Just received the Panogear head. Any advice for my first shoot?

[inMotion]

Just received the Panogear head. Any advice for my first shoot?

by inMotion » Wed May 30, 2012 12:35 pm

I'm not sure this is the correct forum for this, but here it is anyway.

My goal is at least a 180 degree 20 gigapixel panorama of a cityscape. The final output will be in a 10x1 aspect ratio, so in order to account for the height of some buildings, it may need to be more than 180 degrees.

We will use Canon 5D mk2 with a 400mm and/or 600mm lens. - will this be too heavy for the Panogear/Merlin?

We'll be using the panogear head. I am not the main photographer, but will be assisting in the stitching. The main photographer is new to shooting panorams, but we have done a test what we shot manually without a rotating head at 400mm. Here is some documentation and issues I had: http://www.kolor.com/forum/t14947-obviously,i-have-no-idea-what-i-m-doing.i-thought-i-did-any-ideas - Even though we didn't do the shoot correctly (needed same number of photos for each row, with similar overlap), I am quite happy how the stitching for the actual city turned out. (see image).

My question is, what are somethings that I should be aware of for my first shoot to go smoothly? What are some things that you wish you had known when you first started doing gigapixel photos? Also, is there any good tutorial for shooting gigapixel photos with the Panogear and gigapano pro? (I already have the DVD from Kolor)

Thanks!!!

Last edited by inMotion on Wed May 30, 2012 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Wed May 30, 2012 2:36 pm

We will use Canon 5D mk2 with a 400mm and/or 600mm lens. - will this be too heavy for the Panogear/Merlin?

How much do the camera/lesn combinations weigh?

Do the lenses have ring clamp mounts?

Will you be using the Touch panel controller or Papywizard to control the mount?

My question is, what are somethings that I should be aware of for my first shoot to go smoothly?

I'd recommend that you did some smaller scale test pano shoots before even thinking about doing the BIG one.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Wed May 30, 2012 3:15 pm

I'm not sure this is the correct forum for this, but here it is anyway.

My goal is at least a 180 degree 20 gigapixel panorama of a cityscape. The final output will be in a 10x1 aspect ratio, so in order to account for the height of some buildings, it may need to be more than 180 degrees.

We will use Canon 5D mk2 with a 400mm and/or 600mm lens. - will this be too heavy for the Panogear/Merlin?

We'll be using the panogear head. I am not the main photographer, but will be assisting in the stitching. The main photographer is new to shooting panorams, but we have done a test what we shot manually without a rotating head at 400mm. Here is some documentation and issues I had: http://www.kolor.com/forum/t14947-obviously,i-have-no-idea-what-i-m-doing.i-thought-i-did-any-ideas - Even though we didn't do the shoot correctly (needed same number of photos for each row, with similar overlap), I am quite happy how the stitching for the actual city turned out. (see image).

My question is, what are somethings that I should be aware of for my first shoot to go smoothly? What are some things that you wish you had known when you first started doing gigapixel photos? Also, is there any good tutorial for shooting gigapixel photos with the Panogear and gigapano pro? (I already have the DVD from Kolor)

Thanks!!!

Hi!

I wouldn´t recommend the Merlin with lenses above 300mm. It gets VERY slow above 105mm because the decreasing angles result in a permanent "go to" modus instead of (faster) "move to" and then (slower) "go to". It´s a bit faster using the TC controller - but the head itself is slow motorwise.

The precision is acceptable up to 300mm - using 25 or 30% overlap minimizes the problem at the cost of shooting more images.

Take care that you use mirror-up above 200mm lenses. Therefore you must set a sufficient wait-time - that´s the time the head waits for the camera before the next move - because including mirror-lock the camera takes a bit longer to shoot.

Use a very sturdy tripod, avoid placing the setup on a vibrating plane like bridges with traffic and so on. Also don´t place it near a street where trucks come driving along near the standpoint - the setup will be moved by wind.

Take care to plan the shooting in terms of changing light - shooting 20GPx using a Merlin with 300/400mm i estimate around 2-3 hours at least.

