Discussion
I've been asked to take some "marketing shots" of some chalets and thought that I can add value (and therefore £££
if I pursuade the owners that they really need Virtual tours.
Before I do I need to find out how to do them, so does anyone know what equipment and software is required?
(also as a btw how much I should charge for either standard photos and/or vitual tours?)
if I pursuade the owners that they really need Virtual tours.Before I do I need to find out how to do them, so does anyone know what equipment and software is required?
(also as a btw how much I should charge for either standard photos and/or vitual tours?)
Marcellus said:
I've been asked to take some "marketing shots" of some chalets and thought that I can add value (and therefore £££ if I pursuade the owners that they really need Virtual tours.
Before I do I need to find out how to do them, so does anyone know what equipment and software is required?
(also as a btw how much I should charge for either standard photos and/or vitual tours?)
There are several ways you can do this. if I pursuade the owners that they really need Virtual tours.Before I do I need to find out how to do them, so does anyone know what equipment and software is required?
(also as a btw how much I should charge for either standard photos and/or vitual tours?)
You can produce a horizontally-panning 360 degree image using a 'regular' camera and a tripod. There are also some free or cheap pieces of software that will stitch the images together do you, and correct any distortions. Have a look at www.panoguide.com for more info.
...or you go for the full setup to produce fully 'immersive' 360x360 images:
Fisheye lens
Tripod adaptor which allows you to rotate the camera/lens around it's focal (or nodal) point, thus avoiding parallax distortion.
Depending on your camera, a fisheye lens might cost you around £400, and the tripod adaptor around £350.
I use a Nikon D200 with a Sigma 8mm lens and an Agnos panoramic head.
Have a look at www.red-door.co.uk for equipment.
In terms of software, most decent programs will allow you to output 360 image in Quicktime VR format or Java Applet, and more recently, Flash although this is still quite clunky for larger images.
I'd recommend looking at Panoweaver www.panoweaver.com for the stitching and output of images. They also have a program called Tourweaver which allows you to link up your images into a full virtual tour.
I wouldn't recommend iPix - terrible software that used to dominate the market a few years ago, but has since gone bust anyway.
As for what to charge, remember that you'll have to cover your time shooting, retouching and stitching (which can be a nightmare if you haven't lined up or exposed the shots well).
Feel free to PM me if you want any further info.
Edited by option click on Friday 3rd August 09:11
www.360precision.com for the panoheads I make, but they are geared for pros really (high price).
Upshot is, I'd recommend PTgui for stitching, photoshop for editing images, then Pano2QTVR for quicktime mov's, or www.flashpanoramas.com for a nice flash based pano viewer.
You really need a very wide angle lens. preferably fisheye to make any decent shots. You will also need a panohead, NN3 (nodal ninja 3) are the cheapest out there really, and patience.
Lots to learn and lots to go wrong in making a decent pano.
The option is just to pay someone to do it for you, whereabouts does the shot need doing from? I may know someone locally (globablly).
It may cost £500 to get someone to do it, but it will cost you a lot more than that to get the equipment you need, and even then you;d need months and months of practice to get good quality.
Kindest,
Stu
Upshot is, I'd recommend PTgui for stitching, photoshop for editing images, then Pano2QTVR for quicktime mov's, or www.flashpanoramas.com for a nice flash based pano viewer.
You really need a very wide angle lens. preferably fisheye to make any decent shots. You will also need a panohead, NN3 (nodal ninja 3) are the cheapest out there really, and patience.
Lots to learn and lots to go wrong in making a decent pano.
The option is just to pay someone to do it for you, whereabouts does the shot need doing from? I may know someone locally (globablly).
It may cost £500 to get someone to do it, but it will cost you a lot more than that to get the equipment you need, and even then you;d need months and months of practice to get good quality.
Kindest,
Stu
Edited by stuthemong on Friday 3rd August 17:10
Edited by stuthemong on Friday 3rd August 17:10
The Chalet which I've been asked to take the marketing shots of is in the French Alps (Megeve).
The investment might be worthwhile as I might end up setting up a business marketing chalets in the alps and thinking that virtual tours of chalet could be a good usp to both me and the chalets!!
The investment might be worthwhile as I might end up setting up a business marketing chalets in the alps and thinking that virtual tours of chalet could be a good usp to both me and the chalets!!
OK, with £500 I think you should try to find a second hand nikon 10.5mm or a sigma 8mm (maybe if you go for the older worse quality f4 youll be able to get one cheap).
The 10.5 will be more expensive, but is a better lens. The new sig 8mm f3.5 is also pretty darn good. Assuming you can get one of these lenses for £350, that leaves £150 which gives you only 1 option really
ptgui stitching software (£50 odd)
pano2QTVR / flashpanoramas / SPiV / other web page viewer, choose the one you prefer £30 odd
Nodal Ninja 3 panohead £100 odd - or you build one yourself.
You will also need an image editing program, adobe cs3 has a 30 day trial you could use to get hte work done in, or you can look at the shareware clones, I'm not too familiar as they are mainly linux based, but there are quite a few. You most definitely could do the work with older version of photoshop (say version 6), which you should be able to ebay for not very much.
So youll come in slightly over budget, mainly youll have to be careful with your lens purchase as they are both £500 when new.
Hope that helps
EDIT: the other option if you didnt want to commit quite so much cash at this stage would be to rent the lens and or panohead from us - just another option, for both, circa £200 for a week - this isn't meant to be a hard sell, just giving you honest options.
The 10.5 will be more expensive, but is a better lens. The new sig 8mm f3.5 is also pretty darn good. Assuming you can get one of these lenses for £350, that leaves £150 which gives you only 1 option really
ptgui stitching software (£50 odd)
pano2QTVR / flashpanoramas / SPiV / other web page viewer, choose the one you prefer £30 odd
Nodal Ninja 3 panohead £100 odd - or you build one yourself.
You will also need an image editing program, adobe cs3 has a 30 day trial you could use to get hte work done in, or you can look at the shareware clones, I'm not too familiar as they are mainly linux based, but there are quite a few. You most definitely could do the work with older version of photoshop (say version 6), which you should be able to ebay for not very much.
So youll come in slightly over budget, mainly youll have to be careful with your lens purchase as they are both £500 when new.
Hope that helps
EDIT: the other option if you didnt want to commit quite so much cash at this stage would be to rent the lens and or panohead from us - just another option, for both, circa £200 for a week - this isn't meant to be a hard sell, just giving you honest options.
Edited by stuthemong on Sunday 5th August 21:10
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