Can anyone help me make a 360 pano?

Hey everyone. I work for a concert venue, and wanted to see if I could do a 360 degree panoramic photo of the inside of the venue.

I tried it today, and here is what I did.

Set up a Tokina fisheye @ 10mm in portrait orientation on a manfrotto tripod/head. It is not a panoramic head, just a 3 way tilt head. I leveled the tripod, set exposure, and began shooting.

I took about 7 images and made sure there was plenty of overlap.

I repeated this process in landscape orientation, and repeated the process again in both orientations with a 17-55 IS @ 17mm.

When I went home and tried to use photomerge in CS4 (set it on automatic mode) I got garbage results. Photoshop only seemed to use about half to 3/4ths of the pictures I took, and just stuck the other ones on the side.

I seemed to get the best results with the 17mm in landscape orientation, but it was still awful -- clear seams, images not lined up, and not a 360 degree view.

What am I doing wrong here -- is it an equipment thing? I have seen people say you need a panoramic head, but I have also seen people say they have done this hand held. Do I need more overlap? Do I need different software?

I want to try again, so if anyone has any insights, it would be very helpful!

What distance are the closest objects? closer than a couple of metres and the software may get seriously confused.
How variable is the lighting?

When you say "plenty of overlap" what do you mean? 25%, 305, 50%, too much will confuse CS4 - I keep mine to about 20%

Hand held, 180 degree panorama - hand held - auto exposure - natural lighting, D20, 17-85 kit lens, CS4 software.

I use Hugin for my panoramic photos - never tried CS - but I do know in hugin, that you can set as many control points between each overlap to ensure a good fit across your photos. Would that be the same case in CS4?

20+ photos stitched up using hugin - click on the photo for full size - warning it is a large file:

IMAGE LINK: http://harm.smugmug.co​m …oSDj#786713712_​DUzY7-O-LB

Shoot in portrait as well and give a nice overlap but not too much. Has always worked for me so far! Can you post the 'raw' file it gives you? 7 doesn't seem enough. I shot the skyline of Atlanta in probably a 180 degree and has 20 or so images and it came out very nice.

^ your link to your gallery needs fixing.

Outdoors is somewhat different to indoors. In this 360º indoor panorama everything in the room is within 8 ft of the camera and some pieces of furniture are within 2 ft of the camera. This can really only be is with a proper panoramic head.

Camera was a 5Mp D7 Minolta, Manfrotto 303 tripod head.

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^ that is true, but software(s) also allows you to pick the best format for your panoramic photo. Like a cylindrical image, as opposed to an equilateral image - based upon the curvature. Play around until you're happy.

dinanm3atl wrote in post #10587011
Shoot in portrait as well and give a nice overlap but not too much. Has always worked for me so far! Can you post the 'raw' file it gives you? 7 doesn't seem enough. I shot the skyline of Atlanta in probably a 180 degree and has 20 or so images and it came out very nice.

Depending on his camera a 10 mm lens will easily cover 360º but I am starting to wonder if the 10 mm produces to distorted image for CS to handle. He still had a problem with his 17 mm lens. I shoot 90% of my panos at 17 mm so I can't see that as an issue.


Try posting a couple of images that are not lining up or PM me to arrange for you to email me small versions of the images so that I can check it out

Yeah, some of the things in the image were quite close, within a couple of feet, while most of the things were far away -- 10-15 feet.

Coppatop85 wrote in post #10587257
Yeah, some of the things in the image were quite close, within a couple of feet, while most of the things were far away -- 10-15 feet.

It only needs a couple of things that are too close to break up a panoramic image.

As for overlap, I had about 20%. I will post some photos tomorrow, bedtime for me now!

LR3 has a lens correction piece in it's software...very useful for straightening things out before you make them into a panoramic....

No LR3 for me, only have CS4. Also, I tried hugin, and couldn't get a grip on it.

You should try Autopano Giga, it uses the engine of autostitch if you have ever heard of it. It really works wonders.