I guess your lens-/camera combination with 400mm and in particular 600mm indeed is too heavy for the Merlin. But given you don´t have much vertical moves you might use a counterweight on the foreend of the rail/mounting to compensate the weight.

Run a test with a narrow angle before you start to shoot a wider one

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Wed May 30, 2012 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Wed May 30, 2012 3:44 pm

Thanks! Advice taken on "do a smaller shoot first". Will do one tomorrow and post back tomorrow night with results.

We'll be using Papywizard, though we will get the Touch panel controller for the next city.

This is the lens that i used before, and will most likely use on the next shoot: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-100-400mm-f-4.5-5.6-L-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx

The weight of the camera w/o battery is about 850 grams and the 400mm lens is about 1300 grams...so well under 4kg limits. should be OK I hope.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Wed May 30, 2012 4:44 pm

Thanks! Advice taken on "do a smaller shoot first". Will do one tomorrow and post back tomorrow night with results.

We'll be using Papywizard, though we will get the Touch panel controller for the next city.

This is the lens that i used before, and will most likely use on the next shoot: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-100-400mm-f-4.5-5.6-L-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx

The weight of the camera w/o battery is about 850 grams and the 400mm lens is about 1300 grams...so well under 4kg limits. should be OK I hope.

You should mount the camera/lens in landscape orientation attaching to the L-bracket it via the lens ring clamp mount.

You should aim to have the camera/lens mounted a close to the centre of mass as possible, it may be that you will need to add some counterweights to achieve this.

Try and avoid windy conditions!

Depending on the scene you may need to change manual focus during the shoot, some advocate refocusing for every row.

There is an unreleased development version 2.1.22-1 of Papywizard for the Nokia Internet Tablets that has an option to 'pause after every N shooting positions' which I asked Frederic - author of Papywizard - to build just for this sort of use. This feature worked fine in my tests.

I don't know if Frederic ever built version 2.1.22-1 for other platforms, but if he did they don't seem to be available for downlaod from the Papywizard site.

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Thu May 31, 2012 12:16 pm

Well, we just got back from the test shoot with the Panogear. We did just a small 100 image pano, as we only had about an hour left of day light.

I'm curious to find out how fast the panogear with papywizard is. For me, it took about 15 seconds for each photo shot. It seemed like it spent a long time just waiting at the shoot location before it would take the photo - even though the "wait for shake to stop" option was only at 1 second.

Also, the panogear would overshoot each photo by quite a lot, like around 100% more, and then go back to the shoot location. Does this happen for others? Does anybody have an explination as to why this is? If this could be eliminated, I think it would be able to complete the shoot in about 30-40% less time. As it is, it will take at least 4 hours minimum for a 20 gigapixel shoot. Is this what other people are also getting with a similar setup?

Finally, the camera kept on beeping and the autofous lights would light up in the viewfinder, even though everything was in manual mode. I've never seen this, it seemed like some sort of bug, or maybe the connection between the camera and lens was faulty even?

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 12:58 pm

Well, we just got back from the test shoot with the Panogear. We did just a small 100 image pano, as we only had about an hour left of day light.

I'm curious to find out how fast the panogear with papywizard is. For me, it took about 15 seconds for each photo shot. It seemed like it spent a long time just waiting at the shoot location before it would take the photo - even though the "wait for shake to stop" option was only at 1 second.

Also, the panogear would overshoot each photo by quite a lot, like around 100% more, and then go back to the shoot location. Does this happen for others? Does anybody have an explination as to why this is? If this could be eliminated, I think it would be able to complete the shoot in about 30-40% less time. As it is, it will take at least 4 hours minimum for a 20 gigapixel shoot. Is this what other people are also getting with a similar setup?

Finally, the camera kept on beeping and the autofous lights would light up in the viewfinder, even though everything was in manual mode. I've never seen this, it seemed like some sort of bug, or maybe the connection between the camera and lens was faulty even?

Hi!

