Close-up Panoramas

[andrew_storey]

I am interested in exploring "close-up panoramas." By close-up, I mean the

subject is maybe 10' to 10" from the lens. Assuming you have the basic

panoramic gear, such as panohead/slider to avoid paralax error, good tripod,

macro lens, etc, how feasible are these types of shots? How much of a

challenge does the shallow DOF present when attempting to digitally stitch

multiple images together? I don't believe I have ever seen this type of shot

and I'm wondering if this is due in part to the difficulties of pulling them

off successfully.

 

Any suggestions for technique or equipment would be great. Thanks.

 

Andrew

[michaelschrag]

One way to increase DOF....http://www.photo.net/bboard/nw-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KB8p&tag=

 

You will find plenty of examples of shots stiched togather on fredmiranda.com

 

If you get it to work well please post an example. Also, there is a macro section at Fredmiranda and you may find somebody who has done it there.

 

Good luck

[michaelschrag]

By the way if you decide to use focus stacking to increase the DOF, then you are really going to have to get your MC-30 fixed (refering to Andrew's other post).

[tonybeach]

Funny that you should mention this, since I too have thought how intriguing this approach would be.

 

In correspondence with Thom Hogan he seems to think it would be distracting to have too deep a DOF in a landscape type of shot, but my son (who is 17 years old) represents a POV that would like to see everything in the image be sharp and in-focus.

 

For me, when I get the necessary pano head gear (probably from RRS, where it costs about $800), I will strongly consider this software:

 

http://www.heliconfocus.com/pages/focus_overview.html

 

which costs another $250 (for a lifetime license).

[michaelschrag]

Over in the Fredmiranda macro forum, CombineZM is seems to be preferred, and its free. I have not used heliconfocus so I cannot comment on that, but combineZM may be a way of trying this out without putting up to much cash at first. I too am intrigued with this approach.

[hans_janssen]

I don't think you use a panohead, but you have to rotate you camera around the object or let the object rotate.

[Ed_Ingold]

For something really close, like 10 inches, I suggest you slide the camera laterally rather than rotating it. The distance you would need to slide is short enough to be practical considering the field of view. For longer distances, i.e., in a small room, car or cockpit, the nodal point slider should be sufficient, as should the DOF. Make sure the focus is fixed throughout the pan, since focusing would affect the magnification.

[Ed_Ingold]

On second thought, shifting the camera laterally would emphasize parallax problems. Rotate the camera, but take great care to find the nodal point for rotation.

[frans_waterlander]

I slide my camera left-right or up/down on a self-made rail system or use the height adjustment on my tripod to move the camera up or down.

That way I can cover an area anywhere from macro 3/4" x 2 1/4" to close up to a medium area of 20" x 60". Of course there is always the issue of limited depth of field but at least the distance to your subject doesn't change because of camera rotation.

[cliff_k__cny_]

Andrew,

 

>> By close-up, I mean the subject is maybe 10' to 10" from the lens. <<

 

Well... I haven't shot down to 10" yet, but the foreground of this church interior is much closer than 10'. So I guess it qualifies. Here's my 2 cents worth.

 

Given a well set up spherical panorama tripod head, etc, etc, etc; parallax is not much of a problem. As you work closer, the calibration of the nodal point will matter more.

 

For landscape, I've been known to let the focus drift from frame to frame. For this interior I focused manually and counted on depth of field.

 

The lens is an 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-D Nikkor at 18mm and f/11. D200 was portrait. The shot is 2 frames tall and 3 frames wide. Since it's strictly available light and most of the light sources are in the shot, it's also a blend of a 4 frame, 2 stop bracket at each position. Yes, 24 frames are used. I actually shot 54 frames total to be sure of the exposure.

 

The biggest stitching problem was avoiding areas of lens flare around the lights.

 

I don't recommend attempting this without an MC-36 to automate the mirror-up, pause, shutter, pause, mirror-up, pause, shutter, pause, mirror-up, pause, shutter, pause... forever and ever. sequence.

 

Go for it!<div></div>

[dave_powell2]

Hi Andrew,

 

Another approach that I once took employed a Vivitar 18mm Rectilinear T-mount lens. The DOF was so great, that a flower almost touching the lens was in focus...as were the trees and sky behind it. I composed the image so that the flower was vertically centered in the frame and near one side (but not so near that it dramatically warped). Then, I scanned, and digitally cropped, the super-wide-angle 35mm frame to leave only the "panoramic strip" across its middle.

 

(I'd post it, but I lost some of my older images when my former PC had a disk crash. Should try again, though, now that you've reminded me!)

 

Sincerely,

 

Dave