Does anyone know:
Is it possible to photograph a 360x180 panorama in one take?
My goal is to make a 360x180 panorama on the deck of a sailing boat (which obviously moves).
How can I do this?
Thanks,
Ron

The pickings are slim... and the quality for things like mirror lenses are not the best.., and they are expensive...

There is the Tomaggo but not sure how that performs.. The upside they are cheap.. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/01/tomaggo-snaps-one-click-360-degree-photos/

If money is not an object then you might want to try out the iSTAR These are expensive and I don't like the Nadir. But they are made for a purpose.. http://www.nctechimaging.com/iSTAR_Explore.php

You could try out the 360 freedome as an option but very expensive and I do not know if it can capture a single image. It might be able to. http://www.kolor.com/buy/pack-freedom-rig-360.html

There are are a few concept 360 cameras being developed so who knows what around the corner..

Destiny...

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Primary School Teacher - Hobby Virtual Tours and 3D/360 Object/Product Photographer - Our aim is to create a 3D/360 Virtual Tour Shop/Store with links to 3D/360 degree products. My gear, VR Drive II - D90 - Nikon 10.5 fisheye - Nikon D800 with Nikon-Nikkor 14-24 - NOVOFLEX Magic Balance - Acratech GP Ball-head - Nodal Ninja 4 + RD-16 Rotor - Manfrotto 190CXPRO4 Carbon Fiber Tripod

Hi Ron!

The most clever and cost-effective option is to use a rig of 6 GoPros shooting simultaneously: http://www.360heros.com/
The 6 pictures can be stitched then. You also can make 360x180° video with them.

Better in terms of quality is a rig with 4 DSLR equipped with a fisheye each: http://www.airpano.com/360Degree-VideoTour.php?3D=Video-Manhattan-New-York
aside from excellent 360x180° video it does also excellent panorama-photography. Ways better than with the GoPros - but more expensive and much, much bigger.

The GoPro-rig i guess is the best solution for what you might have in mind.

best, Klaus

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

Agno's make the Mrotator-R series of pano heads that support 3 x (preferably Nikon DX) DSLRs with Sigma 8mm fisheye lenses.

http://www.agnos.com/prodotti.htm?v_lingua=ENG&v_iss_web=0000000013081614410555376312&v_categ_lista=P0000-P0005-P0509

They shot a 360x180 from a pole in a gondola in the Grand Canal in Venice:

http://www.agnos.com/samples.htm?v_lingua=ENG&v_iss_web=0000000013081614410555376312&v_menu_lista=MSXDX-MENSX-MSD03-M0302

It is a challenge to stitch with APP/APG but possible.

_________________
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.

Destiny - i now some people who were sued by manufacturers because of exactly these kind of statements. At least it´s bad style.

Klaus

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

Probably the best option as of today is 6 GoPro's Black.....4 DSLR's is also possible but you end up with a lot a paralax due to the bigger size of the bodies and the bigger agle used....the more camera's the less parralax. The trick is to align the axis of the camera with a virtual centre point. That can only be done if the lenses are fixed to some of the platonic and or archemeadean spheres in which is guarantied that the middle of the sides is equidistant for the centre of platonic sphere and the centre normals of al its sides run through the centre of the sphere. A cube fits the bill with 6 lenses with a view of 170 degrees....that is used by the various supliers of GoPro based solutions. But when you look at these solutions they seem far from ideal since ideally the distance between the sensors and the centre of the cube should be as small as possible. Thus some parralax (a considerable parralax) remains and has to be calculated out by the Autopano Video software. The nice thing is that the nature of the parralax is known and known errors can be taken into account. But i've noticed that zoomin in using the sphere is not really consistent in quality (at least not in the Copacobana concert). Having said that, I must say it's a technology with a definite wow factor and great potential....I can even imagine a VR drama production happening if camera's can be smaller and better consealable in the set. Then you could see a scene from different viewpoints or cut a scene over different camera's. If cameras were as small as a pair of dice you could conceal them into a lampstandard or a chess figure. Just think about it.

Greets, Ed.

Greets, Ed.

_________________
Olympus OM-D with HLD-6, Fuji GX680, Samyang 7.5, Olympus 9-18, Sigma 19, Panasonic 14-45, Nikon 50 1.4 on Novoflex with tripod mount, Nikon 80-200, Panasonic 45-200, Fujinon 135, Fujinon 80, Fujinon 65, Fujinon 50, Gitzo Gilux Reporter 2, Sirui Ballhead and Panosaurus 2.0 NNP adapter, Motorized Panohead of Canadian (ironware)/Dutch (electronics and software) construction.