As i mentioned yesterday: with such narrow angles - in fact with lenses over 105mm - the head switches from "move-to/go-to" mode to the "go-to"-only mode. So it doesn´t move fast and slow down for precise positioning but stays in precise positioning mode only. All the time. This makes it VERY slow. That´s the price you pay for having a, sorry, cheap head. The time you think nothing happens in reality something happens: the very, very slow precise-posioning crawl of the head. You´d have to watch VERY closely to see the move.
With lenses up to 85mm i realized a far better shooting time.

We discussed Merlin´s speed here several times. I found that the use of Josef´s TC touch panel in combination with Josef´s battery-holder and two LIo accus definitely speeds up the Merlin. But nevertheless it´s rather slow compared to more expensive heads like Rodeon, VR2 or Panoneed as examples - which start at 2000.-€ for Panoneed up to about 5000.-€ for Rodeon.

best, Klaus

P.S.: "the panogear would overshoot each photo by quite a lot, like around 100% more, and then go back to the shoot location." What do you mean exactly saying "overshoot"?

Last edited by klausesser on Thu May 31, 2012 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Thu May 31, 2012 1:05 pm

Well, we just got back from the test shoot with the Panogear. We did just a small 100 image pano, as we only had about an hour left of day light.

I'm curious to find out how fast the panogear with papywizard is. For me, it took about 15 seconds for each photo shot. It seemed like it spent a long time just waiting at the shoot location before it would take the photo - even though the "wait for shake to stop" option was only at 1 second.

Also, the panogear would overshoot each photo by quite a lot, like around 100% more, and then go back to the shoot location. Does this happen for others? Does anybody have an explination as to why this is? If this could be eliminated, I think it would be able to complete the shoot in about 30-40% less time. As it is, it will take at least 4 hours minimum for a 20 gigapixel shoot. Is this what other people are also getting with a similar setup?

As I recall the most shots/min I could acheive was about 8 per min. using Papywizard to control the mount.

I think it takes longer to fine-position the mount with longer focal length because the angular separation between shots is smaller.

The Touch controller allows faster shooting I'm told, but I don't know how much faster.

If you want something faster than that you are into much higher costs and should check out the Seitz VRDrive 2, The Rodeon VR, and the upcoming T&C Panoneed robotic panos heads.

But when shooting with very long focal length lenses it's likely that 'settle time' will a major limiting factor.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 1:37 pm

The Touch controller allows faster shooting I'm told, but I don't know how much faster.

Remarkably, but not dramatically, faster - it´s the combination of the TC-programming and the LIo accus - higher voltage (14,8 instead of 12).

best, Klaus

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Thu May 31, 2012 1:40 pm

drat. i wish i knew that before i bought it. there should have been specifications on the main page about the shoot times with longer lenses.

here's an image of the 100 image test that took just about 30 min.

Last edited by inMotion on Thu May 31, 2012 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 1:47 pm

drat. i wish i knew that before i bought it. there should have been specifications on the main page about the shoot times with longer lenses.

here's an image of the 100 image test that took just about 30 min.

To be honest: there are lots of postinge here about this theme - particularly under "Panogear, Merlin/Orion, PapyWizard". You *could* have known the facts already
before purchasing, sorry . .

best, Klaus

P.S.: where´s the image?

Last edited by klausesser on Thu May 31, 2012 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Thu May 31, 2012 1:52 pm

drat. i wish i knew that before i bought it. there should have been specifications on the main page about the shoot times with longer lenses.

The Merlin/Panogear system offers exceptional performance/value for the money.

Regardless of the robotic head used shooting very hi-res high quality panos with very long focal length lenses will always take quite a while. And very very much longer to process!

Here's an image of the 100 image test that took just about 30 min.

Where?

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Thu May 31, 2012 1:59 pm

Image is up. filesize was too big the first time i tried to upload. resized from 1.3 GP. was really shitty weather today...hoping for the best for tomorrow. this locaiton wans't ideal, but high and nearby.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Thu May 31, 2012 2:05 pm

Image is up. filesize was too big the first time i tried to upload. resized from 1.3 GP. was really shitty weather today...hoping for the best for tomorrow. this locaiton wans't ideal, but high and nearby.

