Panoramic Workflow

Hi all.
I recently purchased a NN5 for my pentax K10 and started to get a few good shots using a Sigma 10-20mm lens.
I now use a Pentax K5 and a 10-20mm and a Pentax FA*28-70mm at 28mm. I normally only do 2 rows of up to 10 shots to get the desired coverage.I find I can get the stitching ok and worked out how to set up the NN5 .
The problem is with the K5 using either lens I am getting poor image quality and not very sharp at all.Also a lot of variation in exposure. The K10 were great shots but dissapointed with the K5 results.
It may be jus t acase of me not knowing what I am doing and not a good work flow, maybe someone can look at what I do and comment on my workflow.

Camera in manual mode.
2 second shutter delay.
Manual focus.
Set exposure to brightest part of scene and lock exposure at that setting.(not at the sun)
Maintain same shutter and f/stop throughout whole of pano.
I have tried from f/8 up to f/22 but still not at all too sharp.
Camera shake is turned off as well.
White balance set to light conditions.
I found windy days to create havoc so shot the same scene in no wind conditions.

My last hope today is that I have got the K10D out of mothballs, reset the K5 back to new settings and do some comparison shots at various settings.
I have 5 weeks planned for the USA in may and would love to be set up before we get there.
Any help would be appreciated. I probably should have posted a couple of shots for your review.
John

use a remote cord will help.
try different focus distance.

NIck

Hi,

Had a look to the manual of K5. A lot of things to set in the manual like lens correction etc. May be a good idea to set all this to default and check the menu what is set in the different menu parts.

The only reason at this moment I could imagine for different exposures with fixed aperture and shutter speed is ISO set to Auto. ISO has to be set to manual. To get more experience about K5, you should take a set of fixed aperture and shutter speed shots with raising ISO to learn about the turning point of noise. So you know ISO 800 for example is the last ISO set to get a pic without too much noise. So you know how much you can raise ISO to get higher shutter speeds in busy places or windy conditions.

I would set shutter delay to off.

Check hyperfocal distance for your lenses and take test shots. For the best shoot with aperture 8 or 11. Take test shots around hyperfocal distance, for example in a street with parked cars from near to far distance.

Last check: +/- exposure correction is set to 0, bracketing is set to off?

So far for early in the morning.

I think you'll get some more response.

Heinz

Sigma 10-20mm has like many super wide angle lenses a pronounced focus problem which very few know about. This especially will give you problem if you shoot 2 rows and if you trust hyperfocal focusing.
Read my article about this here.
http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/foc...gle-focus.html

Hans

What image size have you set in camera?

Quote:

Originally Posted by badders

What image size have you set in camera?

Do you refer to my article?

The original images are from RAW 8mp 20D which is 2336x3504. The crops are 100% crops from that size.
I have added a 200% crop from the pillow in the first image to show that actually already in this area quite close to centre you loose focus at larger distances because of the concave focus-plane.

The problem becomes much more visible when you shoot outdoor panoramas where you have objects at infinity at the edges of the image.
I discovered the problem when testing my Sigma 14mm for doing 2 rows panoramas. Naturally this means that the top and bottom of the 2 rows are at the centre. I went out to shoot a landscape in Mols Bjerge, our new national park and as I wanted large depth of field I focused at hyperfocal distance.
The result did not at all live up to my expectations and when examining the images I found that most of the areas at the horizont was just not in focus. And I had even stopped down to F11.

Hans

Quote:

Originally Posted by hansnyberg

Do you refer to my article?

No. I was referring to the OP about poor image quality from the Pentax K5. My question was therefore asking what images size he had set on the K5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by badders

No. I was referring to the OP about poor image quality from the Pentax K5. My question was therefore asking what images size he had set on the K5.

I only shoot in Raw. The Camera is 16.3 meg.
John