PanoTools:
A Quest for Quality
Bert Vierstra 2006-Feb-03 14:27:34
Ok, I have started a month or 2 ago with shooting serious pano's when my
Sigma 8mm arrived finally..
(allthough i did some fooling around with a G2 and a G5 with Photostitch
some time ago)
In search for the best Pano head I also bought a 360P, (and a Nodal Ninja
for playing around), but maybe later more about my panohead adventures...
Allthough I achieved quite nice results with a 350D and the 8mm, I saw many
Pano's from some of you guys, that seemed to have a more sharpness and
detail then my 8mm / 350D, and offcourse this has to with skills, but also
with equipment, so I looked around for something that produced a higher
quality Pano.
The Nikon D200 and the 10.5 seemed like the ideal Pano combination, even my
350D with a 10.5 would improve the (theoretical) quality of what I could
produce. The 10.5 is praised for its sharpness and colors. I saw some of the
D200 and 10.5 Pano's and thought Yes, thats what I want....
Unfortunately the D200 is not easily to get here in Indonesia, yet, and the
Jakarta Shop, where I (mail) order most of my stuff, offered me the EOS 5D
instead (I asked before about this), and I thought what the heck, lets do
it, I have some other Canon mount lenses too.
Today the 5D arrived, together with a Sigma 15MM (not the Canon 15MM, in
general I found more people praising the Sigma then the Canon on the net,
(ok its not a statistical correct decision :) ) and wow, thats a big camera
if you are used to a 350D....
First thing I liked about the 5D is that it uses the same battery as the G2
and G5, and I have plenty of those :)
And ofcourse the big viewfinder and LCD are nice too...
After a quick test I mounted the 15mm and put the 5D on the Nodal Ninja, and
guessed the nodal point, correction, no parallax point, in the center of the
rubber focus ring, (seems ok !) (and used mirror lock up, the Ninja is kinda
nervous)
I can, with the (standard, well, its attached to a 300N) Nodal Ninja, even
do a 90 degree zenith, if the remote cable is not attached... I get the new
Nodal Ninja with longer arm in a day or 2. (And hopefully a 360P for the 5D
and Sigma 15mm, sometime when its there)
I stitched 2 pano's, at full resolution, around 11500, and in 8 bit the
largest was a 236mb tiff, I resized with CS to 7400, but then the QTVR, even
at 30% compression was still a hefty 3 mb :(
So back to 6000, and then the QTVR became and acceptable 2.1 mb at 30%
compression, which seems about 25 / 30% more then a similar 350D / 8mm pano
of the same size.... I assume this is due to the increased detail...
And they look good on my 1900x1200 monitor, indeed more detail and sharpness
then the 8mm / 350D, but the difference is not day and night, its more like
day and late evening I would say, and my guess is that the average watcher
on an average monitor, won't see the difference... But I do, and I am happy
with the difference....
Ofcourse I had to try the 8mm on the 5D, and the actual resolution of this
combination is lower (around 5600 for the 5D and 6800 for the 350D) then the
8mm on the 350D, I did not calculate, but this is a practical observation...
Nice however is that with a really full circle you can do with 3 around and
one up (in my case, one 45 deg up) and a quick comparison between a 6 around
and a 3 around with the 5D and 8mm did not show much difference in
quality.... (and, a QTVR at 5600 and the 5D/8mm at 30% compression is way
below 1 mb)
A disadvantage of the 15mm is that it leaves a "larger hole" in the nadir
then the 8mm, my large mirror ball for the 8mm doesn't cover it, so now I
really have to start making nadirs I suppose, or maybe I should tilt the
15mm down a bit...)
I have one for you to see, its 2.1 meg, its my very first 5D / Sigma 15mm
pano... Observers with a calibarated monitor may notice that the white
balance varies a bit between the shots, I left the white balance set to auto
in the raw converter....
http://www.bali3d.com/highres/eos5-sigma15mm.php My garden on an overcast
day, not ideal to test...
Other settings in the Raw converter were: Sharpness 50, Lum. Smoothing 20,
Color Noise reduction 40, Red Cyan Fringe -24, Blue Yellow Fringe +2,
Vignetting +30, Midpoint 50
While we are talking about vignetting, I tried my Sigma 12-24, Sigma 24-135
and Canon 1.8 on the 5D, and all have severe vignetting, and need to be
stopped down to give the raw converter even the possiblity to correct. The
12-24 is the worst (shooting at 3200 ASA with open diafragma gives horrible
corners), and the 50mm Canon AND the Sigma 15mm are very easily corrected.
I am very happy with the camera, and have little to wish for, but talent,
and the end of the raining season in Bali....
Bert
http://www.bali3d.com <http://www.bali3d.com>
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