[Leica] Re: Panoramics using Leica

[Andrew Nemeth <azn@nemeng.com>]

Guess it's time for a VR imaging professional to chime in.  :?)

I use the 16mm Fisheye-Elmarit-R and take 7x shots - 6 portrait
format horizontally, and then one pointing straight up to
capture the overhead zenith.

Then I use a piece of software called PanoramaTools to help
me correct each shot for pitch and roll, as well as then remap
them to equirectangular format.

Then I stitch them together by hand in Photoshop, to give,
after a few hours, final panoramic images which are 360-degrees
wide by 150-degrees high (the bottom 30-degrees is blocked
by the tripod or monopod I use).  The pano dimensions are
6400 x 3200 @ 58 MB and almost grainless (so good enough
for commercial print quality use).

Of course not being stuck in the 60s... ;?) ... I only work
in colour, which makes life hard when you are doing interior
panoramas in radically mixed light (try flouro, tungsten,
daylight, halogen, sodium light sources all in one shot and
all spilling over walls and ceilings which should be _white_!)

I use the 16mm on either a winderized R6.2, a hand-wound Nikon
F2A (true MLU & great for long time exposures because it has a
"T" shutter setting), and also via an adapter ring, my Ms.

Recently I have started experimenting with hand-held, indoor
candid panoramic images.  16mm on the M6.  A bit (make that
_really_) tricky to assemble, but the main problems I've had
is that the 16mm falls apart at f-stops other than f8-11.
And f8 indoors, hand-held, is a real stretch!

My current project is revamping the VR tour I did for the
Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and I am just putting
the finishing touches to a new batch of VRs I shot there last
month.  What makes this project fun is that I've talked the
client into also using standard stills candid shots - so
when the project goes live on their www site in a few months,
with a bit of luck it will be a showcase of both "classic" M
candid stills and latest, super-high-tech Leica R interactive
panoramics.

(Well, that's the theory anyway!...)

Regds,



Andrew Nemeth

<http://4020.net>    -> photos, 360° panoramic vrs, sounds
<http://nemeng.com>  -> vr java applets, leica faq, tech info