focal length and depth of field in panorama's

[Danielhens]

Hi,
I'm struggling with some problems.
I understand the concept of 360° panorama's, nodal point etc.
But i'm always disappoint about the sharpness of the final result.
I believe there are several factors that could have influence on the sharpness.
starting in equipment, the influence of postprocessing and maybe other issues.
So is where on this forum could i found some answers?

Thanks in advantage
Regards Daniel

[Shadowman]

You'll get more help if you post an image, supply exif data, and shooting method (presumably using tripod) and provide your workflow. It's hard to judge sharpness without an example.

[Danielhens]

Hi Shadowman,

What i'm looking for is the way aditional software (like PTGUI) or (Niksofware) or other software influance the quality of the picture. How we can avoid thesehttp://www.b2b-photography.be/wp-con...rn/futurn.html lost of quality (maby by do things differant).
Also, my workflow is not optimal, still looking for a optimal workflow.
example: i shoot in raw, load everything in lightroom, but when i make some adjustmanst in lightroom i have a problem when i load the pictures in PTGUI. Lightroom send the original file to ptgui ( without any adjustments.) . I work around by converting the optimized raw into tiff-files. i believe there must be a better way to do so.
You see, i have a long way to go
if you follow this link. You se a big differance in the first and the last pano ( the pano of the terras is quit sharp) the others ... wel just not good for me.
http://www.b2b-photography.be/wp-con...rn/futurn.html
so for futer project i wil use a 18mm zeis instead of the easy 8mm fishey.
But, maybee i switch resolution and sharpness all together.
Lot to learn.
Thanks for responding

[Shadowman]

Daniel,

If you plan to use NIK software, here is a suggested workflow. The tutorials will give an idea of what changes will occur when using particular plug-ins. The panoramas in the links you provided look like straight out of camera shots so detail hasn't really been optimized.

https://support.google.com/nikcollec.../3000890?hl=en

[Manfred M]

Daniel - We would need to understand your workflow to comment on it. In my experience, it's all in getting the capture right, the processing software does an amazing job stitching the images together, but it can't do much unless they are optimal.

I've looked at your B2B-Photography website and you obviously have a lot of experience in photography and do some excellent commercial work. To suggest that the amateurs here on CiC are going to provide you with some meaningful direction is a bit of wishful thinking. We would probably want to turn to someone like you for advice.

http://www.b2b-photography.be/

I do most of my panos at no less than 24mm because of edge distortion. I shoot all my panos 100% manual (focus, aperture and shutter speed), generally using a heavy duty tripod, camera in vertical orientation (L-bracket) and long focusing rail to ensure I rotate the camera around the non-parallax point. I try to choose a "conservative" aperture (f/11) and might use hyperfocal distance to ensure that I get sharp focus throughout the image.

This is a three image interior pano shot with the Nikkor f/3.5 24mm PC-E lens. I had dropped the lens as low as it could go.






This pano uses around 6 images, if I remember properly. Being night shots, I shot at f/5.6 with a f/2.8 14-24mm Nikkor at 24mm. The foreground is sharp and straight (rotating camera around the no-parallax point) and I sacrificed a bit of (far) background sharpness to ensure the foreground was sharp.




I don't use Lightroom for my work, because I use Photoshop, and it had this functionality well before Lightroom did and my testing seems to suggest works a lot faster. My workflow is to process all images to the same adjustments in Camera Raw, and to save these as *.psd files. These were then run through Photoshop CC merge function and I did a bit of post processing work by hand in Photoshop.

The first image had Nik Color Efex Pro 2 processing using the Tonal Contrast filter. As I was working in Photoshop, I had the original image in the layer beneath it and I reduced the opacity of the processed layer to ive me the effect I wanted.

In the second image, I had to do a fair bit of post-processing as this was very much a mixed lighting situation that varied from left to right. I used a gradient layer mask to get the look I got here, plus some dodging to bring out some shadow detail (using blending modes and layer masks).

I'm not sure if this helps at all.

[inkista]

I'm not sure that the workflow is the issue, here.

The Sigma 8mm circular fisheye is simply optically limited--it's a very extreme lens. Most professional VR photographers use other, sharper lenses, typically without as much coverage, and simply stitch the larger number of images to get higher resolution as well as better sharpness. Shooting full frame with a 15mm diagonal fisheye, or crop with a 10.5mm or 10mm, or even a rectilinear ultrawide, for example.

