# What lens for panoramic tour + what software?



## omar (Aug 10, 2013)

Can someone advise what lens I need to get for panoramic tours?

I looked into in the past and knew that you had to get a fish eye + a rotating head mount (I forget what it's called)
+ you needed software to stitch together the output

I've seen at least one panoramic lens where the whole 360 degrees is covered in one shot

Is this any better?

How do these lenses take pictures of above?
For my purpose, I don't actually need this and would be willing to sacrific if this is where these lenses compared badly

I take it that I still need software to create the panoramic tour player?

Thanks


Omar


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## dickgrafixstop (Aug 15, 2013)

There's a Canon panoramic stitching program on the disk that came with your camera - or is available for download from canon.com/support/your model/downloads/software. The Cadillac of the stitching programs 
is Photoshop if your budget can afford it. 
If you have a tripod, buy a panoramic head that allows you to evenly pan in preset angle of view detents,
but you can also do it in the software above. Tripod ensures that you have an even horizon and makes the
job easier. 
When you've finished with the software, look for a printhouse that will provide custom size prints ala 18X72 or
24X96 etc without breaking the bank.


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## omar (Aug 15, 2013)

thanks for the reply
using the software involves stitching images together
there are lenses that take an all round shot in one single shot
that's what i was referring to
i assumed there was a few different makes?

(thanks for replying - i thought this one had slipped by and no one replied)


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## dickgrafixstop (Aug 15, 2013)

omar - read this

www.vrphotography.com/data/pages/techtutorials/technotes/panolenschoice.html


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## omar (Aug 15, 2013)

that link doesn't meniton the lens i'm refering to
see this link: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50286310
reading the thread myself now


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## Eldar (Aug 16, 2013)

For software I use Photoshop, but I also use Photostich from Canon. It's for free and it works just fine, provided you have processed your images correctly before you start.

As long as you don't go wide angel, you can use almost any lens. I normally try to shoot at 50mm portrait mode. That minimizes distortion at the edges. I see people using wider angles, but that messes up the end result. You can use longer focal lengths, but that increases the number of shots you need. 

If Iwant to cover more vertically than the 50mm gives, I shoot two horizontal series, normally in landscape mode, one above the other and stich them individually horizontally and and then vertically. 

Make sure you use the same focus, shutter and aperture for all shots. I always shoot in RAW. I then choose the most critical image in the series to work on for corrections. I use Lightroom for that. I always correct for lens faults, to minimize any issues I may have at the edges. Any corrections made to the image must be copied to all the other images. 

Most critical components in my view for this are the tripod and tripod head. People spend thousands on bodies and lenses, but are often buying crap tripods and heads. Don't save your money there.

Done right, the results can be stunning. Have fun!


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## omar (Aug 16, 2013)

thanks eldgar for the reply

the whole point of the 360 degree lens is that no special pano head is required
when i looked into this (1 year ago), u could spend a lot of money for this

i suppose no one here has used or heard of 360 degree lenses?


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## Eldar (Aug 16, 2013)

omar said:


> thanks eldgar for the reply
> 
> the whole point of the 360 degree lens is that no special pano head is required
> when i looked into this (1 year ago), u could spend a lot of money for this
> ...



I have used one, but I did not fall for it. It is fun a couple of times, but the quality is rather poor. 

And yes, you can spend a lot of money on this equipement. But you can also get very good results with a low budget package, like a Canon rebel type body, a standard 50mm f1.8 II lens and a reasonable tripod/head combo


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## gferdinandsen (Aug 16, 2013)

omar said:


> thanks for the reply
> using the software involves stitching images together
> there are lenses that take an all round shot in one single shot
> that's what i was referring to
> ...




I have never seen a lens that takes 360* photos, though they apparently exist. On such a lens, barrel distortion would be off the charts...not to mention that the photographer would be in the frame. You are really best to use (a program like) Photoshop. With Photoshop CS6, I have stitched together a half dozen hand-held photos without a problem.


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## moocowe (Aug 16, 2013)

dickgrafixstop said:


> The Cadillac of the stitching programs is Photoshop if your budget can afford it.



I personally wouldn't even bother with Photoshop for 360° panoramas. It's ok for stitching a handful of photos, but for panoramic tours you'll be better served by Pano Tools. You can get a trial version at http://www.ptgui.com and try before you buy.

