High Res Stitching & Wide Tonal Blending for Jewelry, Cosmetics, Sculpture & Products

[Klaus Esser]

High Res Stitching & Wide Tonal Blending for Jewelry, Cosmetics, Sculpture & Products

eight shots for highrez-stitch. Bracketing 3 steps. Final resolution 85MPx, 16bit TIFF.
Photomatix, AutopanoPro.

 

[Karsten Schneeberger]

Klaus,

that looks good, very nice reflections... but I cannot imagine how the pictures originally from the camera (prior to photomatix processing) may have looked like. Can you post the original exposures too, please?

Karsten

 

[Asher Kelman]

eight shots for highrez-stitch. Bracketing 3 steps. Final resolution 85MPx, 16bit TIFF.
Photomatix, AutopanoPro.

Klaus,

This is very effective and enjoyable. I'm thrilled by the effect. I can't imagine much improvement in tonal distribution. Still I do wonder about the lighting on the main subject. Is it possible to add a 3D sunset lighting to fall on the necklace/bracelet so it is even more glorious and celebrated? At present the tiles take more attention as they have the most sparkling presence.

Now, given the time and effort, how much is this commercially viable. To what extent will clients pay for such intensive craft?

Asher

 

[Klaus Esser]

Stillife Test @300MPx

AutoPano stitch, 35 shots, 85mm Nikon lens. DOF is some millimters.
This is a test with motorized panohead. DOF is a big problem
with stills using even light tele-lenses.

best, Klaus

 

[Asher Kelman]

Klaus,

This is excellent. I'm excited about the motorized panohead. They canb go from $300 to $20,000! What motorized panohead is it and are you focusing each time for that shot? How else can you manage with such a thin DOF!

Asher

BTW, do you happen know how to tell APP which of two copies of a moving person to use. I know APP can reove ghosts, but can we specify which instance to use and which to ignore?

 

[Klaus Esser]

Klaus,

This is excellent. I'm excited about the motorized panohead. They canb go from $300 to $20,000! What motorized panohead is it and are you focusing each time for that shot? How else can you manage with such a thin DOF!

Asher

BTW, do you happen know how to tell APP which of two copies of a moving person to use. I know APP can reove ghosts, but can we specify which instance to use and which to ignore?

Hi Asher!

I used the 250.-€ Merlin with additional stuff around 200.-€ - so you can have a fully programmable and remote controlled 2-axis motor head. I use it up to 300mm Nikon lens.
In the meantime a growing number of modifications and tunings are around - interesting stuff!
For making spheres i use a 20mm Nikon or a 10.5mm Nikon.
Using the 20mm provides much more resolution - needing 45 shots. 10,5mm needs 8 shots (6 horizontally + Nadir ++ Zenith).
The higher resolution of the 20mm with a sphere allows better zooming in - there are viewers supporting multires-spheres. Like the KR viewer.

best, Klaus

P.S.: regarding the layer-order for smartblend i´ll check. I guess you can change the blending by changing the order of the layers in the editor. Don´t know exactly. That would be a good question to Alexandre, Lionel or Rami!

P.S.2: did you know there´s a VR-player for iPhone and iPod-touch? The Pangea VR player. Easy to install - funny showing VR panoramas on these devices . .

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher!

I used the 250.-€ Merlin with additional stuff around 200.-€ - so you can have a fully programmable and remote controlled 2-axis motor head. I use it up to 300mm Nikon lens.

Thanks Klaus,

So the computer then does a half press of the shutter to refocus for each shot?

Asher

 

[Klaus Esser]

Thanks Klaus,

So the computer then does a half press of the shutter to refocus for each shot?

Asher

No ;-) - focussing you have to do yourself. It´s vital to have ALL autofunktions off.
To get more DOF you have to do focusstacking or use a shift/tilt lens or a tilt-option of the camera.

Focus-stacking in combination with Helicon-Focus or PhotoAccute can do it also - but of corse you have to touch the camera. Which always is risky during a pano-set.
You also can use "Breeze´s" software to completely control Canon DSLRs at all functions - what means to be able to shoot bracketing up to 12 steps or more.
You can remote-focus from a laptop and some more. Vital is to make a decent number of focus-steps. Which should be around 6 steps or more to handle the fact of scaling by focussing. The more steps the smoother they can be blended.

best, Klaus

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

BTW, do you happen know how to tell APP which of two copies of a moving person to use. I know APP can remove ghosts, but can we specify which instance to use and which to ignore?

Hi Asher,

With only 2 overlapping areas I'm not so sure but I think the SmartBlend algorithm takes order into account. However, you can add an Alpha mask to the images to guide the process. With more than 2 overlapping area's I assume the process is guided by a type of Median approach.

When confronted with moving subjects in a stiching project, it is always beneficial to use at least a 50% overlap because then you'll get at least 3 overlapping sections which should offer enough choices to handle ghosts. Also take a little longer between shots, that will increase the chance of enough movement to avoid movement issues. With things like clouds or traffic, I tend to shoot in an order that's the opposite of the movement, because that avoids repeated occurences.

As usual, a lot can be gained by careful planning.

Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher,

With only 2 overlapping areas I'm not so sure but I think the SmartBlend algorithm takes order into account. However, you can add an Alpha mask to the images to guide the process.

Is this within APP or another program? Do you suggest masking in photoshop and then APP or another program can follow this instruction?

When confronted with moving subjects in a stiching project, it is always beneficial to use at least a 50% overlap because then you'll get at least 3 overlapping sections which should offer enough choices to handle ghosts. Also take a little longer between shots, that will increase the chance of enough movement to avoid movement issues. With things like clouds or traffic, I tend to shoot in an order that's the opposite of the movement, because that avoids repeated occurences.

Nice tips!

As usual, thanks!

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Is this within APP or another program? Do you suggest masking in photoshop and then APP or another program can follow this instruction?

SmartBlend is an option on APPs settings dialog. The Render Tab allows to select from 4 Blending options. SmartBlend is one of them. Yes, with Photoshop one can add an Alpha mask to the images that need to have certain areas excluded (black on the Mask will exclude features). Then use these images for the SmartBlend algorithm. Only thing I'm not sure about is how APP deals with Alpha masked images.

Nice tips!

You're welcome. I'm just sharing my experience. I'm sure others also have useful things to offer.

Bart