How do you take ground shot ?
Hi,
I still trying to prefect the ground shot and having hard time to
figure out what is the best way. I read on some site says :
"Now take the camera off the tripod and hold it as close as possible
to its mounted position, looking straight down at the ground. Trying
very hard not to move the camera, move the tripod away and take the
last photo. It's important not to move and to maintain the correct
angle to the ground. Make sure the camera strap doesn't hang down
into your picture and keep your feet as far out of the way as
possible...
Yes, this is the hardest part. Don't give up..."
is this how you all do it ?
for nadir and zenith shot do I need to change to normal lens
instead of fisheye ?
Thanks,
Daley.
Re: How do you take ground shot ?
Bernhard,
yes I use 8mm Sigma fisheye. Good point, so do you de-fish those nadir shot before stich and what stiching tool you using ? Thanks.
Regards,
Daley.
Re: How do you take ground shot ?
Hi Daley
I do not defish. I use Stitcher Unlimited 5.5 mostly on a Mac and it does a nice job. I don't know how far you can point down with the 8mm before you pick up images of your pano rig. The best I can do is 15 degreesdown off the horizontal and that leaves me about a foot and a half of the partial 'nadir' image to edit. If a full nadir shot is needed, I have a simple setup using a lightweight Bogen boom allowing me to step back 5 feet. It takes more time, obviously. The result is a simple stitch.
You just have to keep playing around 'til something works
Bernie Wagner
Re: How do you take ground shot ?
I shoot two down shots on the tripod, 180 degrees apart and then on other hand held in about the same location. I merge all the pics before I do any stiching ot defishing. It is pretty quick and easy to merge the two tripod shots shots together, which fills in most of the ground. Merging the hand held shot can be a real pain.
My normal process is:
Open Photoshop
Layer the hand held on top of the other bottom shot
set Handheld to about 60% transparency
Rotate Transform tool) to align
Use the transform (distort) tool to stretch to fit
Use layer mask and airbrush to blend
That ussually gets it done. Here is a pano I did last week, if you wanna see the results:
http://www.peterhorine.com/Tenn%20Theater.aspx
Give me a shout if you have any questions,
Pete
Re: How do you take ground shot ?
Hi Daley,
I just started using a Nikkor 10.5 and am shooting 8 image cubes. The nadir (ground) shot has given me problems with a lot of my legs in the image. You mention fisheye so I assume you are using a fisheye lens. Don't change lenses for the nadir shot. I solved an editing annoyance by shooting a 7 shot pano with the camera pointed 15 degrees down. It gives me a perfect zenith image stitch and what's left on the nadir (ground) shot is about a 1.5 cap or hole which is perfect for a logo and information. Unless the image data is critical, this saves editing time and is not objectionable.
Bernhard C. Wagner