You'll also need some sort of VR head. I think one of the cheapest options is the Panosaurus, which you can order from http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm. I have the first version of that head and got great results using a Tokina 11-16mm.


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## rs (Aug 16, 2013)

omar said:


> i suppose no one here has used or heard of 360 degree lenses?


It's more than just a lens, but take a look at this for a quick and dirty way of getting what you're after:
http://petapixel.com/2013/02/05/ricoh-shows-off-camera-that-captures-a-360-degree-photo-in-one-shot/


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## moocowe (Aug 16, 2013)

If you don't want the hassle of using a pano head and stitching, you could always use something like this:
http://www.0-360.com/
http://www.3dvista.com/oneshot.htm
The image quality won't be anywhere near as good as stitching, but it may be adequate depending on your final output.


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## stefsan (Aug 16, 2013)

I can't tell you about special lenses (I use always "normal" ones as the EF-S 15-85), but for software I chose Kolor Autopano (http://www.kolor.com –> you can check the software out in trial mode). It delivers much better results than any other software I ever tried.


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## Don Haines (Aug 16, 2013)

stefsan said:


> I can't tell you about special lenses (I use always "normal" ones as the EF-S 15-85), but for software I chose Kolor Autopano (http://www.kolor.com –> you can check the software out in trial mode). It delivers much better results than any other software I ever tried.



I use Autopano Giga. It is by far the best of any software I have used. You can go anywhere from a few simple shots to hundreds of photos... I'm not sure if there is an upper limit, but I did one with 13 rows of 36 photos (468 photos total) and it was about 4Gpixels in size at the end.... You have the option to turn on GPU rendering, where the video card's GPU helps in the computations, and if you have a fast video card it will greatly speed up rendering. (500 Cuda cores at 1Ghz each is a LOT of computing power)

There are powerful editing commands and image linking functions, you can select which data to use when you have an overlapping section, one with a person and the other without (they tend to move when you are shooting). Photoshop is nice, but this is made for panoramas and there is no comparison.

The hardest thing you will deal with are things like blue sky where there is not the detail to figure out how to link pictures. You can manually place them, you can set manual alignment points, and it works. This has been the killer for the other panorama software I have tried.

As to lenses, it really does not matter. The wider the lens, the fewer pictures you need.... the narrower the lens, the more detail. Autopano will correct for lens distortion. You can even use photos shot at different focal lengths and combine them. I found this out the hard way when shooting a panorama and the zoom lens creeped out from 18mm to around 40mm... and it stitched it together flawlessly.

You can shoot handheld with a bit of practice, or you can use a tripod... just make sure you have about 20 percent overlap between pictures for easy stitching.... If you really want to go crazy and shoot hundred picture panoramas you can get an indexed panorama plate or go full hog and get an automated head.... just set your parameters and away it goes.....

The one below was shot while out for a walk a few weeks ago, handheld, at 18mm on a 60D. 

And most important of all, have fun and show us your results!


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## Vossie (Aug 17, 2013)

Autopano Giga is by far the best and most advanced stitching software. http://www.kolor.com/image-stitching-software-autopano-giga.html 
It allows you to make simple but also gigapixel panoramas(with multiple rows of images). Also have a look at http://gigapan.com/ were you can find a lot of nice results.

Best results are obtained when using a focal lenght of 50mm or more. Wode angle shots are more difficult to stitch.

Always shoot in raw and apply lens corrections before stitching


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## LowBloodSugar (Aug 20, 2013)

I have done this in the past.

My lens of choice is the canon 8-15 F4L. I have tried a few other fisheyes and it is superior to the cheap prime fisheyes on the market (samyamang, sunex, etc). You can use any lens for a 360 but really you want to stream line the process so that means 8mm on full frame


It works on both apc and full frame. Obviously full frame is easier. I get great 360x180 shots hand held even in low light. But I have a cyborg brain.

For serious work I use a nodal ninja head on a tripod.

On small LDR tours:
I import to Lightroom and preprocess then export to ptgui pro.

For large tours:
Auto pano is better, but please note that it uses Time to determine what photos belong to what pano. And it will get tripped up if you take a long time for one pano and do another one quickly. 

You should really understand and experience how that works before shooting a long tour.

Disclosure: I have a business relation with canon.


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