Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Luka, liked your \"attempts\" to simulate medium/large format look, this is great technique. When you get the Gigapan Epic Pro please tell us how you like it. Like Makten I find the catseye effect bothering on 2nd photo. When I imitate large format look I try to find subject, which can be shoot from 3-8 meters and then using 100ZE at f/5.6 I get best results - the DOF is so much like large format wide/normal lens. If I would shoot for web then I would shoot at f/3.2 to minimize DOF (f/5.6 gives lame look at websize, great effect on large print) and get rid off optical issues (no cats eye and neither any other problems in bokeh anymore - even at f/2 the sharpness is very homogenous over the whole frame, usually it\'s the bokeh which is problem with ZE100 and shallow DOF pano). In addition to 100ZE I have only found Canon\'s 300/2.8L IS as good, it gives usable panos at f/4, however weight and other factors cause some problems using it with panoheads (Nodal Ninja 5 can barely take it, RRS might be better for 300/2.8).
The longest lens I have is a Canon 70-200/2.8 IS MkII. With a 1.4x teleconverter it becomes an f/4 and I\'ll be sure to test it with the Gigapan.. but while it\'s a nice lens, it\'s no Zeiss. The image quality is OK with the converter on the 5DII but if I mount it on my 7D (448 mm in 35mm equivalent) the image quality suffers beyond what I find acceptable.
I\'m looking forward to the Gigapan, but I\'m a bit worried about its size. It doesn\'t look like something you\'d bring along when backpacking. I don\'t care too much about massive zoomable panoramas - my primary use will be to simulate larger format camera images. I\'m also a bit curious about 360 degree panoramas in combination with stereographic projections:
(Photo by Alexandre Duret-Lutz, CC license, taken from wikipedia)
Even at f/2 the DOF at websize isn\'t that narrow, longer lens 200-300mm would be better for this kind of large distance shooting. These are hard images to present in web considering limitations (forum recommendations and small displays people are using).
Yep. I think that a 400/2.8 or 600/4 would be nice for landscape photography, but they are simply too heavy and bulky to be practical. I would love to have subject isolation at a great distance (100+ meters), but then we are really talking about 600+ mm.
You are quite right about image size. A large portion of the effect is lost when showing it web sized..
BTW. Are you sure about your mathematics (or am I the one who can\'t calculate)? 1.2Gpix is in square format 34500 by 34500. If you managed to do this with only 50 images I\'m really jealous for your ability to shoot such small overlap.
Actually checked with calculator and 50 x 21Mpix is only 1.050GPix, so it can\'t be 1.2Gpix unless it\'s scaled to larger size.
The problem is not in your math, but that you are overestimating my ability That image was a crop from a 1.2 Gpix image. As you point out, 50 images are less than 1.2 Gigapixel.. so what\'s the explanation? This is the full uncropped image, just resized:
As you can see, a lot of those 1.2 Giga pixels are just black where I failed to capture a shot that would cover it. In my defense, this was shot handheld.. but generally speaking, I really suck at panoramas. Hence my purchase of an automated system..
denoir wrote:Too bad there is no current Zeiss 200/2... Exactly! (thou I would be happy with anything having 100ZE rendering and focal length from 180mm to 300mm, max aperture from f/2 to f/4 - even f/5.6 would be OK for me as long as the lens barrel would be big enough e.g. not cats-eye.)
There is of course the Contax Zeiss 200/2 Aposonnar.. or the 300/2.8 APO Tele Tessar.. but both are very heavy, rare and expensive.. The Contax Zeiss 300/4 is relatively cheap but from what I understand not very good...
Nice macro shot by the way - I like how the green hues melt together..
That image was a crop from a 1.2 Gpix image. As you point out, 50 images are less than 1.2 Gigapixel.. so what\'s the explanation? This is the full uncropped image, just resized:
