Leica M & panoramic photographygreenspun.com : LUSENET : Leica Photography : One Thread |
Is there anybody using panoramic tripod heads with a Leica M6 ?
-- Bosmans André (a.bosmans@pandora.be), June 08, 2002
I occasionally use the Nikon panoramic adapter with my M cameras. It works well.
-- John Collier (jbcollier@shaw.ca), June 08, 2002.
If there are items mid to close to the camera/lens; you should rotate the camera/lens assembly about the nodal point of the lens..This makes the photos mechanically fit or stitch together better..One can use one of the panoramic adapters and build an offset plate..There will have to be a different hole setting/lens distance for each lens you use...
If one places a ground glass or wax paper in a non M Leica; or a Bessa; one can see the image of the object when the camera shutter is on bulb or time.....One can then rotate the camera & lens and look at the image on the wax paper (where the film goes)...If the camera/lens is rotated counter clockwise when looking down; ....The image on the wax paper will either go to the left or right....When rotated about the nodal point the image will not move.....this is where the pivot/point of rotation/instant center of the panoramic adapter should be.....In optics we have a rotational plate that allows us to translate the lens on the rotational plate to quickly locate and measure the nodal points (front and rear ) of lenses....
(1)Using any tripod is alot better than handheld
(2)Get a small torpedo level; bullseye level; or line level to set the tripod head level
(3)A panoramic adapter helps the frame spacing and overlap.
(4)Using a custom panoramic adapter which allows the rig to rotate about the nodal point is alot better if there objects say closer than 20m / 66feet with a 50mm lens
(5)Zoom lenses have nodal points that move when changing the focal length
(6)Zoom lenses generally have alot more pincushion or barrel distortion; and will not matchup as well
(7)Turn off the auto exposure! ; the different adjacent frames will have different exposures and tend not to match up in image density...(not one can correct this in Photoshop; but it is an added time sink)
(8)Take the exposures quickly if the lighting is changing quickly or the objects in the photo are moving (cars, people, clouds) If one uses digital camera watch out for using TIFF or RAW files which may take a long time to write/dump to the memory card..I did this once doing a digital panoramic photo set; about 1/2 hour before the sun set.....During the 360 degree shoot the lighting changed enough that the matchup was not that good.....I reshot the next day using a high quality jpeg setting; and always rotated the camera in the same direction....
Home Made Panoramic Tripod Head
Setting up a panoramic head
-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), June 08, 2002.
I've been using a Leica 16mm fisheye lens + motorised Leica M4-P (or M6-TTL) to shoot 360° VR panoramas for over a year now. See (java applet based) examples at: 4020.net/vrAs you can see by the results, it works well. No mirror to lock up. Reasonably compact. Quiet. No battery dependence (if the batteries die in the motor then you can still advance the film by hand).
If it wasn't for the battery issue, a Hexar RF would be a better option as it is much more compact than the motorised M6.
Finally, I have a small entry on Leica-based VRs in the FAQ - see nemeng.com /leica/003f.shtml
-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), June 08, 2002.