Original Canon TS-E 24 or panoramic head and software

[m._scott_clay1]

<p>I would like to get into 360 panoramic shots but don't have the money right now to buy a $400 pano head and software.</p>

<p>I was thinking of selling my original Canon TS-E 24L to fund the head and software.</p>

<p>The only time I really use the TS-E 24 is in architecture. It's great for getting the building with level and parallel lines in one shot.</p>

<p>Question 1: Will I be able to use the pano head with multiple shots and stitch the photos together (<strong>not</strong> 360 Panoramic) to get the same benefits of using the tilt/shift functions on the TS-E 24L?</p>

<p>Question 2: Will I get greater results out of the tilt/shift functions of the TS-E 24L (<strong>for</strong> 360 Panoramic) shots using the panoramic head and software than I would with a normal Canon lens that does not tilt and shift. By "normal" I mean 17-40L or 24-105L at 24mm. I'm not really talking about soft edges or focal length. Just consider all of them to be used at 24mm. I'm mainly trying to find out if I really need the T/S functions with the pano head and stitching.</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>M. Scott Clay</p>

[robin_sibson1]

<p>Scott, I don't think that the pano system will replace the capabilties of the TS24, certainly not for vertical shift. The truly irreplaceable aspect of a TS lens is the T part, and if you are using it mainly for architecture I guess you are primarily an S user. Whilst you can emulate S by using a conventional 24mm lens, pointing the camera up, and correcting the verticals during post-processing, it is now pretty well established that any substantial correction of this kind results in significant loss of image quality. What you can do is to use a considerably wider lens, such as the 17mm end of the 17~40, keeping the camera level, and then do an off-centre crop. The 5DII has plenty of pixels available for this, and it is feasible within slightly less ambitious limits on the original 5D. It's not a particularly elegant approach, but it does work, and has the advantage that with (say) the 17~40 you can correct aberrations automatically in DPP before cropping, whereas DPP does not support TS lenses for aberration correction, and correcting a TS image using generic software is a long fiddly job.</p>

<p>Incidentally, whilst no doubt it is possible to spend $400 on a pano head, there are surely much less expensive ways of achieving the same effect with adequate precision. After all, all you need is a ball head (with separate pan and tilt locking and indexed pan) mounted upside down. And won't Canon Photostitch, which comes for free, join the frames together? I thought that was what it was for. Go down that road and you'll be able to keep your TS24.</p>

[ben_goren]

<p>Scott,</p>

 

<p>As Robin points out, you won’t be able to duplicate the Scheimpflug effect by using a

panoramic head. At least, not gracefully.</p>

 

<p>What you <em>could</em> do however, is to shoot a high-resolution panorama of the scene.

That should give you more than enough resolution to do the perspective alterations. Rather than use a normal lens to shoot a half-dozen images of an ultrawide scene, use a telephoto to shoot however many images you need of a more normal field of view.</p>

 

<p>For duplicating the Scheimpflug effect…you could shoot a high-resolution panorama at a

small enough aperture for everything to be in focus, even if that means pushing diffraction far

beyond what would normally be considered acceptable. Then, with some very tedious and careful

post-processing, you could selectively blur whatever you wanted to be out of focus. Again, if you

started with a high enough resolution panorama, there still should be plenty of pixels left over to

work with, despite diffraction and post-processing artifacts.</p>

 

<p>But that’s not what I would recommend.</p>

 

<p>Don’t spend the money on the pano head, and certainly don’t spend the money

on software. You can jury-rig a do-it-yourself pano solution while you save up the $400; Google is your friend. ($5 / day

gets you the head in under three months.) And Photoshop does just fine stitching panoramas, as

does the software that came on the CD with your camera, as does any number of free and cheap

downloadable programs.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

[david.seaton]

<p>Scott-<br>

as others have said, you can create a larger (say 2x2) mosaic and do software emulation of the perspective correction functions. Emulation the focus-plane effects will be MUCH harder.</p>

<p>You may also be able to get a pano head and software solution for well under $400. First off, Hugin is one of the best stiching software solutions and is open source freeware. It's powerful and fairly easy to use. For 180x360 stiching especially, photoshop and cannon's software WON't do it, there is too much mathematical remaping/warping that needs to be done, and you want a specialized program.</p>

<p>As far as heads go, I use a panosaurus, which is only $80. Granted, its not as stable as the $400 heads, but it is stable enough that i've had good success with xt and the 24-105, and overall I'm very happy with it. I'm not sure how well it will handle the 5D2 w/ 24-105. (FYI, an inverted ball head won't work, you'll get massive parrallax issues.) I'm assuming you already have a decnt triopd?</p>

<p>My advice would be to take a flyer on a the panosaurus or other 'entry level' head, and see if you A) like pano photography and B) NEED something heavier duty.</p>

[robin_sibson1]

<p>You cannot emulate the effects of <strong>vertical</strong> shift by using a pano head, and for Scott's application photographing buildings, that's presumably the kind of shift he uses most.</p>

[m._scott_clay1]

<p>Thank you all for for the answers. After doing further research on the internet and talking to a few of my photographer friends, I find you are all correct and it would be difficult to get the same effects of the TS with a pano and software. The Panosaurus is a good bet because it would be spherical and let me take several rows high and wide to get the best shot.</p>

<p>I've decided to keep the TS-E 24 and purchased a Bogen 303 QTVR because it's very sturdy and I plan to use it a lot. The Panosaurus just didn't look like it would hold put to a 5D with 17-40 on a daily basis. I'll probably get it later to do spherical panaromas, after all, it's only $80.00. Thank you for mentioning it David. I also downloaded Hugin and a few other free or trial programs.</p>

<p>Thanks again to all.</p>

<p>Scott</p>

[joergen geerds photography]

<p>hi scott,<br>

congrats for getting into panorama photography. in addition to hugin, photoshop CS4 does a pretty good job stitching panoramas, beyond that, you might want to look into ptgui or autopano pro. most of the other panorama software isn't really "industrial strength" in my opinion.<br>

if you have a chance to return the 303, you might want to look into the 360precision adjuste or the nodalninja5, both are less clunky than the 303. but i do believe that you can reconfigure the 303 into a similar configuration than the NN5, which would make it more stable. if you are into even further reading (now that you are into it), you can visit the panotools wiki: http://wiki.panotools.org/Heads for more details about almost any aspect of panorama photography.<br>

good luck</p>