Sep 2010
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Sep 2010
Sep 2010

Hey peoples,

Was just wondering if anyone had thoughts on the best way to go about taking photos for HDRI images? 

Do you prefer using the chrome sphere/reflection ball technique, or the panaoramic photography using an incrimental pan head?  Pluses/Minus to both?
Just wondering which technique I should spend time and $ on.

Thanks

LR

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    Sep '10
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    Sep '10
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Best is not defined, if it was then we wouldnt got techniology advances. Or poeple using candles for that matter.

Theres third method, and that is to have a head that actually captures it all in one go.

Do you prefer using the chrome sphere/reflection ball technique

fast, gives you one direction rest is a but of hastle. can be used for refmap and grayball map you can also done using a fisheye lens of sorts

or the panaoramic photography using an incrimental pan

more resolution. slower doesent, need any special equipment just a tripod (has some problems with the down direction tough without special gear). uless you have a automated head. Liek i said devices wich take all in one go exist.

Maybe "best" was not he best choice of terms.  Maybe "prefered".

I am thinking of trying this thing out

http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm

Looks pretty cool, and the price is right for individuals and small companies.  Yes, those automatic pans heads are awesome, but certainly not cheap. 

I guess I want to try the panhead head because I always felt that coming up with a sdolutin for a rig with the chrome sphere always seems to be a bit of a hassle.  I have seen quite a few solutions, all of which are jerry rigged in one way or another.  It seems like it may be easier to have only a pan head, tripod, and camera, then to have to set up a jerry rigged sphere everytime.  Sometimes of course this is not a big deal, but say you want to shoot on the street etc. 

Just wondering if anyone has a preference or one way over the other.

Well i just use a good but normal tripod with no special mount (its very close to my optical center becaue thats the way the tripod is made*) alough the 85$ mount IS cheap so if you dont need to be cheapass get one it helps a bit. A automatic stitching application (doesent really matter where you shoot the stich is pretty easy as long as you have overlap) and a programmable remote trigger (or minilaptop) as it makes things easier in darker conditions. It doesnt really matter how your overlap is really the stitching apps can handle pretty arbitraty cases.

Anyway there is a seriousdownside to panaroamic shooting and that is that you can not really do this in fast moving  conditions. True you dont get multi exposuures in fast moving conditions, windy days etc. BUT cameras have a quite wide range anyways theese days (often enough for easy shots) which is distinclty better than no shot at all. So a sphere or fisheye lense CAN give you better reflection maps for special conditions.

  • also i do whve my own pano mount made, as i have acces to a fabrication unit. (im a mechanical engineer by trade so no supprises there)

PS: please note the panosaurus is missing the control in the vertical direction. So its good for cylindrical panos more than a spherical image