Anybody used a panoramic camera?
Anybody used a panoramic camera?
Author
Discussion

Hankscorpio

Original Poster:

715 posts

267 months

Sunday 9th April 2006
quotequote all
One of these and a film scanner and you'd be set.

www.rugift.com/photocameras/panoramic_horizon_s3_sport_camera.htm
www.rugift.com/photocameras/manuals/big_horizon_s3_3.jpg

FoV is 120 degrees but uses more film so you'd probably have to do a couple and stich to get the equivalent with a dslr but I'm quite intrigued by the idea...

theboyfold

11,475 posts

256 months

Monday 10th April 2006
quotequote all
Nope, but I've always wanted one. I'm sure they used to stock another type of panoramic camera at Lomo, but they have the same you have linked to, plus about 30 other cameras I'd love to waste some money on!!

http://shop.lomography.com/shop/

GetCarter

31,293 posts

309 months

Monday 10th April 2006
quotequote all
I used a Hasselblad Xpan for a few years.

Trouble was... it only came in analogue.

When someone deals a decent digital, I'll probably buy it.

stuthemong

2,534 posts

247 months

Monday 10th April 2006
quotequote all
roundshot do a digi scanning camera.

Personally I do not see the attraction of scanning digi cameras, they have no real advantage if you are speaking digital cameras as stitching is so easy - plus scanning cameras will always suffer if you have movement in your scene whereas with stitching multiple shots you can almost always get around this.

For a fun 35mm panoramic camera sure, cheap and great fun. For large large prints, then I can understand a scanning medium format film camera can have it's uses, though I'd still rather be fully digital SLR and stitch

theboyfold

11,475 posts

256 months

Monday 10th April 2006
quotequote all
stuthemong said:
roundshot do a digi scanning camera.


this one?

www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/internet/de/application/d438/d853/f473.cfm

stuthemong

2,534 posts

247 months

Wednesday 12th April 2006
quotequote all
Yup, or you have the spheron or one other which I cant think of this instant - they are quite cool in that you have full RGB aqusition (no bayer upsampling) but they are damned expensive, and have drawbacks.

I would have picked one of these guys up, but decided that a D2x /w/ 10.5 nikkor is a better setup I think

GetCarter

31,293 posts

309 months

Thursday 13th April 2006
quotequote all
stuthemong said:
Yup, or you have the spheron or one other which I cant think of this instant - they are quite cool in that you have full RGB aqusition (no bayer upsampling) but they are damned expensive, and have drawbacks.

I would have picked one of these guys up, but decided that a D2x /w/ 10.5 nikkor is a better setup I think


Got any shots from the 10.5 Stu? I'd be interested to see 'em.

Steve

stuthemong

2,534 posts

247 months

Thursday 13th April 2006
quotequote all
Hi Steve,

Go my companies site here, www.360precision.com/ and click on the sample image sets (linked at base of page). These shots are JPG files as shot off a D200. To create the panoramas these will have been sharpened, and tonally compressed in post processing - so have a play with them and you'll see the detail you can get back

The 10.5 is incredably sharp, on the D2X it's still got the resolution. It's very fast and has great depth of field. It's only downside is it suffers from chromatic abberation to a high extent (IMO), but this can be easily corrected with use of Adobe RAW convertor etc.

>> Edited by stuthemong on Thursday 13th April 12:35

GetCarter

31,293 posts

309 months

Thursday 13th April 2006
quotequote all
Thanks - I'll check it out

_dobbo_

14,619 posts

278 months

Thursday 13th April 2006
quotequote all
Quick question on stitching panoramas - every time I do it, the distortion from shooting wide angle (or 18mm on the D70 which isn't even that wide) means I can never get the images to line up properly - should I be correcting distortion prior to stitching them?

Or should I be taking more images so the overlap is bigger?

stuthemong

2,534 posts

247 months

Friday 14th April 2006
quotequote all
dobbo, I'm sorry but you haven't given enough information for me to answer your question.

Head over to www.ptgui.com to get some decent stitching software - you'll make a pano no problem with this program and a bit of effort.

overlap has no effect on the ability to stitch images in mathematical terms. You can have very high, or very low overlap and still get there. If you have very very low overlap then you may have problems blending as you have a narrow region to blend over, and vignetting and other issues like this to contend with. Aim for 20-30% overlap for a great comprimise

>> Edited by stuthemong on Friday 14th April 00:05