RunRyder - Aerial 360 Panos with a Point and Shoot?

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Aerial Photography and Video > Aerial 360 Panos with a Point and Shoot?

pigs dont fly
Key Veteran
Location: Ruined UK

Hi there guys

I'm wondering if I can rig my UAV to do spherical panos, the only problem I have is that I'm limited to payload weight hence a compact. Has anyone tried adding a fisheye to a P&S cam and making a mini pano rig? I have an old 28mm Lumix Lx1 to play with, would one of these add on lenses be any good?

http://www.digitaltoyshop.com/produ...C_LUMIX_DMC-LX1

Or

http://www.digitaltoyshop.com/produ...C_LUMIX_DMC-LX1

Cheers if you can give me any pointers
Thanks
Ian

Warning...This hobby is very addictive and may damage your wealth

07-14-2008 12:19 PM

AZ ChopperCam
Veteran
Location: Arizona

I've tried to shoot aerial panos with a P&S with fisheye lens converter and the results where nowhere near that of a DSLR.

It works but the problem is you will likely have some nasty stitching errors.

You can certainly go for it and it can be done but it's just not as good as a DSLR with a fisheye lens.

07-14-2008 03:10 PM

HOMEPAGE

pigs dont fly
Key Veteran
Location: Ruined UK

Thanks for your reply DJ, I guess its due to two sets of lenses distorting the image, rather than one clean fish eye.

Warning...This hobby is very addictive and may damage your wealth

07-15-2008 09:05 AM

ministock22
Senior Heliman
Location: Newcastle, OK

Hey AZ, I too am interested in learning how to do Pano's. What about the Canon G9, could I get good Pano's with that camera? And do you have to use a fisheye to do Pano's?

Thanks
Denny

07-16-2008 12:56 AM

AZ ChopperCam
Veteran
Location: Arizona

G9 will net you similar results to shooting with an A640/650. They are essentially the same camera optically.

You do not need a fisheye to shoot aerial panos but I could not imagine trying to do it without one.

The key to successful aerial pano shooting is to capture all the images you need in a few seconds. I would get mine in about 3 seconds. The less time you take shooting the images the less chance the helicopter will move and create parallax errors when stitching.

07-16-2008 05:02 AM

HOMEPAGE

Hogster
Key Veteran
Location: Surrey, UK

With a fisheye you only need to take one row of images. With anything less than a fish eye you will need to take more than one row of images, possibly 3, and the chances of being able to hold a perfect hover whilst taking all those photos is nigh on impossible. When I used to take ground panos with my A620/0.7x wide angle converter, I needed to take about 30 photos (3 rows of 10) - extremely difficult to achieve from a helicopter (although no problem from a mast).

My 2p

David

PS. Having said that, a guy contacted me last year showing some successful results using an A620 and a Nikon FC-E8 fisheye lens. He could stitch panos with 4 images in total I think

Here's a similar hack, using it on an A95:

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCa...ns/Fisheye.html

The downside is the weight

205g to add to a camera that already weighs 238g without batteries. Is that out of range of MK lifting ability?

07-16-2008 11:11 AM

HOMEPAGE

daytonabeach
Veteran
Location: Oslo, Norway

Hi!

Im planing to do exactly what youre talking about here, i have a MJ2 with Helicommand Profi and a G9 with wide angel adapter.
Photoshop stitches regular panos very well even with some mismatching.

But i will try and see how this will work for qtvideo using PTGui.
Havent used PTGui before, so ill have to get into that.

I will attempt to shoot 5 pics, 4 in 360, and one of the sky (from the ground) replace the missing "hole" in the bottom with a "tripod cap" as i feel the spot beneath mostly would be rooftops anyway... At least until i get a gimbal that can tilt 90 degrees from hor to vertical poss.

I may be trying later this day

Any comments on this, fire!

Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience...

07-16-2008 11:38 AM

HOMEPAGE

daytonabeach
Veteran
Location: Oslo, Norway

Hogster, im using that Nikon lens for interior 360s, and its hard enough to stitch those even on a tripod, it covers 182 degrees, so the remaining 2 degrees is for overlapping, but still, trust me

Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience...

