Creating the final (completed for display) panorama takes place in several stages, starting with the photographing and completing the deployment of the finished material on the hosting for display on the Internet. To some they may seem very simple, someone is very complex, but clearly, all these steps require specific knowledge and at-least basic skills.
To create high-quality panoramas preferred (but not required) to use a reflex camera and a removable lens (a wide-angle or fisheye). The wider the angle of the lens and the larger matrix of the camera (the value of Kropa or lack of it), the less need of personnel for shooting full scope.
For example, using a Canon EOS 500D camera (with a crop of 1.6) with the standard lens Kit 18-55 IS to create a single panorama need to do about 40 frames. If the same with the camera to use a wide angle lens Sigma AF 10-20 f / 3.5 EX DC, the number of frames is reduced to 18 or even 16 (two rows of 8 + 8).
The combination of cameras and lenses allow quite enough to create high-quality panoramas, but has flaws. Main – a large number of images on the sphere, which complicates and increases in the general assembly vremyazatraty panorama. Virtually eliminates the possibility of shooting busiest places (sequential shooting), and even more difficult to build when shooting with exposure bracketing (HDR photography and panorama), as it increases the number of frames at least 3 times !!! ….
The solution – the use of highly specialized types of fisheye lens (Fisheye). For example lens Sigma 8mm f / 3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye allows the camera with a crop of 1.5 (eg Nikon) to reduce the number of frames on the sphere to 4 !!!
Or use a camera with a matrix without Kropa, such as Canon EOS 5D Mark III and the lens Sigma AF 10 f / 2.8 EX DC HSM Fisheye Canon EF-S. This combination is necessary to 6 frames on the sphere, and then remove the lens hood on the lens decreases the number of frames up to 4 frames.
Shooting spherical panorama is usually done with a stable turntable. Usually – it’s factory or a home-made panoramic head, which attaches the camera itself. And a tripod (preferably a heavy and steady), to which is attached a panoramic head.
To “panorama stitch” took place without complications, and then did not need to do a lot of edits in Photoshop (or another graphics program), during still image you want to “hold” the camera tightly confined space, which is defined and maintained a nodal point of the lens.
This function is performed by the panoramic head. Currently, the sale of a lot of panoramic heads quite different cost and from different manufacturers, the most famous:
Manfrotto, Nodal Ninja, Agnos and others.
The author used the early panohead Manfrotto 303SPH Spherical Panorama Head, then made homemade fit your requirements.
When the camera is available with a panorama shooting several frames, pan can be removed simply by hand, hold the camera approximately the same level, and turning around. You may need some editing in a graphics editor, but nevertheless, the panorama will be removed and assembled without the use of a special platform.
