NN3 + Ricoh

[Marcus]

Hello Ninja Users,
I shoot with a Nikon D2X and 360 Precision heads, but recently have decided to attempt making panoramas with a more portable set up for those awkward situations. So I've invested in a Nodal Ninja 3 Mk II to use with my portable camera of choice, the Ricoh GR Digital II - with the GW-1 wide converter making it into a 21mm lens. I've spent my first afternoon trying to locate the NNP and think I'm just about there. A few more tests to go yet. Just wondered whether anyone else is using this set-up? Maybe you have some alignment marks? Maybe you want mine?
Must admit, my first reaction is that it feels like going back to all the messing about I had with the old Manfrotto. 360Precision does spoil you. But, I bought it for its compact size and you can't have it all.

Marcus

[nick fan]

hi Marcus,

is the tripod socket in line with the lens axis? if not you need to use a T-20 (20mm offset) or T-30 (30mm off-set) adapter to compensate the off-set.


nick

[John Houghton]

The Ricoh tripod socket is offset. See http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/gr/gr_digital2/style.html

John

[Marcus]

I am using the T-20 adapter, so all should be fine. Just one thing, PTGui recognizes the EXIF information, fine, but there is a box for 'Wide angle or tele converter' which asks for a conversion factor. As I AM using a wide angle converter, should I be entering a figure here and ticking the box? At the moment I'm testing without ticking that box, but I imagine that will be using the EXIF from the camera which will assume NO wide angle converter. Or as it is electronically linked to the camera, maybe the EXIF is automatically updated? Any ideas anyone?
Will post again to say how my tests go in case anyone wants the settings.

Thanks,

Marcus

[John Houghton]

Marcus, It should be obvious from the data in the Lens Settings tab whether PTGui has taken account of the wide angle adapter. Without the adapter, you should have either a focal length of 5.9mm and a crop factor of 4.75, or a focal length of 28mm and a crop factor of 1. They both amount to the same thing as far as PTGui is concerned. Apply the adapter factor, or not, accordingly.

John

[Marcus]

Thanks John.
WITH the adapter I have a Focal Length of 4.456mm and a Focal Length Multiplier of 4.842. So I guess this means the EXIF has taken into account the wide angle adapter. That's good.
As for my results: Not too bad. I always try to have no more than 3.6 pixels as my maximum CP distance, and with the 360P I only usually have to delete a few CPs to get there. With this new set up with the Ricoh and NN3, PTGui is starting off with CP distances of 20 plus pixels. I'm deleting like mad, then maybe adding a few by hand. I end up with a good stitch, but wonder if this gap means I haven't quite got it set up right. I would have thought that had I NOT found the NNP I wouldn't get a good stitch at all, so I'm assuming I must be pretty close
Getting there....

Marcus

[John Houghton]

I'm deleting like mad, then maybe adding a few by hand.

You need to retain a good spread of points in the overlap areas. It's easy to get a good but valueless optimization report when the points are clustered together in the middle, and with all the difficult-to-align points near the edges deleted. If everything is reasonably far from the camera, then the setup of the camera on the head isn't at all critical. You should do some tests specifically to check for parallax when there are things in the overlap areas close to the camera seen against a distant background.

John