Vehicle Interior Photography

Cheers Doug
I never look at WWP site, in fact last time i was there was over a year ago. I struggle to find the time to contribute here on the IVRPA site, but as its Bank Holiday in the UK at the moment, I'm laid in bed with my laptop, and yes it is almost 2pm and have no plans getting up soon :oD

Cheers for the link, ill see what i can do with that idea, i never thought of doing the tour on its side so the top and bottom will be out of the passenger and drivers windows to stop having to do the zenith stitching.

Regards
Ian

www.NewWorldDesigns.co.uk
CMS Systems, Web Design, 3D Animation

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com
Object, Pano, Multinode, QTVR, Flash, Java

Ian
Is that what he did? I never thought of that.

There is a function I use in IIS called Reference point that I could rotate a sphere shot 90° sideways, bringing the Zenith & Nadir from east and west, to a top & bottom position.

I'm interested in what you use for an arm/boom.

Eclipse Aviation just started delivering their Ulta-Light 6 passenger jets and I'd love to be the Virtual Tour Photographer that shoots the interior.

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Ive seen a long time ago a write up on vehicle interior tours, and they used a scaffolding rig then went over the vehicle, and then dropped one scaffolding bar in through the sunroof to position the camera into the middle of the vehicle and not get in the way. But some of the few vehicles i will be photographing (if i get the job) don't have sunroofs so will need either a frame building inside the car, or something going through it from one window to another.

I think a simple A frame made from scaffolding out side of the drivers window with one bar going in through the window would be great, as its extremely strong, and wont get in the way of any viewable points. It also means you don't have to cut all the tripod etc out of the shot, as the whole window will be cut out anyway.

I will then simply use strong duck tape to stick my tripod boom (the bit that slides up and down) to the scaffolding bar, or it may even slide inside of it, allowing me to then position the manfrotto 303sph on the end.

I'm not sure if i like the idea of it being over the drivers seat, as you cant see much else. I think ill do 2 positions, one over the drivers seat and the other in the centre of the car and see how they come out and leave it up to the client to choose.

I need to buy a lens yet though, as i still haven't got around to that bit yet lol :)

Can you tilt the shot of the QTVR 90 degrees from horizontal to vertical, as i haven't seen it in PTGUI or any other software?

Ian

www.NewWorldDesigns.co.uk
CMS Systems, Web Design, 3D Animation

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com
Object, Pano, Multinode, QTVR, Flash, Java

Ian
Can you tilt the shot of the QTVR 90 degrees from horizontal to vertical, as i haven't seen it in PTGUI or any other software?

Thats exactly what it can do.

I think it was meant to fix a crooked horizon when a photographer didn't get the camera/tripod level and they just set it up to do anything.

Just played a little more with it, instead of the spin axis being the Zenith & Nadir, I can put the axis so it is from the center of the front and back cube faces. And If I set the Reference Viewpoint to Pan 90° first, then I can put the axis through the center of the left & right cube faces.

Sounds like exactly like what you need if you position/rotate the camera horizontally instead of vertically when you shoot the scene.

If you do all the stitching, I can flip the axis for you if you can't in PTGui

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Sure PTGui can do it. Either before stitching or afterwards to the stitched equirectangular. The easiest way is to open the Numerical Transform window and enter the translation in directly. It should be either +90 or -90 pitch

Ian Wood
Landmarks of Britain
Azurevision

Ian
I made a small QTVR .mov file with the image rotated 90° you could take a look at. Just post a e-mail address

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Doug, its ian@ then my domain name below, either will get to me :)

And thanks Ian Wood, you both posted at the exact same time :D

Ian

www.NewWorldDesigns.co.uk
CMS Systems, Web Design, 3D Animation

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com
Object, Pano, Multinode, QTVR, Flash, Java

I'm glad Ian Wood jumped in.

I'm not great at PTGui, but I was thinking there was some obscure setting that would do it

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

You can just drag the whole panorama around visually in the editor window, but entering numbers tends to be easier.

Ian Wood
Landmarks of Britain
Azurevision

In IIS its open the Reference Viewpoint window, click the Vertical radio button, then Click OK. And the image is turned 90° so the "equator" is now what was the longitudinal "seam" of a 2 fisheye stitch. The axis is still straight up and down.

The Reference Viewpoint also has numerical settings for Pan that I use to change the starting Reference point so the Seam runs throught the middle of a cubic strip for editing, Tilt will tilt the axis and Rotate that rotates the image around the fixed axis like Vertical does, but I can specify the amount.

Cool, now I have an idea what to use those for ;)

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Ian
I was at my favorite camera shop today and mentioned to them what you were doing with Car Interiors and that I wanted to the same with Airplane Interior.

When I told them about the idea of a Boom Arm through the window, they said Manfrotto makes the Arm.

Its called an Accessory Arm 3059B. It would mount on your tripod outside the car and reach in with a "tripod head" thats 90° sideways. It's only 23.6 inches, so you may have to use the "drivers head" position. There might be an extension for more reach, but its not clear in the catalog

And there's a Manfrotto Tripod 3021BPRO which the center column of the tripod comes out vertically and slides back in horizontally.

