Calibration of my Peleng 8mm Fisheye

After an embarrassingly long period of time, I finally got around to calibrating my Peleng fisheye lens this summer. I had earlier found what seemed to be the best nodal point on my Nodal Ninja 2 and overcome the problem of the Peleng-laden camera's endless sag by using some thin packing foam that adds enough friction to keep the camera straight when mounted on the panohead.

I live in a huge apartment complex with a large courtyard rich in control points: balconies, window frames, columns, corners. I completed my full 360° in twelve shots, which provided me with plenty of overlap. I processed the RAW format files in Canon's Digital Photo Professional and fed them into PTMac (http://www.kekus.com/software/ptmac.html). With two calibration tutorials in hand, I spent a few frustrating days trying to get everything right with aid from the PTMac forum, but I seem finally to have succeeded, where "success" is defined as "a single-row 360° panorama with no obvious stitching errors."

Here are my calibration values for my Peleng 8mm fisheye and Canon 350D:

hFoV: 104.71
a: 0.01555
b: -0.049146
c: 0.00941
d: -10.190147
e: -9.218859

Going by the PTMac calibration tutorial, it seems my “a” is a bit big and “b” is too small. However, I am satisfied with the results and subsequent panoramas shot while in the United States on vacation have turned out rather well, so I seem to have got it right.

How much more satisfying panography has become for me!