Shooting Panos
Jul 17, 2018 08:39:17 #
Rich1939 wrote:
The nodal point varies from lens to lens but it almost always lies between the front and rear element of the lens. The sensor, or in days of old the film plane, is not the nodal point.
http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm
http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm
Correct!
Jul 17, 2018 08:47:12 #
I think I can help as I am just getting into panos myself. I think you are describing a video pano head. What I am using is a ball head with bubble level, an L-bracket, and an inexpensive nodal slide from Sunway photo with bubble level and arca swiss plate. The slide was $54.95 at Adorama. This configuration is only good for single row panos, but it's a good place to start. Check utube for videos that show how to adjust to the nodal point of your lens. I only have a zoom, so I'm using 35mm for my crop sensor camera. You will need two vertical elements, one about 10 feet behind the other and offset a bit. Set up on the nodal slide and adjust back until you can pan left and right without the virticals moving in relation to each other. Note where the numbers line up and you're set for that focal length. Also Acratech makes the GPS ball head that can be inverted and used as a leveling base for panos. I hope this helps some.
Jul 17, 2018 08:48:57 #
speters wrote:
No, the nodal point is not in front of the lens, but its the sensor/film plane above the tripod socket!
That is not correct. Nodal, or more accurately the no-parallax point, is inside the lens.
This may help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JkbZ1KehNo
Jul 17, 2018 09:01:08 #
tomad
Loc: North Carolina
Gene51 wrote:
If you have nothing in the foreground, you don't n... (show quote)
Hi Gene, first of all, excellent photos! Never having shot panoramics, I'm curious as to why (what are the advantages) one would capture a scene in three rows of shots pano'd together as opposed to just taking a single photo. I'm guessing it is similar to stacking for both focus and exposure as the top row would focus and expose on the sky, the next on the middle ground and the bottom on the foreground. Is this the reason or is there an entirely different reason such as the scene was simply to big to capture in one shot? I've always thought of panoramic photography as capturing an extra long (or tall) shot, not capturing a normal shaped image with multiple shots stitched together. I never cared for those very wide perspective shots and that's why I never tried pano.
Jul 17, 2018 09:15:43 #
tomad wrote:
Hi Gene, first of all, excellent photos! Never having shot panoramics, I'm curious as to why (what are the advantages) one would capture a scene in three rows of shots pano'd together as opposed to just taking a single photo. ...
The objective is to capture more MP than you can in a single image.
If your sensor can capture only 24 MP in a single image, it can capture a lot more when you stitch several overlapping images. But they have to overlap.
Six images will not result in 6x24 MP (144 MP) but considerably less, maybe half to two thirds as much, when they overlap. But 75 to 100 MP is still a lot more resolution.
It's as though you had a virtual sensor several times larger than 24x36 mm (FX).
Jul 17, 2018 09:44:53 #
tomad
Loc: North Carolina
selmslie wrote:
The objective is to capture more MP than you can i... (show quote)
Thank you selmslie, now it makes sense!
Jul 17, 2018 10:20:10 #
Bazbo
Loc: Lisboa, Portugal
DanielB wrote:
Also, most panoramas should be shot orientated in portrait not landscape for better results.
Why?
Jul 17, 2018 10:36:05 #
DanielB wrote:
Also, most panoramas should be shot orientated in portrait not landscape for better results.
Also, most panoramas should be shot orientated in portrait not landscape for better results.
Bazbo wrote:
Why?
I wouldn't make such a blanket statement.
But assuming you are shooting a landscape pano (extended in the horizontal direction) it can be useful to use portrait orientation for the frames because it gives you more vertical imaging for all the frames. Depending on how you stitch the pano (and to some extent how you take the individual frames) you may have to trim edges off to get a rectangular frame for the result. Some stitching methods will produce curved edges or jagged edges. Portrait orientation gives you extra vertical imaging so you have room to trim.
Portrait frames for a landscape pano also gives you more vertical space in the final image so you may not need to take a combination vertical and horizontal pano.