Doesn't sound like you'll have to "rig" anthing, just part with some cash ;)

We all want to see these when they're done

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Hi Doug, yer i have the Manfrotto 055PROB tripod, which does the same thing, you can take the centre "column" out and slide it back in horizontally.

http://www.manfrotto.com/Jahia/op/preview/cache/offonce/pid/2277?livid=6...

What I'm thinking, is the weight of the 5D, 8mm lens, 303SPH head and any other bits will be quite something. And for a standard photography tripod to hold that on an angle, might be too much. I'm thinking about taking the centre column part out, and instead of pushing it back in at horizontal position, actually attach it to a solid scaffolding bar.

I walked into a Scaffolding company a few days back and asked how much a small amount of scaffolfing would cost to make such a rig, and they said about £20. They would even through in some old clamps to help me out. This will be much stronger, to try and stop shake and camera movement, but also will reach in to the vehicle as far as i need.

To be honest I'm a little sick of spending money on expensive camera equipment, most is hugely over priced and not actually as good as they make out. So I'm going to give that a wurl and see how it goes. When i do this, ill take a photo of the rig so people can see it and how i have set it all up. I have everything i need, except the lens, which I'm going to have to get very soon, as i have been asked to retake the VR Tours for www.beyondleisureltd.com i did a few years ago for the new site I'm making for them at the moment.

Any body know of a good Sigma 8mm f3.5 lens to fit a Canon for sale?

www.NewWorldDesigns.co.uk
CMS Systems, Web Design, 3D Animation

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com
Object, Pano, Multinode, QTVR, Flash, Java

Ian
You could try what I do to stablize my tripod on thick carpet, hang a 15 pound barbell on the tripod.

I'm curious if the "stops" on your rotator will hold with the camera/rotator sideways?

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

I'm curious about trying an "interior" shot of Cessna, so don't forget to share

You mean like this? :)

I did this after a flight a couple years ago. I just used the tripod in the plane with the cover over the windows to avoid the extreme difference in exposure out on the ramp. If you're unfamiliar with the C172 you might not notice that the wing struts are missing from the view out the side windows (or perhaps assume it's a C177 Cardinal), but other than that it's not too bad.

Landis
Nice job on the Cessna interior.

I'm curious how you kept the tripod out of the picture? Did you use a regular tripod, then shoot a handheld Nadir shot?

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Thanks Doug.

D100/10.5mm - 2 nadir shots on the pan head + one handheld. (I.e. just as you thought).

Landis
When you do the handheld nadir, is there anything you do to help position the camera, or have you just gotten the "knack" from practice?

What did you stitch the image with?

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

No knack yet, lots of practice, lots of time in Photoshop.

When you do the two down shots on the pan head there's really very little that you need to fill in with the handheld shot. So that certainly helps.

I stitched that one with PTMac.

-Landis

Landis
My Coolpix 5400 has a Panoramic setting that shows about a third of the previous photo transparently, to lay over the edge of the next shot as I frame it up, I wonder if there's a way to use it to help line up a hand-held nadir

Does your D100, or what ever you're using now, have silly toys like this?

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

No, it doesn't. I do have an Olympus C2020 which has this function. However it only works on the Olympus branded SD cards(!). The only thing this option did for me, as far as I know, is help to make sure you have proper overlap. It didn't actually do any stitching in camera. I believe the software on the computer may have stitched these automatically after they'd been downloaded, but I never used it.

I also have a 5400 and FC-E9 but never tried this. Give it a try while doing a handheld with the FC-E9 and let us know how it goes for you. I personally can't stand the delay in the 5400 which seems quite a bit longer than the 5000 or the 5700.

I think noting the location of the camera on the pan head and then removing it and the tripod is not too difficult with some practice.

The olympus 2020 was my first digi camera, and after buying over 10 olympus camedia cameras in the past 8-10 yrs, i have found that it is the best for stitching in Photovista 2.

But the 2040 will not stitch how ever you do it in Photovista, but the 4040 and 5050 have the same 8.5mm lens on the front as the 2020.

All the panos in my members gallery where made with the 2020.

I now have 4 of them still working, all made like frankenstein from bits of each other, as they are so delicate, and just a gentle knock on the lens when extended knocks it off.

I'm now probably have the best camedia scrap/salvage yard and can strip and rebuild one, in the time it takes to have a pizza delivered :oD

Strange how anal you get about one camera model, when you do it every day for years.

www.NewWorldDesigns.co.uk
CMS Systems, Web Design, 3D Animation

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com
Object, Pano, Multinode, QTVR, Flash, Java

Landis
It won't stitch, but the overlap might be a way to to get a hand-held nadir shot lined up better.

I'll give it a try

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Landis
But that 190° FOV on the 5400 is awesome for 2 fisheye stitching

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Ian
You're in luck again, the WWP Panorama of the the day is another Car Interior

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp1206/html/MarkSimons....

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM