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#299347 - 12/06/2007 18:39 My New Toy Has Arrived !!!
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
It's a Peleng Fisheye Lens

Stopped off at Kirkstall Abbey on my way home to test it out...



It's my first manual lens, but I pretty happy with my first attempts, I set it to F8 and infinity focus and off I went.

Any other eperiences / suggestions for fisheye lenses?

Cheers

Cris.


Attachments
300352-KirkstallAbbey2.jpg (121 downloads)


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#299348 - 12/06/2007 18:46 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Another try...



I have cropped this one, it's limited the fisheye effect, but I was stood very close to the Abbey it's quite amazing how wide the lens can be!

Cheers

Cris.


Attachments
300354-KirkstallAbbey1.jpg (119 downloads)


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#299349 - 12/06/2007 18:53 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
What would be really awesome is using software to straighten out the image so that you get a really wide panorama shot without the fisheye distortion...

(Awesome pic of the abbey, BTW)
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#299350 - 12/06/2007 19:00 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
So you didn't get conned then? :-)

I'm sure we'll get some interesting pictures at the meet now!
_________________________
Cheers,

Andy M

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#299351 - 12/06/2007 19:08 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
I had a Zenitar 16mm fisheye for quite a while, it was a fun lens, but I rarely found myself using it after I got the 17-85mm. The 8mm was tempting, but now I lust after canon's rectilinear 10-22mm zoom.

I always left mine at infinity and tried to remember to stop down before shooting, so you seem to be on the right track.

Matthew

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#299352 - 12/06/2007 19:14 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: andym]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Quote:
So you didn't get conned then? :-)


Nope

Russian eBay seller came through in the end. It was sent from the US, which has totally thrown me, anyway I've got it now.

I've just taken a couple of night shots, I couldn't find my tripod so they aren't very sharp, but this could be a really interesting use of the lens for me as I've been trying low light shots for a while now (limited results so far).

Cheers

Cris.

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#299353 - 12/06/2007 19:23 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: tfabris]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Quote:
What would be really awesome is using software to straighten out the image so that you get a really wide panorama shot without the fisheye distortion...


Yea, I'd like to try that, and also some Quicktime VR ones. Haven't got the software yet, any suggestions?

This Guy has some really good ideas!

Quote:
(Awesome pic of the abbey, BTW)


Yea, it's about a mile from my house and I pass it twice a day on the way to work and back. It's a nice spot for a stroll, but I've never thought of taking pictures of it before, and now I look I can see it form my bedroom window.

Cheers

Cris.

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#299354 - 13/06/2007 10:50 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
Ezekiel
pooh-bah

Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
Panotools. If you use Windows and don't feel real geeky you can use PTgui as a frontend.

There's an older article here. There may be more straightforward de-fish-only tools out there (I don't own a fisheye). HTH

-Zeke
_________________________
WWFSMD?

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#299355 - 13/06/2007 11:06 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Ezekiel]
tahir
pooh-bah

Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1914
Loc: London
I've still got my Olympus Zuiko 16mm Fisheye, it's about 1/2 the size of yours, wish I had the time to use the blinking thing.

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#299356 - 20/06/2007 13:21 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
I've had my fist go at a QTVR this afternoon, as I was shooting it free hand without any consideration for parallex etc... I'm quite pleased with the result. See it here

Excuse the state of the garden, nothing has flowered yet this year really. Not got very green fingers.

Edit - now I look at it closely I can see the bad joins, but not too bad for a first go. My Nodal Ninja turns up some time in the next week or so

Cheers

Cris.


Edited by Cris (20/06/2007 13:26)

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#299357 - 20/06/2007 13:39 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
sein
old hand

Registered: 07/01/2005
Posts: 893
Loc: Sector ZZ9pZa
Quote:
I've had my fist go at a QTVR this afternoon

That is amazing! Nice one Cris. How many shots are stitched together for that?
_________________________
Hussein

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#299358 - 20/06/2007 14:45 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: sein]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Just 4. I took some more of the sky and the floor, so my next challenge is to figure out how to fill the holes in.

I really don't like the software, they should call it not-so-easy-pano. There are a few more to try, and even some pretty good freeware solutions.

The Nodal Ninja Panohead will help prevent problems when stiching the images together, if you look towards the house and look up and right at next doors roof line you will see what I am talking about. But for this test, all I did was turn on the spot, so that sort of thing is to be expected.

If you like my little effort, check this out. Now that is impressive!

Cheers

Cris.

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#299359 - 20/06/2007 14:55 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
You could get yourself one of these puppies.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#299360 - 20/06/2007 19:06 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
Quote:
I really don't like the software, they should call it not-so-easy-pano. There are a few more to try, and even some pretty good freeware solutions.