And it's a fascinating image.

What focal length did you use for this image?

Did you have any problems with the Panogear mount handling the weight of the camera/lens?

Klaus would be able to tell you the expected battery life/autonomy of the T&C/Panogear LiOn battery system.

You could also consider an external battery pack.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 2:07 pm

Image is up. filesize was too big the first time i tried to upload. resized from 1.3 GP. was really shitty weather today...hoping for the best for tomorrow. this locaiton wans't ideal, but high and nearby.

Well - that´s remarkably good! Really impressing image!

best, Klaus

P.S.: before trying the TC: try the battery-adapter and the LIo accus with your setup! They speed up the Merlin even with PapyWizard - i don´t know how much, but it´s worth the price anyway.
The TC usues a different programming relating "move-to/go-to" and speeds the Merlin up additionally.

Last edited by klausesser on Thu May 31, 2012 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 2:22 pm

Klaus would be able to tell you the expected battery life/autonomy of the T&C/Panogear LiOn battery system.

You could also consider an external battery pack.

Because of the much longer action while "go-to"/fine-positioning only - which is very slow as we saw - the batteries are used for much longer time.

As an example: Josef tested the Panoneed - which uses 4 accus of the same type as Merlin does - with 3000 moves/shots definitely. But the Paoneed is very much faster.
So it´s difficult to guess the time Merlin needs using two of the accus while the moving-time is much longer.

I gave my Merlin/TC to my son - he´s studying in Aachen/Juelich, so i don´t have access at the moment for testing.

A powerful external battery-pack surely is preferable for Gigapixels using a Merlin.

best, Klaus

P.S. just talked with Josef: he´ll look for a table which he made for speed-testing the Merlin/TC and accus some time ago.

Last edited by klausesser on Thu May 31, 2012 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 31, 2012 5:21 pm

Hi!

Using lenses under 90mm the Merlin + TC+accus is about 1,9 times faster than the Merlin in standard-version (12v batteries and PapyWizard).
Using lenses over 90mm the difference isn´t huge - because the TC also uses only the "go-to" mode for fine-positioning all the time.
That´s related to the kind of motors in the head.

best, Klaus

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Thu May 31, 2012 6:36 pm

man, you guys are awesome.

i'm really glad you like the image. the final one will be sooo much better. shanghai is so close to my heart, i'm glad i can share some of its awe with you.

The total weight was close to 2kg I think. The panogear/Merlin should be able to handle a good 4kg, supposedly. There was no problem with the weight that could be detected.

That image was shot at 200mm. We started shooting it at 400, but soon realized we didn't have enough daylight available.

Tomorrow, if weather permits, we will do a full pano 20+ gigapixel at 400mm of downtown shanghai, the bund, pudong, and old town. That should be "freaking sweet", as we say in 'muuurrica.


This may be a really stupid question, but what does TC+accus mean?

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Thu May 31, 2012 8:03 pm

This may be a really stupid question, but what does TC+accus mean?

Klaus is referring to the Touch Controller ('TC') - an alternative to Papywizard for controlling the mount - and the enhanced Lithium Ion battery system ('accus') which I think you alerdy have in your Panogear branded mount?

The basic standard Merlin mount uses AA batteries with battery holders.

[inMotion]

by inMotion » Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:33 pm

doing another shoot tomorrow morning!

has anybody used this before? does it save much time? is there much room for user error when implementing this script?

http://www.autopano.net/forum/t6661-papywizard-high-resolution-preset-generator

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Sat Jun 02, 2012 9:30 pm

doing another shoot tomorrow morning!

has anybody used this before? does it save much time? is there much room for user error when implementing this script?

http://www.autopano.net/forum/t6661-papywizard-high-resolution-preset-generator

I may be mistaken but I think that 'odd' things may happen if you use the Papywizard Import wizard with the data files generated by this preset because the presets generated by this script assume that the zero,zero co-ordinate is the top left corner of the matrix.

But you can test this with smaller matrix before your big shoot.