First pano - Maroochy River - KingPano

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First pano - Maroochy River - KingPano

Postby gecko on Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:28 pm

Hello all:

Here is my first real pano:
I ordered a KingPano bracket late last year and it took AGES to get here. This is the first time I have used it.

The images were taken during the middle of the day, so the light is quite harsh.


Image

Cheers
Gecko
Last edited by gecko on Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby gecko on Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:33 pm

Here is another one:


Image


Cheers
Gecko
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Postby CraigVTR on Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:34 pm

Nice Shot Gecko, and a lovely spot. What is a King Pano bracket? I think i can guess but i may be way off the mark.

Craig
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Postby gecko on Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:45 pm

The KingPano bracket allows the camera to be mounted so that it pivots about the lens' nodal point which reduces parallex in the images and makes for easy stitching into panoramas. I used Panorama Factory V4 to do the job in this case.

Check out the KingPano website:

http://www.kingpano.com/

It is a good bit of gear, though fairly bulky and I'm probably reaching the upper limit of weight for my tripod with this setup.

These are my first attempts at this style of photography - there have been many inspirational panos posted recently.....

Cheers
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Postby CraigVTR on Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:05 pm

Gecko

What I thought it was, but i can't help thinking this type of bracket is overkill (depending on the accuracy of the work you want to do). It does seem to allow a high degree of accuarcy and sophistication. But could a straight flash bracket that allows you to mount the camera on the tripod head so the nodal point is over the centre of the tripod pan, work?

Sounds confusing to me, i hope i have explaned myself well enough to give you a mental picture. Do you mind if i ask what sort of price it was?

Did you take the first one from up near the motorway bridge?

Craig
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Postby gecko on Tue Feb 21, 2006 2:04 pm

Yes, a straight bracket would work and I experimented last year with building my own out of bits from Bunnings.

Check out this discussion:

http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?t=990&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=diy+pano&start=0

Unfortunately the images don't seem to be working anymore. My DIY results were not satisfactory and so I decided to purchase a ready made unit. The KingPano is the cheapest option that I could find and makes taking images in portrait mode a breeze.

From memory I paid $149 US for it - and it took about 2 months to get here :evil:

Cheers
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Postby sydneywebcam on Tue Feb 21, 2006 2:11 pm

Had a look at the Kingpano bracket site. The bracket looks good, not too expensive & simple to use. How do you find it for ease of use. I am wondering specifically about how it rotates, can you select a set number of rotations in degrees? You seem to have gotten a good result with it. Do you have a link to large size images Gecko? I am getting a great result stitching with Panorama Factory too. It always helps if you have set up the camera correctly before shooting.
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Postby gecko on Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:37 pm

Hello Paul

I would rate the ease of use as pretty good - but I am still getting used to it. I will take some photos of the set up and post them.

Setting up is fairly painless:

I keep my Kingpano pretty much assembled and ready to go (toss it in my daypack).

The base of the Kingpano screws onto the top of tripod. There are 3 thumbwheels that are used to level it. These are quick and easy to use. The base has a built in bubble level thingy.


The camera has a bracket on it permanently - the supplied mounting bracket does not suit the bottom of the D70 very well and sticks out on one side which looks a bit odd. The camera bracket attaches to the Kingpano and you have to get the placement of this right. The website has the measurements for various Nikon lenses and the Kingpano has inscribed rulers along the necessary edges.

The whole unit can rotate with click stops for angles. I have not done any fancy calculations yet - the few panos that I have done so far, I have just looked thru the view finder (grid lines turned on) and rotate so that I overlap about 1/3 of previous image.

Prior to getting the pano head, I tried a few panos either hand held or using the tripod with no nodal point considerations at all and found that Panorama Factory V4 did a very good job. Having the pano head seems to result in imperceptable stitching (to my dodgy eye anyway)!!

Anyway - I'll grab some images of the D70 on the KingPano to post in the next day or so....

Cheers
Gecko
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Postby avkomp on Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:24 pm

glad you got the king pano finally.


I prefer the second shot although the first shows the capabilities.

Steve
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Postby Oneputt on Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:15 pm

Let me ask a slightly obvious question. Where did you shoot from. I live on that stretch of the river.
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Postby Slider on Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:33 pm

Oneputt wrote:Let me ask a slightly obvious question. Where did you shoot from. I live on that stretch of the river.


I think you're in shot actually OP :lol:

On a more serious note they are good panos , but, the horizon in number 2 is a bit distracting due to the slight angle and in teh 1st there again the horizon seems slightly "wavy" just above the point 1/3rd across from the left of teh island but it might be an optical delusion due to teh curve in the water passage
:D
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Postby DVEous on Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:15 am

... Obsolete ...
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Postby Oneputt on Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:32 am

Adam I hope that you are not amongst those who ignore the 6 knot speed limit and go past me place on the plane!!!!
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Postby gecko on Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:55 am

Let me ask a slightly obvious question. Where did you shoot from. I live on that stretch of the river


The images were taken from the north eastern corner, 13th floor of Banyandah Towers.

On a more serious note they are good panos , but, the horizon in number 2 is a bit distracting due to the slight angle and in teh 1st there again the horizon seems slightly "wavy" just above the point 1/3rd across from the left of teh island but it might be an optical delusion due to teh curve in the water passage


I didn't use the pano head for the 2nd image. It was my crappy old 300mm zoom on a tripod. I didn't notice the crooked horizon - but now it is so obvious!
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Postby gecko on Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:18 am

Here's what the KingPano looks like:

(Images taken with old digital point and shoot)

Image

The tripod is a Benbo Trekker.


Image


With the D70 attached and set at the nodal point for kit lens @ 18mm.


I took some more shots but they are not loading into smugmug for some reason....

Cheers
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First Pano - Maroochy River - KingPano

Postby gecko on Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:43 am

But wait there's more:


Image


Image


So now I have taken more images OF my pano head than I have WITH it! :lol: :lol:

Cheers
Gecko
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Postby Oneputt on Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:49 am

Nice looking setup Gecko :D
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