I've gotten my best 360x180 results with the Sigma 8mm with my 5DmkII, but even my little micro four-thirds with the Samyang 7.5 (full-frame equiv. of a 15mm diagonal) can sometimes beat it. You use the Sigma 8mm f/3.5 for the convenience of being able to handhold and cover the scene with four shots if you need it. But for ultimate image quality, even stopped down into the f/8 range and carefully manually focused, the loss of sharpness and the C/A at the corners of the image are something you're always going to have to fight.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Sigma 8mm's infinity focus mark on the barrel is completely inaccurate. You'll get best results by manual focusing with a magnified liveview. And then taping down your focus ring.

[george013]

I'm not sure that the workflow is the issue, here.

The Sigma 8mm circular fisheye is simply optically limited--it's a very extreme lens. Most professional VR photographers use other, sharper lenses, typically without as much coverage, and simply stitch the larger number of images to get higher resolution as well as better sharpness. Shooting full frame with a 15mm diagonal fisheye, or crop with a 10.5mm or 10mm, or even a rectilinear ultrawide, for example.

I've gotten my best 360x180 results with the Sigma 8mm with my 5DmkII, but even my little micro four-thirds with the Samyang 7.5 (full-frame equiv. of a 15mm diagonal) can sometimes beat it. You use the Sigma 8mm f/3.5 for the convenience of being able to handhold and cover the scene with four shots if you need it. But for ultimate image quality, even stopped down into the f/8 range and carefully manually focused, the loss of sharpness and the C/A at the corners of the image are something you're always going to have to fight.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Sigma 8mm's infinity focus mark on the barrel is completely inaccurate. You'll get best results by manual focusing with a magnified liveview. And then taping down your focus ring.

That means that the problem is already in the individual photo's.
And I just wonder if the terras pano is made with a smaller aperture. It's also the only outside pano.
I also wonder if it's advisable to correct individual photo's and then merge them into a pano.

George

[inkista]

That means that the problem is already in the individual photo's.

In my experience with using that lens to shoot 360x180s (as a hobbyist), yes.

... And I just wonder if the terras pano is made with a smaller aperture. It's also the only outside pano...

Light makes a difference. You really want to try stopping the lens down to get more sharpness out of it--if you're already on a tripod with a pano head, f/8 becomes doable, except possibly for the handheld nadir shots for patching, but there are tricks to get around that, too. Wide open at f/3.5, it's definitely softer. It's a lens that takes a while to learn and master.

T...I also wonder if it's advisable to correct individual photo's and then merge them into a pano.

I'll do C/A and other lens corrections prior to stitching. Any curves/exposure stuff can be done on the full pano after stitching, but lens geometry stuff only works on the individual member shots.

[jcuknz]

Years ago I read the comment from an experienced pano-ist who never used a 'programme' for a good job but prefered to use their normal editor using layers. A practice I followed since ....sorry I know PT-gui has an excellent reputation and imagine it essential for the sort of pano that Kathy does .... but I simply only want a wider horizontal view so I stick to my regular editor.
I have a suspicion that programmes tend to 'mix' between frames where often I select which version I want to use and this helps to avoid a messy join.
I have always understood that the longer the lens the less distortion there is to 'repair'. last one I remember doing I used something like an 80mm equivalent angle of view for a pano of a range of hills across the other side of a lake.
Since the cameras I normally used only had 35mm EAOV lens I have never used anything wider. I have a 7.5mm like Kathy for MFT but wouldn't dream of using it for a pano without PT-gui
I have done dozens of panos in the past and apart from one disasterous case, always hand held without thought to nodel points etc and discovered it is quite possible to move between sites for succeeding frames ... the learner jumps in where the experienced hold back It does make the editing more demanding.
I was using P&S and bridge cameras until recently so DoF was not a problem such as I expect of a longer lens and find with MFT. Perhaps my favourite pano is this one of the fishing fleet leaving harbour ....13 frames with 35mm lens, three to provide material for the centre when the boat was too big for one shot and I avoided editing a bow onto the centre frame. Hence the gap in the middle near point.



There are some errors in some of the boat's superstructure which somebody pointed out to me but I have never gone back to correct

edit ...I often find that with generous overlap I am only using the central area of any frame and in the 'hills' pano I remember I skipped one frame completely.