I've been through about ten different panorama software packages, and none of them are perfect. They all have some single minor fatal flaw... Something that the authors of the software never thought of, but that I happened to run into. Each software it's a different flaw, some minor thing that makes me go "okay, let's try the next tool..."

My recommendation is to try all of them and settle on the one that is the least painful.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#299361 - 20/06/2007 19:14 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: tfabris]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Quote:
My recommendation is to try all of them and settle on the one that is the least painful.


The windows software seems much better than the mac stuff, so it looks like I'll be getting use out of Parallels after all

Lots of people seem to use PTGui to good effect, so I think that will be my next port of call.

Cheers

Cris.

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#299362 - 21/06/2007 05:50 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
My fave is AutoStitch, because I'm lazy and it requires just about zero user input...

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

Edit:

My post is more a reply to Tony's post that Cris's, I know that AutoStitch doesn't do QuickTime.


Edited by andy (21/06/2007 06:02)
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday

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#299363 - 21/06/2007 08:14 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
sein
old hand

Registered: 07/01/2005
Posts: 893
Loc: Sector ZZ9pZa
Quote:
If you like my little effort, check this out. Now that is impressive!

Wow. I am so addicted to these
_________________________
Hussein

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#299364 - 21/06/2007 11:36 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: sein]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
Quote:
Quote:
If you like my little effort, check this out. Now that is impressive!

Wow. I am so addicted to these


Blank web pages? Oh well, each to their own.

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#299365 - 21/06/2007 12:40 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: mlord]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Quote:
Blank web pages? Oh well, each to their own.


You need a plugin capable of rendering Quicktime VR formatted files, such as this Linux one.

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#299366 - 21/06/2007 13:17 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: andy]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31597
Loc: Seattle, WA
Quote:
My fave is AutoStitch, because I'm lazy and it requires just about zero user input...

Yeah, that's one of the ones I used for a while and eventually discarded because of tiny but fatal flaws. In this case, it was because it (every once in a while) had a tendency to refuse to stitch certain perfectly good frames together, and its limited user inputs gave me no option to force specifc frames together and hand-tweak them.

When it worked, its results were good, though.

One of my biggest gripes with all of the packages is that hardly any of them give me the option to crop the frames as I'm working with them. For example, let's say a person is moving at the edge of the frame, and I want to crop him out on frame 4 but leave him in on frame 5, so that way he doesn't leave a blurry ghost image in the final panorama. In every package I've tried, I must pre-crop the pictures. And that's frequently a trial-and-error process, requiring me to go back and forth between programs and fully reprocess the panorama each time.

It would also be nice if there were one that would let me "Paint Out" someone who's moved between two frames. For instance, instead of cropping in the example above, just hand airbrushing a section where the source for the airbrush is the postprocessed (barrel-corrected and brightness corrected) version of frame 5. I would just find the ghost guy in the final panorama and choose whether I want frame 5 or frame 4 to show through where I paint (possibly by holding down ctrl and alt as I paint).

I've seen some packages that do similar things to the above, but they have OTHER fatal flaws. For instance, the ones that let me crop interactively don't let me ROTATE the individual frames, they assume I used a tripod. The ones that let me do the airbrushing trick don't do it within the software, they make me export it to a layered photoshop image and do the airbrushing there (which would be fine except those packages are simply bad at the overal panorama generation)...

etc. etc....
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#299367 - 21/06/2007 13:27 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: drakino]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
Quote:
Quote:
Blank web pages? Oh well, each to their own.


You need a plugin capable of rendering Quicktime VR formatted files, such as this Linux one.


Ahh.. now I get a black screen, and the browser (firefox2) dies.
I think I'll just stick with open standard formats, thanks.

-ml

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#299368 - 21/06/2007 14:04 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: mlord]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Yeah. Why would they choose Quicktime VR when there are all those open source panoramic image formats available? Oh, that's right. There are none. Even the open-source creator tools generate QTVRs.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#299369 - 21/06/2007 15:42 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: wfaulk]
canuckInOR
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
Quote:
Yeah. Why would they choose Quicktime VR when there are all those open source panoramic image formats available? Oh, that's right. There are none.

I think that's a rather false assumption, isn't it? What's so special about a panoramic image that it requires a complex format like QTVR to encode it? If you want an open source panoramic image format, there's jpeg, or png, or tiff, or... well... the list goes on. The only difference between a pano image, and a "regular" image is that the pano image is best viewed under a cylindrical or spherical projection to provide an "immersive" experience, and that's really a function of the image viewer, and not the image format. Heck, taking, and using panoramic images is a bog-standard technique in visual effects, and nobody uses QTVR formatted files in the process.

