360x180° Panorama Tutorial - Pt.3: Stitching in PTGui (1)

Part 3.

After shooting and developing the images, we will now stitch them together into the final 360x180° fully spherical panorama.

This tutorial covers the images shot with the "Philopod pitch variation technique". I'm just showing you my regular workflow in PTGui (http://www.ptgui.com) — the images I shot handheld (in the first tutorial video) turned out to be accurate enough so that there were no major problems.

• Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouOEM4cKKGc
• Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUiw3jtErxk
• Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GZDqeE-src
• Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYbEHkxkOds
• Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgLgReARxs
• Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3TNawQWIpQ

Thanks for your interest and stay tuned!

Florian

PS: For those who need it, I also went through the trouble of adding subtitles to the videos... Click on the [CC] icon to enable them.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• panorama
• tutorial
• shooting
• technique
• pano
• philopod
• pitch
• variation
• pitch variation
• philopod pitch variation
• howto
• 3d
• 360
• virtual tour
• how
• guide
• ptgui
• stitch
• blend
• smartblend
• combine
• finish
• export

[markomnen]

Very nice tutorial, but "turning around" doesn't look natural for me (ex. at 7:28). The distance to the "objects" is changed during "rotation" and it doesn't look so natural (it doesn't look like if it was made with a camcorder; but maybe I'm "asking to much", maybe it is not possible to do it on a some easy way). Is it any way to do it more "realistic"? If I should use some telephoto lens (and, of course, with much more photos), do you think it shuld look more realistic (more 3d-ish)?

[elfloz]

@markomnen Thanks for your kind words. There's a fundamental difference between capturing and displaying a panorama. The "look" you refer to is just a question of the zoom setting ("focal length") used at the time of *displaying* the panorama. The moment you are talking about shows the panorama with a very wide angle setting. Zoom in (in the viewer) and it'll look what you mean by more "realistic". Note that the way your (360x180) panorama looks does not depend on the lens used to *capture* it!

[sogatt]

Good tutorial but it's hard to make those panoramas. I use a Nikon D300 together with a Sigma 10-20, how many pictures do you think I need and how make a proper panorama picture with this lens? Should I do as you did in the video but take several pictures of the ground and sky instead of one single picture?

[elfloz]

@sogatt You'll need a good few more images, and definitely a panoramic tripod head. You'd be looking at two rows of 6 or 8 images each, shooting 30 degrees below and above the horizon. Then one or two images for the zenith, and possibly a few for tripod removal.

[Chasela511]

This are wonderful. If using a 15mm fisheye, how many pictures are usually needed?

[elfloz]

@Chasela511 Provided you have a full frame sensor, 6 around the horizontal (in portrait orientation of course), one up, one down. On a crop camera, much more than that.

[sCiprianFilm]

awesome thanks!

[markomnen]

@markomnen Don't missunderstand me, I think it was very nice tutorial, and when I looked at pano.ie I like your panoramas very much. I just wanted to say that it should be even better if it looks more 3d-realistic.

P.S. Sorry for bad english.

[sogatt]

@elfloz Thank you! I'll test this when i'm in the city tomorrow.

[Chasela511]

@elfloz Thanks for such a quick reply! These tutorials are amazing. I hope you make some more for other things!