to admit, though I started to photograph with film in 1985 with a Minolta X700, It wasn't till I was well involved with computers and digital art, mid-late 90's, that I came back to photography again, and that I had a daughter that need photos taken (well, I thought so ;-) )

I am facinated by large format, i think its amazing to look at them on a light table, but I have no places here where I can get large format developed, sure BW in a tray. But I want color, Velvia etc... I have a Sinar P (yes its old!), I have a StudioTool http://studiotoolsystem.com/ attachment, so I can also attach my Canon to the rear standard, and later I had a solid attachment made out of a lensboard with a tube and a M42 - but its too big to carry around. Movements is another thing that interests me, though both Nikon and Canon have slowly updated their Tilt/shift lens's its not quite the same.

Ok the DOF, I drove up to a multi story car park (6 story up), yesterday, - this way I didn't have to carry my gear around, and took the pano attached. Its two rows, and I have focus the top row at the lower quarter and at the higher quarter on the bottom row. All shot at f/8 1/500.... plus/minus 2 stops ;-) to me the DOF looks ok, I did shoot the bottom row at three other focus points but this looked to me as it was ok. The image is cropped which may defeat the purpose of DOF.... I can make it bigger.

Tossing and turning the idea of what to do, keep everything and get a 5D Mk III, sell it all and move to m4/3 like the Oly OM-D??? or just stay where I am and work differently ;-)

thanks guys

Henrik

[tived]

by tived » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:44 am

I know the principle of the drum scanner Klaus.......and I use an oil mount on my V750 as well so that principle isn't lost to me either...and the resolution of these machines in combination with a well made Velvia 50 4x5 of 8x10 is amazing. But having said that for the moment I'm not selling art in 2 x 3 meter size, so my V750 will have to do.

Greets, Ed.

Why not? You just need to get better marketing people working for you - go big or go home ;-) how do you think Gursky and the other russian dude got famous!! BIG PRINTS!! HUGE PRINTS!!!! Make them Black and White !! And call it art!

Having said that its not easy to sell really large prints - I am hoping that a project that I am consulting on will take one or two prints for their expo 2x6m... we are looking at building and arc as a frame to hold the print up. Its an interior shot in an artist home, the idea is that you get invited into his world/home with all his paintings all over the place, more of an installation.... but its still the problem of getting grants and sponsors for this kinds of projects which are a lot more academic arty, not necessary commercial, just something for your CV ;-)

Henrik

[anirooth]

by anirooth » Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:54 am

Using Autopano Pro & Autopano Giga:

It takes a folder and searches it for image files. By analysing the pictures, it attempts to divide them into panorama sets. The output will be the Panotools projects for actually stitching them.

In short : it finds panoramas in the supplied pictures, creates the panorama project files for them and adds sets of control points ! Easy, for lazy people.


What is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems?

What do I need to do to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system?



Trial information

How do I get a trial version?

Is the trial version limited in time or features?

Are there resources available to help me evaluate the trial software?

How do I convert my trial to a purchased version of the product?



Purchasing policy

How can I get a full license?

Do I receive a CD-ROM?

Can I install the application on several computers?

What if I change my computer or operating system?

Do you offer Education pricing?

Do you offer volume pricing?

[gkaefer]

by gkaefer » Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:04 pm

Using Autopano Pro & Autopano Giga:

It takes a folder and searches it for image files. By analysing the pictures, it attempts to divide them into panorama sets. The output will be the Panotools projects for actually stitching them.

In short : it finds panoramas in the supplied pictures, creates the panorama project files for them and adds sets of control points ! Easy, for lazy people.


What is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems?

What do I need to do to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system?



Trial information

How do I get a trial version?

Is the trial version limited in time or features?

Are there resources available to help me evaluate the trial software?

How do I convert my trial to a purchased version of the product?



Purchasing policy

How can I get a full license?

Do I receive a CD-ROM?

Can I install the application on several computers?

What if I change my computer or operating system?

Do you offer Education pricing?

Do you offer volume pricing?

First welcome to forum...
why do you post complete offtopic questions, just create a new topic... chance to get focused answers rise...

What is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems?

32bit OS is limited in maximum RAM Memory, mostly 3 or 4 GB Ram. for fast rendering/creating the pano 8gig Ram are a good start, if you plan to do bigger panos with hundrets of source images than a 64bit OS with 16gig Ram is to prefer.

What do I need to do to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system?

a motherboard which can handle 64bit OS, most motherboards not older than 3-5 years should can do that.

How do I get a trial version?

download from: http://www.kolor.com/download-autopano-panotour-panorama-virtual-tour-software.html

Is the trial version limited in time or features?
see here for more details: http://www.kolor.com/download-autopano-panotour-panorama-virtual-tour-software.html (scroll down to Limitations...)

