Panorama shots and ideal overlap

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" writes:

1. how can I determine what the nodal point for my lens is ? I have looked at a few but can’t seem to find any kind of imprinted sign that identifies it (maybe I haven’t looked in the right place).

It’s best (and easy) to figure this out by experimentation:

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/photo /nodal.html

2. What is considered the proper overlap between shots for proper assembly of the panorama and the achievement of the best possible results ?

I’ve always found that this depends on the lens and the amount of distortion.

3. I have seen panoramas made with the camera mounted on the tripod in landscape mode as well as in portrait mode. What is the best one and what difference exists between the two options ?

If you have the time, patience, and good alignment, you get more height in portrait more, and usually will get

4. What is the best panorama software to use with the Macintosh ? I am looking for one that provides some alternatives in terms of image editing to remove some unwanted image artifacts.

Depending on what my goal is, I use one of two programs:

1. For quick-and-dirty panoramas, Canon Photostitch that came with my EOS-10D. If I use my tripod heat that’s aligned with the nodal point, this actually gives very good results. If I’m being sloppy with the camera (such as hand-holding) this gives a marginal results.

2. If I’m doing something that’s going to be a large panoramic print, or if I did something stupid like not having equal exposure for every frame, then I use Kekus’ LensFix and Panorama Tools photoshop plugin. I also occasionally use PTMac from Kekus as well, since for some weird situations it’s more robust than the plugin version.

—
Richard W Kaszeta

http://www.kaszeta.org/rich

Richard:

Thank you very much for your reply to my post and for providing such valuable and detailed answers to my questions. It has helped me a great deal and I appreciate it.

I have looked into Kelkus panorama software and downloaded the trial version. I am going to see what kind of results I get and will probably purchase the software.

My camera came with Canon’s Photostitch but I have never tried it. Very good suggestion and will definitely give it a try now that you’ve mentioned it.

Thank you again for the help and great suggestions.

Best regards,

Joseph

—

Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

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On 12/6/05 5:54 AM, in article , "Richard
Kaszeta" wrote:

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" writes:

1. how can I determine what the nodal point for my lens is ? I have looked at a few but can’t seem to find any kind of imprinted sign that identifies it (maybe I haven’t looked in the right place).

It’s best (and easy) to figure this out by experimentation:
http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/photo /nodal.html

2. What is considered the proper overlap between shots for proper assembly of the panorama and the achievement of the best possible results ?

I’ve always found that this depends on the lens and the amount of distortion.

3. I have seen panoramas made with the camera mounted on the tripod in landscape mode as well as in portrait mode. What is the best one and what difference exists between the two options ?

If you have the time, patience, and good alignment, you get more height in portrait more, and usually will get

4. What is the best panorama software to use with the Macintosh ? I am looking for one that provides some alternatives in terms of image editing to remove some unwanted image artifacts.

Depending on what my goal is, I use one of two programs:
1. For quick-and-dirty panoramas, Canon Photostitch that came with my EOS-10D. If I use my tripod heat that’s aligned with the nodal point, this actually gives very good results. If I’m being sloppy with the camera (such as hand-holding) this gives a marginal results.
2. If I’m doing something that’s going to be a large panoramic print, or if I did something stupid like not having equal exposure for every frame, then I use Kekus’ LensFix and Panorama Tools photoshop plugin. I also occasionally use PTMac from Kekus as well, since for some weird situations it’s more robust than the plugin version.

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS"

You should have a look at this free programme ‘Autostitch’ I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned it??
I use it because it’s damn near foolproof! it’s free!! and it’s so much better than the one built into Photoshop.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html
Make sure you use it on the highest settings, the instructions are not wonderful, but it’s so easy to use you soon get used to it.

On 12/8/05 12:30 AM, in article
4397ef1b$0$1475$, "Harry Limey"
<harrylimeyatLycos.co.uk> wrote:

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS"

You should have a look at this free programme ‘Autostitch’ I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned it??
I use it because it’s damn near foolproof! it’s free!! and it’s so much better than the one built into Photoshop.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html
Make sure you use it on the highest settings, the instructions are not wonderful, but it’s so easy to use you soon get used to it.

Harry:

Thank you for the suggestion.

I went to the link you provided to autostitch’s web site and it seems like a very good panorama program.

The only problem is that they don’t have a version for the Mac yet. They may develop one in the future. I will just keep checking periodically.

Thanks again for the link and information.

Best regards,

Joseph

—

Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" wrote in message

The only problem is that they don’t have a version for the Mac yet. They may
develop one in the future. I will just keep checking periodically.

What ever happened to Apple’s QT panaorama program? Not available for OSX?

Lorem Ipsum wrote:

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" wrote in message

The only problem is that they don’t have a version for the Mac yet. They may
develop one in the future. I will just keep checking periodically.

What ever happened to Apple’s QT panaorama program? Not available for OSX?

Nope and never will be. It actually ran in earlier versions of OS X, but I think it quit working about 10.3. (It may have been 10.2.x) They only released one minor upgrade a VERY long time ago.

Apple stated that they had no plans to rewrite it for OS X. Ironically this was at a time they were bragging about all the OS 9 software that was being converted to OS X. They were even bragging that all of Apple’s software had been converted to OS X. They actually got to the point where they were recommending REALVIZ Stitcher over QTVR.

That is when I tried PanoWORX on my Mac. I couldn’t get it to make a correct stitch at all. They did nicely give my money back. I then tried REALVIZ Stitcher EZ. It was even worse. That’s when I went to PTMac. It took a bit of learning, but it worked, worked right, and worked great. His support is great too.

I’ve heard that the $500 version of REALVIZ Stitcher works fine on OS X. I don’t have enough need to spend that kind of money when the $49 PTMac works so well.

BTW, I no longer have any Mac computers. I’m all Windows for the first time in years.

Clyde

"Clyde" wrote in message

Lorem Ipsum wrote:

What ever happened to Apple’s QT panaorama program? Not available for OSX?

Apple stated that they had no plans to rewrite it for OS X.

Bastards. That was one expensive program to be stuck with, too.

BTW, I no longer have any Mac computers. I’m all Windows for the first time in years.

I still have two G4s, but use WinDoZe most of the time.

"Lorem Ipsum" writes:

What ever happened to Apple’s QT panaorama program? Not available for OSX?

Nope, and it appears that it won’t be, it hasn’t been updated for years.

Note that all of the API calls for QTVR are still supported in the current version of Quicktime, and it’s not that hard if you have a program that generates panoramas to do QTVR as an output option.

—
Richard W Kaszeta

http://www.kaszeta.org/rich