Taking 360 degree pictures

[Nevin]

Anyone know what the best way to go about taking a 360 degree picture for a website would be? Obviously I could set up a tripod and then just film as I rotated the camera through 360, but is there any procedure/software which is normally used, as I think my method may be a bit jerky.

[bluespanner]

Use a tripod, and set the aperture manually; theres nothing worse than a panorama full of differently exposed prints.

Then just mess around on photoshop.

[Sciroccology]

I've done a few of these. I used to have a Slik tripod, which had degrees printed on a ring below the pan head, to give you an idea of where you were pointing. Otherwise, use obvious pointers/landmarks on the horizon.

Maintaining a constant exposure is a must.

[chris.mapey]

I have a program (ulead 360 IIRC) that seamlessly joins the images together. I find that easier to use than Paint Shop Pro, which can do it as well.

As mentioned above, set the camera to manual, to ensure you get the same exposure on each individual shot, then shoot loads of images to ensure a decent overlap, then join them.

This is how you get a scrollable 360. You can't do it "in one" so to speak.

HTH

Chris

[EmmaP]

Differences in density between exposures and slight misalignments can be rectified in Photoshop, but it is best to get it right at the shooting stage. I did this for a client once whose exposures were a bit out as was the horizon line. You can get software called Photostitch which I believe does this sort of work. I've never used it but the results are great.

[paulie-mafia]

You can do this with any camera and Photoshop or Illustrator (preferably), to build the panorama from the individual images. Take your photos in sequence order (obviously), use natural points in the scene as crop marks (eg where two walls meet), and do not whatever you do zoom or refocus the camera for each picture!

Takes a bit of practice to get right, but the results can be really good!

[ErnestM]

...or you can use a gizmo...

www.kaidan.com/Detail.bok?no=101

Haven't bought one yet, but it looks fun...

ErnestM

[Nevin]

Cheers all. Will give it a go on Sunday and see how I get on

[Wildfire]

EmmaP said:

Differences in density between exposures and slight misalignments can be rectified in Photoshop, but it is best to get it right at the shooting stage. I did this for a client once whose exposures were a bit out as was the horizon line. You can get software called Photostitch which I believe does this sort of work. I've never used it but the results are great.

Doesn't photostitch ship with Olympus cameras on a disc??

I wouldn't use Illustrator to put a panorama together. Illustrator as a great vector tool but not so good for editing photos. Photoshop all the way for that.

[EmmaP]

I think that some camera manufacturers do provide this software. As I said, I haven't used it as this isn't really my bag, but I have seen it demonstrated at Focus on Imaging and it was absolutely marvellous.

I would also question using Illustrator to do this. I cannot see the benefit of using a drawing package over a photo editing one.

[Pigeon]

I remember doing this "by steam" once... took something like 16 shots to cover the full 360. Naturally, I used the same exposure for each shot, but the bloody processing place didn't use the same settings to print each shot, so they still didn't match up. Despite that, it was still pretty "wow" to sellotape all 16 prints together in a hoop and then put my head inside it.

[blondemoment]

Try www.i-spy360.com/Public/agents.html - there may be some info on there somewhere!

[football_taxi]

you can get even better results by putting your camera in portrait position on your tripod, but obviously it takes more images to get your 360deg

[johnFairfield]

If you need to stitch pictures together to make a panorama then autostitch "www.autostitch.net" is a fantastic free programe. The resulta are outstanding.

John