First Gigapixel Attempt

I made my first attempt at doing a gigapan panorama last weekend. I used the Nodal Ninja M2 to shoot 125 different shots, each shot was comprised of 3 brackets. I had hoped to do an HDR panorama, and processed the images in Photomatix a bunch of different ways. The results were far too strange looking to be really useful.

Using the middle bracketed images this is what I was able to stitch up, 2 giga-pixels. The only glaring kind of flaw I have is there is wake, but no boat?

What is strange is I shot the images from left, to right. Unless I stopped long enough for the boat to leave the frame, then the wake to clear.

It's an interesting technique for sure!

GigaPan Link:
http://www.gigapan.com​/gigapans/132632

That's a cool shot, you also got the man and woman bicyclists in he lower left along the riverwalk in the shot twice... They look like twins following each other, kinda cool actually. (So is the stealth boat )

Ha! I hadn't even noticed those duplicate bikes. Maybe their really WERE two pairs of twins out biking that day

Looks like you left on autofocus or changed focus during the process. There is a break in the image where the wake ends suddenly - below this the chain link fence has a break (spotted this immediately even in the small image) and the two sides of it are in different focus as is the water behind. Possibly happened when you had to stop.

I turned off autofocus for the upper shots, but when I got to the foreground shots I did turn it back on.

I guess I should have paid more attention to the foreground. It's kind of difficult when you are taking 125 shots to check each one as you go!

Very cool.

What is the red dot just below the ear of the man bicyclist (closest)? Any idea?

I think that's a red signal light on the bridge (it's an old rotating draw bridge).

Very cool! I would like to try this using an older Kaidan nodal head... I have some questions...

1. What lens/settings did you use? It seems that you would have to use something that will give you some reach, set at a higher f/stop allow you to keep the foreground in focus as you pan down.

2. Bracketing seems like it would be a pain - I would think that you could get an average meter reading for the whole scene and lock it in?

3. Is there a fee involved to upload to the Gigapan site and/or do you have to purchase their software in order to access the zoom/scroll feature?

Any insights will be appreciated.

Sure!

1. I used a Canon 70-200 F2.8L IS II lens, at 200mm. All the images were shot at F8.
2. I took the brackets just so I would have the data. It wasn't a big deal, I used the wireless remote.
3. Uploading to GigaPan is complete free! They do, however, sell their own pano heads and stitching software. I didn't use their software, I use AutoPano Giga, which is a very good program (but not inexpensive).

Even with the couple of items found it is a really neat image. I loved zooming in on different areas.

You got two other couples twice too, the first (tall guy in blue shirt) walking along the far side of river right between what looks like an old boathouse and the leftmost boat, the other just above and to the left of the small boat traveling in the river in front of the rightmost highrise (man in blue shirt with woman wearing green backpack). Love looking at pictures like this, amazing detail and some "unexpected" things too...

being from about 45 minutes south of boston, i really enjoyed this. cool shot!

Like the "cyclers" makes one want to zoom in!