Beginner Questions

[sreel]

Hey all, have some questions on getting good quality panos. Mostly I think I have some beginner level basic questions

My setup will include NN3 MKII, Canon 40D, 10-22 EFS lens (occassionally 17-40 EF Lens)

1 - I noticed the bottom of the NN3 has 3 different screw mounts. Can I just attach the NN3 to my Tripod base directly? Are there any adjustments I need to make if I do this since the screw is slightly offset?


2 - When shooting indoors with some items close to camera, I feel there may be some focus pt issues. Should I use as large a fstop as possible? Is there a good guideline for setting the focus pt when there are objects both 5 feet from camera and 30 feet from camera?


3 - Once I create the pano image, how do I host it online? I guess the question is, is it just output as a .MOV file or something, or do I need some special file type to host online...


I also had questions on which software, how best to shoot 360 x 180 with my setup, but I will check other threads on that first...
Thanks


Sumit

[Bill Bailey]

Hi sreel,
Welcome to the forum.
When posting questions to a forum it might be a good idea to keep a particular concern to a particular thread. You'll get a much better response. Having multiple questions could steer away those unable to answer a particular question in the set of questions you post. That said I can answer two of your questions.

If doing full 360x180 spherical panos, these lenses only allow for partial tilt up. To shoot the zenith (up shot) with these lenses you will either need to move the camera/lens forward on the upper rail to allow for full rotation or simply shoot manually (as most do). You could also shoot two rows - one row to catch the zenith (top) and one row to catch the nadir (floor). For many this is not a big deal but thought I would share this. NN5L does not have this limitation

1) The "center" hole is the one you use - it is a 3/8 hole that allows the use of a 1/4 thread adapter (included). If you don't need to use the thread adapter you can stow it in the other off center hole out of the way. The 3rd hole is left over from previous mold design and not used. The NN mounts to any tripod neck or ball head.
2) F8 is a good aperture to start with and could could go smaller from there t give you a good depth of field.
3) I'm not as familiar when it comes to hosting companies and best to leave that for someone else. It might also be a good idea to start a dedicated thread to the topic.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Bill

[sreel]

Hey great, thanks Bill...
I didnt even notice that the 3/8 inch screw on the botton the NN3 MKII has a removeable piece which turns it into 1/4 inch.
It now fits directly on my tripod head and is centered...

and theres even a place to stow the thread adaptor. wow, that is great design i have to say...


Also, on the focus, I feel that f8 may not give enough focus, but I will do some tests and find out...
Since I am shooting indoors with objects at various distances, maybe f11 or 16, although with a 10mm lens, it might not be needed.
I will test it out and post the results...

[Bigwunder]

Hey Sreel,
Looking at your post was like going back in time, about 2 months for me, when I got My NN3 mkII I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.( and still do) But I had so many questions about how to take the pictures, setting up my gear with the NN and how to post some sweet, sweet panos on the web, like so many other of the talented people of these forums.

If you are still having some problems with your set up you should check out the finding the no parallax point tutorial that John Houghton made, you can go to it on his website at http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm I was having the same problems at first. I began by setting my camera up using the settings on the NN website for my specific body and lens type. This was a good start but until I made some further adjustments It wasn't quiet right. You can get away with some goof when you are outside in a fairly wide open space but when you are in close quarters you really notice any parallax problems quickly. These parallax problems make it a lot harder to get your panos stitched properly. I think I read in some of your other posts that you are using PTgui, which is what I use also. I was having a bugger of a time getting my panos to line up especially on the floors and ceiling. As I went through the tutorial I noticed that when I looked in the nadir direction on all my of my panos that I was getting that saw blade shape on my tripod head, this was evidence of a lateral misalignment with my camera on the NN. after adjusting the lateral setting and taking several more pano sets I had it dialed in in no time. His tutorial is pretty money on explaining how to solve several common problems. Definitely quicker to walk through all the steps to get it right than to fight parallax problems in PTgui.

I also suspect that you have some interest in creating 360 by 180 degree panos, This is why I purchased the NN to begin with. a couple of software programs I have been working with are 1) Pano2qtvrgui and 2) Pano2vr they are both made by Garden Gnome software and are both very user friendly. Pano2qtvrgui is about 56 dollars and will allow you to take the output panos from PTgui and create cubics and then make an output Quicktime movie file. you can upgrade to Pano2vr for another 50 bucks or so and will also be able to output flash, and html files, which is pretty handy when you want to post them to a website. Pano2vr also allows you to make skins for your panos and panoramic tours.
I am sure there are many other great programs out there as well, I am just telling you what I use so you can easily do your own research. I am by no means associated with Garden Gnome software, and hope it isn't a problem that I have included their name in this post.

As far as getting your panos on the web, I have spent a pretty good amount of time trying to figure out the same thing.
First I noticed that a lot of people on these forums are using Flickr for their regular panos, I don't know anything about it but I suspect that it is much like Photo bucket or one of those storage sites. It will hold your photos and assign them some html code so you can post the photos to forums and such. I could be wrong, but I doubt that they will hold and display 360 degree panos (please let me know if anyone knows otherwise). I finally broke down and bought my own website software and have been working on building one for about a week. It is very basic and almost embarrassing but if you would like to check it out you can go to http://www.bigwunder.com. You can get web hosting for as little as 4 bucks a month from some places and a lot of them will give you a free domain name for a year and some basic web design software to use. I would assume there are much easier ways to get your stuff on the net but I am a glutton for punishment. I hope that this post will get some more rational answers out of people for you, me and other beginners.

Any way, I hope some of this helped give you some ideas, and as Bill said above, welcome to the forums, I have gained a ton of knowledge and insight from this site, and best of all everyone I have been in contact with here has been most friendly and helpful.

Good luck and take it easy,
Bill W.