So, yeah, I think Mark's right (I just see blank webpages, too). It's not a lack of image formats that's the problem.

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#299370 - 21/06/2007 17:08 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: canuckInOR]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Quote:
So, yeah, I think Mark's right (I just see blank webpages, too). It's not a lack of image formats that's the problem.


There are a couple of other ways of seeing these panoramas. If you look at this page from the same website you will see towards the bottom some Java based files. I think that'll be more of an open standard right?

I think you can do flash ones too, but QTVR does seem to be some kind of standard format for these things as just about all progrms output in that format. I only used it as it's all the free demo one does. I like the idea of the Java versions but I would have thought that most people have QT installed on their machines right?

It seems pretty easy to create these QTVR, and they have been around for ages now, I'm surprised there isn't a Linux plugin that doesn't crash ???

Well I'm having fun with them anyway, it's helping me learn more about my camera as I am now using it in full manual mode, so it's been worth while just for that

Cheers

Cris.

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#299371 - 21/06/2007 19:12 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: andy]
frog51
pooh-bah

Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
I second the autostitch route - 2 simple examples from my moblog requiring nothing more than plonking all the pics in a directory and clicking on autostitch:

http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=252845

http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=254049
_________________________
Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock

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#299372 - 21/06/2007 19:32 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: Cris]
frog51
pooh-bah

Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
The quicktime VR is just a way to allow you to move about within the images - not something done easily with jpg or others. And yes, I hate quicktime as much as anyone (only running it on the one machine I allow to become tarnished with scum) but it is quite spectacular.
_________________________
Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock

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#299373 - 21/06/2007 19:36 Re: My New Toy Has Arrived !!! [Re: frog51]
webroach
old hand

Registered: 23/07/2003
Posts: 869
Loc: Colorado
Quote:
...And yes, I hate quicktime as much as anyone (only running it on the one machine I allow to become tarnished with scum) but it is quite spectacular.


Meh, I look at it this way... Ouicktime runs about as well on Windows as Windows Media files play on my Mac.
_________________________
Dave

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#299374 - 29/06/2007 13:58 My Second Attempt at a QTVR [Re: Cris]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
My Nodal Ninja turned up today. After spending about 5 minutes searching Google for the correct information I found the Nodal Point information I was looking for.

5 minutes later I had put it altogether and was in the garden. Here is the result.

I am much happier with this one, the joins are much better. But I didn't have to spend much time in easypano at all, it picked most of the points itself this time.

So the panohead has made a massive difference so far. Now to experiment further with some more exciting subjects. I am also getting better with the camera in full manual mode I think ???

Cheers

Cris.

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#299375 - 30/06/2007 05:56 Re: My Second Attempt at a QTVR [Re: Cris]
LittleBlueThing
addict

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
Damn, I thought this was about cars
_________________________
LittleBlueThing Running twin 30's

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#299376 - 30/06/2007 22:54 Re: My Second Attempt at a QTVR [Re: Cris]
webroach
old hand

Registered: 23/07/2003
Posts: 869
Loc: Colorado
Quote:
Here is the result.


Cris,

Phenomenal. Can you tell me, what camera did you use for that, and how long did the full shoot take you?

SWMBO is equally impressed.
_________________________
Dave

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#299377 - 01/07/2007 05:39 Re: My Second Attempt at a QTVR [Re: webroach]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Sure, I used....

Camera - Canon 350D
Lens - 8mm Peleng Fisheye (from eBay)
Tripod - Manfrotto 055 PROB + 222 joystick head
Panohead - Nodal Ninja NN3
Software - Easypano Panoweaver 4 (trial version for Mac)

It's made up of 4 shots, and took me about 45 seconds to shoot, this included the set up the tripod, the Nodal Ninja has stops every 90 degrees (this can be changed to almost anything!) so it's pretty simple once the tripod is level.

The stitching takes a little more time, maybe 15 minutes for me from loading the pictures in to putting it on the website.

You don't need the panohead/tripod, the one in my first post was done just holding the camera myself and turning on the spot. Give it a go, I found it quite easy really.

I was hoping to take a few more this weekend, but all it's done so far this weekend is rain

Cheers

Cris.

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#299378 - 01/07/2007 06:52 Re: My Second Attempt at a QTVR [Re: LittleBlueThing]
Cris
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
Quote:
Damn, I thought this was about cars


Well this is the best I can do

It's my first attempt at doing the top and bottom shots, not perfect as I did the down one handheld, there is a large amount of blurring that I can't get rid of.

The inside of the Smart Car isn't the biggest place to set up, but you get the idea. I am sure as I get better at this (and find software I get on with) I will be able to cut out the tripod legs etc...

Small steps and all that....

Cheers

Cris.

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