Handheld interior Panoramas including multiple people!

I wondered how one might approach capturing an entire room, dimly lit with overhead incandescent light. I used the little Ricoh GR digicam resting on the table and tilted at different angles around the entire room. No one seemed to notice!

In this first attempt, I have divided the people into two blocks, the master chef and his assistant and the diners, being treated to a demonstration of the Chef's special recipés for that evening. The advantage of the GR is that the synthesized shutter sound can be switched off and so such aggressive picture taking can be achieved with essentially no impact on the mood of the place.

As you might notice, the people scene on the left changes from the first to send image, as I had only one complete set of images fro the right side. So I used them twice!





I was surprised how hard it was to correct all the stitching errors. This comes from being over-ambitious in stitching elements that are so close and complex without proper registration of adjacent fields of view by using a stable platform and a fixed center of rotation for the series of images. Still, in the end it was very worthwhile: the panoramas reflected the mood of the evening very well!

This project could have been made easier using as a reference image, single shot made with the 8mm Sigma fisheye lens on a Canon DSLR. Autopano Giga is able to do just that!. Next time!

The Chef and staff are delighted with the pictures. I am impressed what one can do with such a small camera.

One advantage of no shutter sound !

Nice result the first one Asher

The chef is impressed and he is right. But even simple camera must be helded by someone who knows who to use them...

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

I wondered how one might approach capturing an entire room, dimly lit with overhead incandescent light. I used the little Ricoh GR digicam resting on the table and tilted at different angles around the entire room. No one seemed to notice!

Asher Kelman: "The Chef Demonstration"
Il fornaio, Beverly Hills, California 2014​

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The wonderful thing about photography is that this can be looked at as either a terrible photograph or a wonderful one.

Of course, for me it is wonderful.

But I could imagine giving a print to one of the participants and their saying (privately), "I'm not surprised. It was some little snapshot camera. And he didn't even know to use a flash"

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

The wonderful thing about photography is that this can be looked at as either a terrible photograph or a wonderful one.

Of course, for me it is wonderful.

But I could imagine giving a print to one of the participants and their saying (privately), "I'm not surprised. It was some little snapshot camera. And he didn't even know to use a flash"

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Thanks, Doug!

I liked the darkened look as it reminded me of the mood of paintings by the Dutch masters. The anamorphic distortions of the super wide angle lens, (noticeable in the stretched shape of the heads of the last two guests on the right side sides), seemed to me "part of the experience" of working with that lens. I liked that. So I kept it! After all, we do that with a lot we humans like, including our closest friends, "enjoy what wonderful, forgive, what's not!"

In truth, if one wants the extreme sides "perfect" for a super wide view, say a "Board of Directors" formal shot, simply do the correction or else shoot with a longer lens. Interesting that folk get the "impression" of it being good without suffering from the exact truth of distortion. The brain I think looks at the whole scene and makes sense of it all.

Asher

That was one thing I learnt from Valetin, when you're indoors and using a wide angle lens doing the stitching right is very important. I.e. nodal point stitching. Without it, at least when I was doing it a couple of years back, the software was not good enough to correct the errors without a serious amount of effort.

Ben Rubinstein said:

That was one thing I learnt from Valetin, when you're indoors and using a wide angle lens doing the stitching right is very important. I.e. nodal point stitching. Without it, at least when I was doing it a couple of years back, the software was not good enough to correct the errors without a serious amount of effort.

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You are so right Ben! No one should do what I did when close up. It takes too long to correct errors. Next time, they will allow the extra space for a tripod since they understand what all the shots are for. So what methods and tircks did you find most useful for indoors?

Asher

It was two years ago and I've no idea how software has progressed however nodal point rotation was a must and seriously accurate nodal point settings are needed, takes a good long while testing unless you're an expert at it. Level platform on the tripod too. It's not a particularly cheap or easy endeavour. Again though I have a feeling software has progressed significantly. As with all jobs in the photographic realm, if you're going to do it properly then it's not something you learn without that sweat on the brow and significant investment of time.

Ben Rubinstein said:

It was two years ago and I've no idea how software has progressed however nodal point rotation was a must and seriously accurate nodal point settings are needed, takes a good long while testing unless you're an expert at it. Level platform on the tripod too. It's not a particularly cheap or easy endeavour. Again though I have a feeling software has progressed significantly. As with all jobs in the photographic realm, if you're going to do it properly then it's not something you learn without that sweat on the brow and significant investment of time.

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Yes Ben, you are absolutely correct.

I have 3 Gigapan robots including the one for pro cameras fitted with an Arca Swiss sliding adapter plate from http://reallyrightstuff.com as well as a superb 360º panorama head with adjustment to take spherical panos. I have an 8mm sigma lens for quick work but prefer a 50 mm lens or longer, with large overlaps. But that is bulky and not very subtle for an intimate setting, LOL! So I mostly shoot handheld and still get fabulous panos more often than not!

Being level and getting the nodal point right is critical. With exterior panos and long distances, if one is a little off, it doesn't matter as the software like Autopano Pro or Autopano giga from http://Kolor.com can take care of a lot of errors. Indoors, the distances are much less and if one is off, then parallax issues makes it difficult to match the the lines of nearby objects and even one's at the end of the room. Still the software today is very smart and forgiving if one has enough overlapping.

And there are more advances! One can set the software for using separate vantage points for each shot! That allows stitching, for example, when one moves sidewards along a giant mural or opposite a line of stores on the other side of a street. The software will remove intervening poles and lamp posts and one gets a clean view. Well it's worth using that option in the interiors too. However, without a tripod and not enough overlap one needs to do some hand correction afterwards.

Asher

To be honest these days and with modern cameras the need is far less. If you can go wide, decently wide, with your lenses, put a really good wide on something like a Sony A7r, you would have to have rather specific needs for more resolution. I can now shoot in a single shot, handheld, with resolution and tonality that I needed a good solid tripod and head with careful stitching technique back in the Canon 5D days. Still waiting for a good wide for the Sony though.