20D and 10-22 lens with Nodal Ninja 3 and RD-8 Rotator settings

[hindenhaag]

By the way,

go to http://wiki.panotools.org/Entrance_Pupil_Database. Tripod mount measurement EOS 20D is 36,5mm. Entrance Pupil Measurement for EF-S 10-22mm for focal length 10mm is 66mm. So your upper rail setting at zoom 10 should be around 102,5mm:

36.5mm + 66mm. Test this setting. When you have found the NNP, go on.

Take the next zoom setting, move the camera forward for e.g. 10mm and look through your viewfinder whether your reference point does not move. To get an impression of the settings of your lens and for your to get the feeling to find an NNP, it might be handsome to move forward per 1mm. When you feel like "this should be right", take 3 shots, one straight forward, one to the left, one to the right, proof on the monitor or print them.

Heinz

[hindenhaag]

At least some settings for spherical panorama for your lens. I prefer 30% overlap to be secure.


10mm, 12mm 2 rows rotator 45¬? 8 stops vertical = upper rail set to 30¬? , '-30¬?, Z/N ¬± 90¬?


45¬? 8 stops 45¬?
14mm 3 rows 36¬? 10 stops 0¬? ¬± 90¬?
45¬? 8 stops - 45¬?



45¬? 8 stops 45¬?
17mm 3 rows 30¬? 12 stops 0¬? ¬± 90¬?
45¬? 8 stops -45¬?



45¬? 8 stops 55¬?
20mm 4 rows 30¬? 12 stops 17.5¬? ¬± 90¬?
30¬? 12 stops -17,5¬?
45¬? 8 stops -55¬?




Enjoy, Heinz




36¬? 10 stops 55¬?
22mm 4 rows 24¬? 15 stops 17.5¬? ¬± 90¬?
24¬? 15 stops -17.5¬?
36¬? 10 stops -55¬?

[Bsmooth]

Thanks Hindenhaag ! I'm finding something strange. You see I'm shooting straight down onto the tripod where the center allen bolt is. But at first with my other shots I was visually looking in the viewfinder and centering my center point for focusing on the allen screw, by either moving the camera slightly on its mounting plate, or by slightly adjusting the angle of my upper rail(maybe 1/2 a degree or so. Well this time I got everything level. First making sure the upper rail was straight up after leveling the tripod, and then making sure the upper rail was level or perpendicular(straight up). Then I made sure the front of the lens was level also, so it was parallel to the top of my tripod.
Here's the funny part a,after all that I looked through the viewfinder and found the center focus square was at the right distance, but it was not centered on the allen bolt!.There is no way to move that with my setup, its locked in by the mount and how the mount is in the Nodal ninja rail. Nothing I could do here so I proceeded and here's what I got. It looks pretty good, let me know what you think.

[hindenhaag]

Hi,

looks quite good.

I think you have the right rail setting but you seem to be off the 90¬?.

- First check the camera plate position on your camera body whether this is really 90¬? to the front of your body. Either you can use the strips on the side of the cameraplate to check it, or use a triangle to check the plate to one of the camera bodies lines.

Be shure it is really fixed in 90¬? position.

- There is a very small possible movement fixing the cameraplate to the rail. So use a 2way bubble leveler to check you are really upside down. This will help you as well when you are on the field to take the panos.

- Last, but possible reason, you might have gone out of zoom position moving around, fix the zoom with a tape.


Looking forward to a nice picture or some more hints from ninonians,


Heinz

[John Houghton]

Just a word of caution: when performing tests to determine the NPP, you should always have the focus set to the position normally used for your panoramas. This is because the entrance pupil position may well vary according to focus setting, depending on the design of the lens. So don't focus on the panohead.

John

[Bsmooth]

Well I asked a neighbor a few days ago If I could shoot the interior of his house, so thats today. So I hope everything is set correctly, otherwise I'll just be wasting my time, and his as well. I'm sure he has better things to do on a Saturday, then let pretty much a stranger shoot his house. But I need to be getting up my nerve a bit If I'm about to do this allthe time for Real estate or businesses.
I'll be shooting in porttrait mode I think with these settings on my 10-22; Focal lrngth 14mm at 45 degrees rotation for a total of 8 shots. So my rotator head should be set for 45 degrees. Might even try an HDR shot who knows If i have time !
Wish me luck , and thanks again for your information, time and patience.

[Bsmooth]

Ok I finally got a chance to take an interior with the setup i have described. Not sure whats the best way to put a pano here, but please let me know the best way If this is wrong.

[John Houghton]

There are clearly some some stitching problems in the upper part of the image. Maybe due to the blank walls and the repetitive pattern of the staircase causing problems with control point assignments. Check control points are correctly placed in the affected images and assign some more points accurately if possible and re-optimize Otherwise the stitch looks good.

John

[Bsmooth]

Well I went over and redid several of the control points in the image. I aligned 2 or 3 along that line that runs along in the 1st and 2nd image,just below the lower railing, however whatever I seem to do results in the same stitching errors along the upper part of the image. I just wish I could figure out why. I had a similar image outside in the park and this was where the stitching image occurred there as well, in the upper part where the power lines are.
Now I'm not sure whether its my nodal point being incorrect or the stitching !

[John Houghton]

I'm pretty sure the stitching problems are caused by bad placement of some control points. If you have control points assigned in the vicinity of the stitching errors, then you should be seeing large maximum cp distance errors reported by the optimizer. It should be easy to sort out. Unfortunately, I cannot be more helpful without having copies of your images and project file. If you can make some half size jpegs and the project file available, I can probably put things right in a matter of minutes.

John

[hindenhaag]

Hi,

as John tells you it would be nice to have copies of your images. What software do you use?
You will realize in the future, to set cp's in areas of nearly no difference, a white wall, or with repeating patterns like your pillows or square plates on a ceiling is very tricky. Specially when you have to place them on a high zoom level you have to be shure to pick the same pillow. In PTGui, after having placed the first points manually, you can let PTGui find the points itself and watch them being placed automatically from one side to the other. Having optimized i try to reduce the cp distance to 10 and lower to come out with a better result.

Looks quite nice your pano.

Heinz

[Bsmooth]

I would be glad to make the images available, just not sure how. I can make the project available, but its in full size I think. Should I open the project and then save it at half size? Also what is the best way to go about handling these types of projects? Should I just ignore the all the control points that PTGUI assigns and just manually place all of my own instead?
Hindenhaag as far as software I am guessing you mean what editing software. If thats the case I use Photoshop CS3.
May I send each of you the images somehow, or is there some other way?

[John Houghton]

Resize the images to half their dimensions and save at jpeg quality 8 in Photoshop. (If you are on a Windows PC and have the free utility Irfanview, you can quickly do this resizing in a batch run). Parcel up the jpegs and a copy of the project file exactly as it is now in a Zip archive or RAR. You can download WinZip if need be.

Then you can send the archive file with one of these free services:

http://www.filedropper.com/
http://www.rapishare.com
http://www.sendthisfile.com
http://www.yousendit.com
http://www.mailbigfile.com

I haven't checked all these recently, but most should be still operational.

My email address is j.houghton at ntlworld dot com

John