Of course if you're doing a vertical pano, you might want to use landscape orientation for the same reason.
Jul 17, 2018 10:45:38 #
selmslie wrote:
That begs the question, “Where is the nodal point?”
The simple answer is to look into the lens from the front with the aperture closed down.
The nodal point is where you perceive that the aperture blades to be. That’s not exactly where they actually are physically but it is their virtual location so far as the scene is concerned.
Caution: they might move when you zoom.
The simple answer is to look into the lens from the front with the aperture closed down.
The nodal point is where you perceive that the aperture blades to be. That’s not exactly where they actually are physically but it is their virtual location so far as the scene is concerned.
Caution: they might move when you zoom.
Good response, and without getting too technical. Before modern wide angles - which are really an engineered reverse telephoto lenses - you could measure from the film/sensor plane out to where the *stated* focal length was, and be pretty close and get the "nodal point". The same procedure would be pretty close, today, but trying to get an edge (of the frame) -to -edge match that was perfect is not a good idea. As I see it, most really good panos start with an overlap of at least 30 or 40%, and a lot of photographers use 50% or more of overlap. At that point, the "nodal" distance is moot. I even know of someone who takes panos and swears by using his tilt/shift lens: one full left shift, one dead center, and one full right shift (and also brackets, etc.). Even takes some great *vertical* panos with that setup (adding a little "tilt").
Now, if you want to use telephotos for the pano (and a lot of folks do), I would guess that the suggestions (not *rules* mind you) are about the same.
Jul 17, 2018 10:53:07 #
Robertven wrote:
I'm trying to educate myself about shooting panora... (show quote)
You really don't need a special head for doing panos. I do them all the time by hand or on a regular tripod with a ball head. I use my camera in portrait mode. I took about 10-15 panos in the Easter Sierra's last week all by hand (no tripod). They all came out fine. Using the special head might give you a slightly larger photo because not as much will be outside of the cropped off part. That is about all you get for your $300.
Jul 17, 2018 10:53:38 #
Bazbo
Loc: Lisboa, Portugal
DirtFarmer wrote:
I wouldn't make such a blanket statement. br br B... (show quote)
Interesting. Thanks.
Jul 17, 2018 10:57:47 #
TonyBot wrote:
Good response, and without getting too technical. ...
Getting too technical often trips me up.
The nodal point (for panoramas) and the entrance pupil are the same thing. You don't even need to mount the lens on the camera to find it by the simple method I suggested.
Of course there is also an exit pupil but that does not come into play in panoramas.
Jul 17, 2018 11:11:08 #
mikegreenwald
Loc: Illinois
I too, like some commenters above, have shot many panoramas without concern for the nodal point. In landscape shots, it simply doesn’t matter. When shooting close objects or people, it is important to move the camera back of the center of rotation on the tripod. Several companies make appropriate hardware to do this.
Tripods, carefully leveled, are a big help - but panos can be successful hand held if you keep the camera level and center each shot on the same horizon if you’re shooting a horizontal pano.
Panos can also be vertically oriented, or even several rows and/or columns of shots. Exposures must be the same throughout, and any post processing should be done AFTER creation of the pano.
Tripods, carefully leveled, are a big help - but panos can be successful hand held if you keep the camera level and center each shot on the same horizon if you’re shooting a horizontal pano.
Panos can also be vertically oriented, or even several rows and/or columns of shots. Exposures must be the same throughout, and any post processing should be done AFTER creation of the pano.
Jul 17, 2018 11:12:45 #
Good question. I don't worry about the details. My Sony cameras and cel phone do panoramics in camera. The easiest is of course the cel phone. My Sony cameras can do really nice panoramic automatically. I have done them hand held and with a tripod. Why make it harder than it has to be.
Jul 17, 2018 11:16:43 #
To the question - why panos? To capture a greater width or height or both than you can capture with your widest, other than a fisheye, lens
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