Are there resources available to help me evaluate the trial software?

well, take your cam shoot some images...

How do I convert my trial to a purchased version of the product?

you buy the product online in kolors onlineshop. here you create an account where you can find your license keys. download them and enter the licese in your autopano. so you can turn the demo into full licensed product.

What if I change my computer or operating system?

go to download site link above install again on new Computer, login to your account at kolor shop download (copy&paste) the license...

Georg

Last edited by gkaefer on Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[tived]

by tived » Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:54 pm

Georg,

i think you are replying to a troll

Henrik

[andybryant]

by andybryant » Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:30 pm

Hi guys,

not really sure if this is the right forum or I should place this in the hardware section, but here goes

Due to a resent back injury, I am condemplating down sizing my camera kit, Canon 1-series with heavy L-lenses.

No need for a back injury. MFT and the OM-D is the answer to anyone wanting to take their kit into the mountains.

I have been looking at something like the OM-D from Olympus, as a small lightweight camera, and a set of fast prime lenses. but.....

what about bracketing, controlling the camera remotely... attaching it to the Merlin or other robots.

What do you use, how do you go about doing multiple exposures above and beyond the camera;s own capabilities, such as a Promote (which I do not think is compatible) are they any phone software, for either iPhone or Android? or some other device to solve this problem?

Camera supports 5 exposures in 1 stop with a vanilla cable release - which I find is plenty for most scenes. Any more and you can just use the old trick of doing the same in 2 sequences with exposure compensation to shift the mid-point.

Excellent lenses are the Oly 12mm, Panasonic 7-14mm, Oly 45mm, Samyang 7.5mm.

It should work fine on a Merlin, although I have yet to test it. We've got one in the club... I just haven't had the time.

Andy.
http://andy.bryant.name

[tived]

by tived » Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:55 am

Thanks Andy,

its very tempting the OM-D... still trying to get my back stronger though ;-) but its very small steps and when I looked at trading in my Canon kit, I almost had a heartattach when saw how little I was being offered. So I am hanging on to it for a little while longer till I know that there is no other way and if I do get better then, I could still add the OM-D

thanks for replying

Henrik

[beetwo77]

by beetwo77 » Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:43 pm

Tived,

I use a Sony Nex-5N and Sony Nex-7 for pano shooting. I am not shooting gigapixel, only 100-200 MP usually. The Sonys are hugely annoying in there bracketing modes are limited to +/- 0.7 EV. But the dynamic range of the Nex-7 is far better than my Canon 7D and it has good 24MP resolution. So I shoot almost all my panos on this camera now bracketing manually.

The new Nex-5R and Nex-6 allow control through IPhone or Android phones and WI-FI built in including configurable bracketing. So this should improve their usefulness immensley. I shoot all my panos on my Canon lenses with a Metabones adapter. The Nex performs very well and gives great sharpness.

So in order not to sound like an advertisement for Sony I'll say this. I could not recommend one of the old Sony mirrorless cameras for pano shooting due to bracketing limitations BUT the new models with remote control capabilty would be ideal I believe.

In response to your question about the OM-D, if you can confirm the bracketing capability, I can't see why it wouldn't make a good pano camera. If you find it to be deficient, try looking at the Sony offerings, particulary Nex-6.

The question I would pose is what portion of your system weight is camera and lens and what portion is support system (i.e. tripod and pano head)? How much weight will you save? Olympus has some good lenses for pano shooting. Hopefully they have some good remote control options. I wouldn't sell your 1D. I am not convinced the mirrorless are the right answer for all shooting conditions. But an OM-D or Nex-6 with a couple of lenses isn't that much of an outlay would serve you well for travel and landscape shooting.

In my experience the OM-D is quicker focussing than the Sony's but has slightly worse dynamic range. I also found the OM-D to be too small for hands but I am a biggish unit. Let us know how you go.

One example of a multi-row Nex-7 pano:


Rivers_Of_History by Beetwo77, on Flickr

[leifs]

by leifs » Sun Oct 07, 2012 4:32 pm

I also found the OM-D to be too small for hands but I am a biggish unit.

I use the battery-grip without the battery-comparment to get a better grip.
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-V3281300U000-HLD-6-Battery-Holder/dp/B0074WDGAI

It adds cost but almost no weight.

leifs

[beetwo77]

by beetwo77 » Sun Oct 07, 2012 11:35 pm

Looks like a good idea Leifs. I might have to re-evaluate the OM-D, the Nex-7 is amazing at ISO100 but does have some things that seriously annoy me. Thanks for all of your info.

[leifs]

by leifs » Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:42 pm

Another point:

out-of-the box the tripod mount is NOT centered under the lens. for panos this is a pita.
the battery-grip without the battery-comparment repair this: the tripod mount is now centered

leifs