Ed - the 360Hero rig carrying 6 GoPros of course aligns the GoPros perfectly. So there is no parallaxe - and the shots are easy to stitch.

It´s also very well possible to build a rig with 4 DSLRs equipped with 8 or 10,5mm fisheyes without any parallaxe.
Otherwise or russian friends wouldn´t have been able to achieve such a stunning quality.

Klaus

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

Sorry Klaus that is incorrect....even Kolor says it has parralax issues: this is from the Kolor site:

Parallax errors can appear on close objects as the transitions between the videos are slanted in the middle of the scene. When inclined at 45°, the lenses are oriented horizontally. This REDUCES the parallax errors.

http://www.kolor.com/360-video/record

Our Russian freinds know (as in work with) the paralax issues....they can calculate them away(ish) using complex eulerian/carthesian mathematics. Russians are brilliant mathematics and great coders....I've worked with quite a few of them for different companies but they can't bend the rules of physics (only work around them). They only true way of having no parralax would be to take the lenses and shove them all in the NNP but that is physically impossible since they would eat up each others space.

Greets, Ed.

_________________
Olympus OM-D with HLD-6, Fuji GX680, Samyang 7.5, Olympus 9-18, Sigma 19, Panasonic 14-45, Nikon 50 1.4 on Novoflex with tripod mount, Nikon 80-200, Panasonic 45-200, Fujinon 135, Fujinon 80, Fujinon 65, Fujinon 50, Gitzo Gilux Reporter 2, Sirui Ballhead and Panosaurus 2.0 NNP adapter, Motorized Panohead of Canadian (ironware)/Dutch (electronics and software) construction.

3 x DSLRs with 8mm Sigma FE is viable too - as with the Agno's Mrotator-R:

http://www.agnos.com/prodotti.htm?v_lingua=ENG&v_iss_web=0000000013081622221080240708&v_categ_lista=P0000-P0005-P0509

You'll find samele image sets here if you want to try stitching them:

http://www.agnos.com/samples.htm?v_lingua=ENG&v_iss_web=0000000013081614410555376312&v_menu_lista=MSXDX-MENSX-MSD03-M0302

_________________
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.

But the total combination is more expensive (but should give comparable results)....the 6 GoPro's have nice optics (S-mount CCTV lenses made in China to be precise)...by this company:

http://www.towin-elec.com/

and since they shoot 12 Mpixel each and use every one of those pixels is filled with image info I guess, qualitywise we would have a ty, depending on the camera used. A set of 3 D800 and 8mm Fisheyes could beat the GoPro setup in pixelcount (the P5000 files are about 20 Mpixel but the D80 is only 10 Mpixel since it is 10 Mpixel a 36 Mpixel camera would get to 36 to 50 (depending on the size of the lens circle, slightly larger lens circles would be best) Mpixel. The GoPro would be around 40 to 50 Mpixel....and remember 6 GoPro's set ou back about 2430 euro, about the cost of 1 D800....of course you'd have more dynamic range using the D800 but also much more pain in you're wallet.

P.S. i tried the stitching and it look nice enough.

Greets, Ed.

_________________
Olympus OM-D with HLD-6, Fuji GX680, Samyang 7.5, Olympus 9-18, Sigma 19, Panasonic 14-45, Nikon 50 1.4 on Novoflex with tripod mount, Nikon 80-200, Panasonic 45-200, Fujinon 135, Fujinon 80, Fujinon 65, Fujinon 50, Gitzo Gilux Reporter 2, Sirui Ballhead and Panosaurus 2.0 NNP adapter, Motorized Panohead of Canadian (ironware)/Dutch (electronics and software) construction.

The Mrotator-R was originally designed around the D70 + Sigma 8mm combination (long before the GoPro was even a gleam in its inventor's eye).

It is better suited to using a DX sensor body to obtain max. res. from the camera/lens combo. So perhaps the D5200 would be fine, although still more expensive than the GoPro rig.

It's often desirable to shoot these type of panos from a pole too, and the GoPro rig would be lighter, more manageable and less obtrusive.

_________________
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.

Aha, if GoPro's weren't invented someone should invent them for sure. But as far as the Mrotator it needs a circular FE which the Sigma is. For a D800 a 8 mm would also be a circular FE. But you'll need a circular (or close to circular FE). The D5200 + Sigma (or SamYang) 8 would also be great.

