Panoramic shots for website

michaelm

Hi,

I need to take some 360 degree panoramic shots for a website - rather than paying someone to do it for me I'm interested in purchasing the gear myself - anyone know anything about it?

kjt

michaelm wrote: »

Hi,

I need to take some 360 degree panoramic shots for a website - rather than paying someone to do it for me I'm interested in purchasing the gear myself - anyone know anything about it?

You could do it with a point and shoot camera, then just bring the photos into photoshop and merge them.

You may get different exposures though as the lighting changes from one side of the shot to the other. The best thing to do is have a camera that has manual settings, figure them out, then take all the shots making sure to overlap each photo by at least 30-45% to get a good pano.

If you don't have a camera you could just rent one for the day.

PM me if you want more help.
Best of luck!

phog

kjt wrote: »

You could do it with a point and shoot camera, then just bring the photos into photoshop and merge them.

You may get different exposures though as the lighting changes from one side of the shot to the other. The best thing to do is have a camera that has manual settings, figure them out, then take all the shots making sure to overlap each photo by at least 30-45% to get a good pano.

If you don't have a camera you could just rent one for the day.

PM me if you want more help.
Best of luck!

Is there a way to prevent this happening?

Arciphel

Lock your exposure & focus before you take the series of shots ;-)

Alun

phog wrote: »

Is there a way to prevent this happening?

Like Archipel says, lock your exposure, both shutter and aperture, but depending on what it is exactly that you're shooting, it can be difficult sometimes to pick an exposure that'll be OK for the whole panorama, especially if it's a 360 degree one and you're alternating between series of shots with areas of sky and those without. In the end it'll be a compromise, but the results will be better than if you just leave the camera on any of the auto settings.

kjt

kjt wrote: »

You could do it with a point and shoot camera, then just bring the photos into photoshop and merge them.

You may get different exposures though as the lighting changes from one side of the shot to the other. The best thing to do is have a camera that has manual settings, figure them out, then take all the shots making sure to overlap each photo by at least 30-45% to get a good pano.

If you don't have a camera you could just rent one for the day.

PM me if you want more help.
Best of luck!

phog wrote: »

Is there a way to prevent this happening?

Or as stated above by Arciphel and Alun

stcstc

it depends on the type of 360 shots u need to do, if they are close in etc, you will need a panoramic head, to stop getting parallax errors

i have a manfrotto 303-sph & leveling base. this costs about 700 euros

then i use a sigma 8mm fisheye lens

and use PTgui to stitch

ThOnda

And also helps, if your camera has the thread for the tripod in axis of the lens. Some cheaper cameras have offset of the thread.

stcstc

if you hav a panoramic head you can offset the camera so that you rotate around the nodal point of the lens

kjt

stcstc wrote: »

and use PTgui to stitch

That looks pretty impressive, shall give that a go with some pano's!

michaelm

thanks for all the advice folks - looks like it is a software rather than a new lens option then.

Thanks again