07-16-2008 11:44 AM

HOMEPAGE

talk the torque
Senior Heliman
Location: SA

Hi

I have not had too much time to play around but I have been using a Fuji S7000 camera in an Airfoil Pro 1 mount testing some panos and spericals. When I bought this camera second hand it came with a Raynox DCR-5000 0.5X wide angle conversion lens. I have used the camera to do AP but never used this wide angle lens. I decided to use it now while trying panos. My 2 problems are initially I could not get the camera to focus with this lens until I set it in macro mode and even with it set at macro the centre is focused but the edges are very blury. Is there someting else I should know about using this lens? My other problem is even if I reduce my resolution to 3MP my camera will take about 9sec to do 8 shots and the time intevals are not always the same between shots. I have set my mount to rotate 360 degrees in 10sec to make sure I will get overlaps but it sure does make it difficult to hover dead still for 10sec. I am using the camera in portrait mode but it still doesnt cover the ground vertically below.

If I decided to buy a DSLR, maybe a Canon 400D, which lens should I look at and what will this lens cost?

Thanx
Jason

07-16-2008 09:46 PM

Hogster
Key Veteran
Location: Surrey, UK

The Sigma 8mm is pretty well known and used by many for aerial panos .... Not sure what it sells for in the US, but in the UK it's around £500.

Cheers

David

07-16-2008 09:56 PM

HOMEPAGE

talk the torque
Senior Heliman
Location: SA

Thats what I was afraid of

Its not only that but I really also worried about dusting my heli off. I'm enjoying my AP so much with my SS but cant do sphericals while moving.... unless I can mount 7 P&S's and take the shots all at the same time... wait I heard the lens are not good enough... unless I mount 7 DSLR's. Ok SS its time to spruce you up a tad

07-16-2008 10:14 PM

Hanson
Heliman
Location: Poland SILESIA

Azchoppercam

how you can capture all photos in 3 sek?
have you a special mount? with automatic pano function (tilt/pan/shot)?

regards
Jacek

07-16-2008 10:23 PM

daytonabeach
Veteran
Location: Oslo, Norway

Anybody know the best appl for stitching 2 x 180 degr pics?

Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience...

07-16-2008 10:31 PM

HOMEPAGE

phil007
Senior Heliman
Location: Austin, Texas

Quote
Anybody know the best appl for stitching 2 x 180 degr pics?

Here is one way. You could also checkout the KAP groups to see if there are any other methods.

Phil

07-16-2008 11:55 PM

HOMEPAGE

AirFoilAviation
Veteran
Location: Quincy, IL.

The mount rotates in 4 seconds for us shooting 3.5 frames per second.. We have shot over 21,000 pics of the flood in 3 states and are stitching daily.

Nothing special just one we shot today off the hovercraft. This town was completely under water. You can see the levee break along with the flooding. The town is only accessible by boat at this time. We havebeen shooting these in stages for the last 3 weeks.

This one is about 20megs.

Would go with the Cannon XSI and the Sigma 10mm. Love the combo.

Levee Break Meyer

I stitched this one in about 15 minutes so it's not perfect.
I found rotating at 4 seconds shooting 3.5 pics per second I can use every other pic and it comes out perfect. 6 pics used in all of our Sphere's.

John

Team AirFoil

07-17-2008 01:32 AM

Smithprod
Veteran
Location: Oklahoma

John, the pano looks great! I feel for the victims, that's some major damage...

Brad

07-17-2008 02:25 AM

HOMEPAGE

AZ ChopperCam
Veteran
Location: Arizona

Quote
This one is about 20megs.

whoaaa 20 megs?! what's the need? You should be down to 3mb or even 5mb if you want to be able to zoom in with quality.

Overall a good pano. I believe this is your first one posted... no? Not bad for a first showing. I saw a bit of cloning where your tail boom was but overall not bad. why didn't you complete the hole at the top with some sky? I have a library of over 100 skies just for this purpose if your interested... $5,000 and they are all yours.

Sorry folks... inside joke there.

07-17-2008 02:32 AM

HOMEPAGE

Griffo
Senior Heliman
Location: Canberra, Australia

I agree 20megs is way to big, but then when it comes to Panos creating a streamlined workflow for stitching is half the fun.

John, well done. It might pay to straighten up that horizon, insert a sky and reduce the file size. Pretty good for a first try. I look forward to seeing more

07-17-2008 02:43 AM

AirFoilAviation
Veteran
Location: Quincy, IL.

The file went to the EMD ASAP today so it had to be done fast and large. We don't post sphere's on here but have probably shot over 200 of them.

Was just an FYI on the camera and lens I would use. The destruction you see is small compared to others we have shot.

Most don't care about the sky? It's blue and white. Need I say more?

Thanks
John

Team AirFoil

07-17-2008 05:36 AM

Griffo
Senior Heliman
Location: Canberra, Australia

True, it looks fine as is. Just pondering what the benefits of a 20meg file might be.

I'm just adding suggestions so feel free to ignore them. I suppose the final product depends on what level you want to take it to.

07-17-2008 05:50 AM

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