360 Photography

[bill schuman]

I may have to create a 360 view of several rooms, I am looking for recommendations for digital and Video:
-Motor drive
-Software
-ETC

Regards,
Bill Schuman

[Raven]

Well Bill now you are talking about my speciality! My primary business is Virtual Tours and I shoot 360 Panoramas basically everyday.

Here is what I use:

Tripod: Bogen 3021BPro with Bogen 303QTVR Head
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel XT
Lens: Canon 10-22 f3.5 @14MM
Flash: Canon 550EX With Gary Fong Lightsphere Cloud

I shoot a series of 12 Stills at the designated stop points on the QTVR head then I process the raw files to usable .jpegs after running them through HDRI software (If need be) and stitch them together using Anything3D.com's 3D Photobuilder Pro software. The thing I like about A3D's program is that it adjusts automatically for exposere and contrast across all images to give a reasonable image at the end of the processing. Once I have expoerted the image I do final touch ups in photoshop. You can see many examples on my index Website or here is one:



Hope this helps!

Raven

[bill schuman]

R
well that was very helpful I though you had said you did this already, other then the Bogen head the rest is not very expensive. Is the head really necessary to get a feel for it, can I use my Giotto pan head that has 12 reference marks to shoot this or is that to subject to variation for the software to stitch together. I am sure you have already tried this before you spent $ 400 for a head, so how bad was it? The software packages where (2) HDRI and A3D's thanks for the info it is very helpful..

-Bill

[Raven]

The main reason for the 303 Head is it allows the camera to rotate around the Nodal Point of the lens rather that around the film plane of the camera that a regular head will do. (I suppose with these DSLRs I should call it Sensor Plane?)

The importance of rotating around the nodal point is that nothing will appear to move in the sequence of shots. To see what I mean look through your camera outside (or even inside) and rotate around you'll see stuff in the background appear to slide from one side to the other instead of remaining in place. (It is particulary noticable if done with a video camera)

Now having said all that. You could probably get away with using the other tripod head if you are careful and if this is going to be only an occasional thing. (The A3D software is very forgiving) But you may have to go in and manually align the individual images from time to time which is not too difficult.

So the real questions are how often do you see yourself doing this? and will you recover the $ spend?

Raven

[bill schuman]

R
Well right now I want to try it for one customer and see where it goes from there that was why I questioned the head. I am a firm believer of the right equipment for the job but didn't want to put in 400 plus software if I only get 1-2 jobs...
This would be indoors also so I would be using the SL800 as well..

-Bill

[Raven]

Well I'll tell you what why don't you shoot a "practice" panorama around your home and then zip the 12 final stills (Make them 600 X 800 resolution) and I'll stitch them together for you and post the result. "Did I mention earlier that the shots I do are in a Verticle Format?

No I'm pretty sure I forgot that.

Oops.

Raven

[bill schuman]

R

Thanks that's a great idea, this way I can see the results from my plane pan head.
The software was listed on-line at $ 129. Which is not that bad but, I did see from your sample that it did not have look up. Would that be another software package?

-Bill

[Raven]

What you may be thinking of is a "photobubble" which provides 360 Spherical views (except straight down where the tripod is) whereas what I do is a 360 Panorama (Conical) Image. for a photobubble you are looking more at IPix or something along those lines. Thus far every program that makes photobubbles that I have run into uses "keys" to save and publish the images. Keyed software in my opinion is a huge rip-off because you have to keep on buying keys every time you want to save a finished image. I looked at IPix when I first started thinking about doing this and actually still have an Olympus set up to do photobubbles (admittedly it is a 1.3 Mpxl camera).

Most real estate work is now done with the Conical set up. Bogen does make a version of the QTVR head that can do Sphericals but I haven't played with that yet. Maybe I can check one out when PMA comes here to Orlando next.

Raven

[bill schuman]

R
Great info, I had seen that on a high end house that had a big stairway and upper level walk around. The key issue is more expensive like you said but if that's what the customer wants then that's what they pay for, as well as the time to do all this.
But anyway my Giotto Head does vertical break-over so that is no problem shooting the shots that way for the 360 Panprama..Does the Panorama have to be 12 shots of can less or more be stitched together, I had a concept come to mind last night for a full body sweep front and back vertical or horizontal.

-Bill

[Raven]

Does the Panorama have to be 12 shots of can less or more be stitched together, I had a concept come to mind last night for a full body sweep front and back vertical or horizontal.
-Bill

No it doesn't HAVE to be 12 shots, that is just what I found to be Ideal for how I do the shoots. 10 verticle was too few and 18 verticale was too many and the 303 head is set up to do 10/12/18/24 in sequence. the advantage of more shots is smoother stitching, but the disadvantage is much longer stitching times. a 12 shot panoram in the dimensions I gave you takes about three min to stitch, an 18 shot takes close to six. so you can see if you are doing multiples like I do (The biggest run in one day was 36 Panos) the difference in time can stack up. Now I have had on occasion need to stitch Hig Rez files and yikes that takes some time. a Single full rez 8 Mpxl panorama with 12 shots takes about an 3/4 hour to stitch. I'm not sure what you mean by a "full body sweep front and back" so I cannot answer that.

Raven