Greets, Ed.

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Olympus OM-D with HLD-6, Fuji GX680, Samyang 7.5, Olympus 9-18, Sigma 19, Panasonic 14-45, Nikon 50 1.4 on Novoflex with tripod mount, Nikon 80-200, Panasonic 45-200, Fujinon 135, Fujinon 80, Fujinon 65, Fujinon 50, Gitzo Gilux Reporter 2, Sirui Ballhead and Panosaurus 2.0 NNP adapter, Motorized Panohead of Canadian (ironware)/Dutch (electronics and software) construction.

I believe - but am willing to be proved wrong - that it needs the Sigma 8mm specifically. As you will have observed the overlaps are rather small, and the small positive pitch is necesary to close the zenith.


But you'll 'waste' a lot of sensor area with a Sigma 8mm on a full frame sensor body, and would not need the 60 degree roll, that is a key factor when using a DX sensor body, to achieve 360 x180 coberage.


I don't think the Samyang will work on the Mrotator-R - it projects a very different image than the Sigma 8mm. The Samyang projects a full frame image on a DX sensor and the Sigma 8 projects what I believe some some call a cropped drum image - 180 FOV on the long axis of the sensor and cropped on the short axis.

_________________
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.

Closed objects can rise issues with 360° VIDEO. That was what Kolor said.

And that´s obvious: shooting movie/vido bases on different parameters than shooting single pictures - for example you can´t correct CPs in each one of the hundreds of images a movie/video contains . .

Correcting CPs in 6 still-images from a GoPro set definitely is no big deal. . .


I don´t know whether each one of some hundred of millions of russians are "brilliant mathematics and great coders" - but i know our russian friends are professionals who very well know what they do.

Fact is: it works very fine with their rig of 4 fullframe DSLRs with fisheyes - as photography as well as movie.

Parallax with a good aligned rig only occur in a very close-up range. I tested it mysef - lower than 20cm can cause issues. It CAN - but not necessarily does.

Depends on several items - and is editable in still-photography. In video it´s not editable in the same way. Obviously.

Klaus

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

You definitely wouldn´t use such a rig in an action surrounding. THAT was what the OT asked for.

Klaus

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

You win.

GoPros it is then.

_________________
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.

Oops I was walking about a Nikon 8 mm,

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/8mm.htm

I think it would work both on digital DX and FX if I look at the pictures. By the way among the testshots there were also a few shots labelled Nikon P5000 in the EXIF...and BTW about the SamYang 8....with a bit of shaving....

http://www.kolor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7939&p=1

http://www.kolor.com/forum/postgallery.php?pid=56419&filename=Samyang-small-01.jpg

http://www.kolor.com/forum/postgallery.php?pid=56807&filename=San-Antimo-01-Samyang.jpg and it translates to VR sphere...

also a cropped drum image.....worth a shot....for someone not being me.

Greets, Ed.

_________________
Olympus OM-D with HLD-6, Fuji GX680, Samyang 7.5, Olympus 9-18, Sigma 19, Panasonic 14-45, Nikon 50 1.4 on Novoflex with tripod mount, Nikon 80-200, Panasonic 45-200, Fujinon 135, Fujinon 80, Fujinon 65, Fujinon 50, Gitzo Gilux Reporter 2, Sirui Ballhead and Panosaurus 2.0 NNP adapter, Motorized Panohead of Canadian (ironware)/Dutch (electronics and software) construction.

Different setup - using the P5000 compact with an add-on FC-E9 fisheye - and not really relavant to this topic.

So, going off topic...you have been warned....

http://www.agnos.com/dati/download/experiences/immersiva-p5000.pdf (how's your Italian?).

http://www.nikonschool.it/experience/immersiva-p5000.php

http://www.nikonschool.it/experience/p6000-fisheye-gps.php

You can also use the P5100 and with a different adapter the P6000. P6000 is probably better because it can shoot RAW and supports an IR remote useful if using a pole.

I have a P5100 and a P6000 and both the UR-E20 + Bophoto travel pano bracket for the P5100, and the Agnos adapter and rotator for the P6000.

The results are 'OK' for what I term 'snapshot panos', shooting 4 around off a monopod. It's a relatively inexpensive, lightweight and compact setup, which predates the small MFT bodies and their associated FE lenses and brackets, but it's not a one-shot solution.

http://thomashuang.net/products.html

_________________
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.