Looking for an EOS lens recommendation for panoramas

Hi All,

I'm considering offering panoramas as a regular service for my clients
and I'm looking for some recommendations on lenses for my 20D.

Currently I have a 24-85 USM, and I'm finding the FOV to be
frustratingly narrow. On my film camera 24mm if plenty wide enough, but
on the 20D it's certainly nothing special, equivalent to about 38mm.

A couple of lenses that I've considered are the 15mm f2.8 fisheye, or
the EF-S 10-22. Has anyone tried using either of these for panoramas?

They're both around the same price, so it'd really just come down to
which does a better job. I'm a bit hesitant to get an EF-S lens, as it
could then only be used on my 20D (not my EOS 30), but if it's clearly a
better lens for the job though, I would get it.

The zoom thing is not really an issue, since for panoramas I'd pretty
well always be using it at the 10mm end.

How would the FOV compare for the 2 lenses? Logic would tell me that
10mm should be wider than 15mm. Does this hold true though when one is a
fisheye?

The software I generally use is autopano-SIFT (for the control point
matching) and then Hugin + panorama tools for the optimization and
actual stitching. Does anyone know if these tools would handle a fisheye
lens correctly? I heard somewhere that for ultra wide, fisheye is
sometimes better because it has less chromatic aberration, and the
software can (apparently) correct the distortion relatively easily.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Eugene

 

When I do panoramas, I use my 20-35 set at 35mm. If you use a
wide-angle lens, you can get some goofy perspectives after stitching
them together. Also, I shoot the segments vertically so that I don't
end up with a thin strip.

 

If your are really talking about true panoramas (where several shots are
stitched together) rather than simply extreme wide-angle shots you are
leaning the wrong way in lens selection. If you use wide-angle lenses to
shoot panoramas the perspective (distortion) of each shot, edge to edge,
will make it very difficult to match the images. It is better to take more
images with medium to long lenses.
Chuck

 

Does Canon offer a wide-angle tilt-shift lens? It's another way to do
panos. (I'm a Nikon guy, unfamiliar with Canon).

 

Yes, the 24mm f/3.5L TS-E. It will give you a mildly panoramic picture,
but not as much as I think you are seeking. Shift will give you a wider
FoV with no shape distortion mismatch in the corners; tilt will cause
some problems in matching the drawing of regular shapes. Also, on a DSLR
with a smaller sensor the 24mm is not particularly wide. I am looking
forward to using mine on a larger sensor, then I will have it back to
full usefulness.

David

 

As an example, this rough one was made with a 20D Canon, 24-70 2.8L
lens, 24mm, 1/250 @ f/7.1 or thereabouts, ISO 100, four frames from
end to end, something like 15% overlap, handheld
twist-at-the-waist-platform, selecteded into the PSCS2 make-a-pano
facility, processed and cropped top and bottom:
http://www.fototime.com/36449B870CF212E/orig.jpg

 

For "fun", here it is upsampled to 300ppi per the publisher's request;
9MB file:
http://www.fototime.com/6F3E705331B4817/orig.jpg

 

I would not use a wide angle Lens.

Almost any lens will work, as long as it is commensurate to the subject
shot, i.e., you could/would use a different lens for a panorama inside a
room vs a panorama on a mountain top vs a late evening back yard shot.

The critical factor, IMHO, is the tripod. Assuming you stabalize the camera
settings so that the overall picture set shares a common exposure and
balance level, The tripod makes a critical difference. Tall vertical shots,
the more the better. I like to shoot 24 to 36 pictures per Pano.

I made a pano holder for my Rebel, took about $40 and a saturday, and a
drilled hole in my hand. It isn't critically accurate, but it works plenty
well enough for the pano software to work with. Much better than hand held
pano shots.

http://hoofr.com/gallery-e6.htm this was shot with a Tamron 18-75 by
hand (no tripod), JPG compressed for the web. touched up with Adobe CS a
bit.

If you got the bucks, consider the 360 one shot. Seems like thats the
premium way to go, and you can do full 360x360 pano's too.

David A.

 

I've experimented with my 10-22, and as noted elsewhere found the
extreme perspective at the low end made stitching a nightmare.
Aesthetically the results were disappointing too. As a landscape lens
I love the 10-22, especially in the mountains where the extreme
wide-angles can really emphasise the sense of space and scale. For
shooting multiple image panoramas it's not ideal, though.

Al

 

Hi Frank,

Very nicely done, particularly using PSCS2. I've tried the PhotoShop
pano feature and was less than impressed with the results I got. The
reason I use Panorama Tools is because it can correct the perspective
distortion of the lens, so in theory it should work properly even when
using fisheye lenses. I haven't tried this though.

Have you tried using Canon's PhotoStitch? I've actually found that as
long as you're reasonably careful taking the photos it does a really
good job, much better in my opinion than PhotoShop and it's all
automatic. It corrects the distortion of the lens and automatically
chooses and matches control points. Panorama Tools is much better still,
but not exactly easy to use. The panoramas I'm going to be making are
full 360 degree panos, which I'll then convert to QTVR.

I really need much wider than 24mm though, because I'll be doing a lot
of interior panos in holiday park cabins and things. I've found I get an
extremely narrow view when using 24mm in landscape orientation. I can't
use portrait orientation yet, because I need to make myself some kind of
bracket to flip the camera and still have it panning around the nodal
point. This is very important for interior views, they just wont stitch
unless it's done properly.

Eugene

 

Yeah, a TS lens wouldn't help me a great deal because I need to do full
360 degree panos.

 

Where you using software to correct the distortion and stitch the
images? Or stitching manually? Panorama Tools seems to have no trouble
at all correcting the distortion from my 24-85, but that would be quite
different to correcting a 10mm.

 

Hi David,

Thanks for the advice. By one shot do you mean those things that attach
to the lens and create a donut type image from the full 360 view? I've
looked at some stuff about those on the web and they do look
interesting, although most of the examples I've seen look a little
fuzzy. I don't know if that's inherrent in the technique or not. It
would make things much quicker and easier though.

There's also the PanoScan cameras. From what I've seen they do a
fantastic job and make full spherical panoramas, but they're way way out
of my price range.

I'm actually planning to try making a vertical pano holder by my 20D
this weekend. I've found that for horizontal shooting I can just use my
old metz bracket to mount the camera in the correct place, but obviously
things get more complicated if the camera also has to be flipped. I'm
also going to add some spirit levels to my tripod to help with the
levelling.

Eugene

 

Hi Frank,

I just had a look at the full-size version. You've done an excellent job
on that. Did it take long to stitch? There's just one area along the top
of the range where the seam shows, but otherwise it's pretty much perfect.

Hey are those eucalypt trees near the road? If not they sure look
similar. I thought for a second it must have been somewhere in
Australia, until I saw the California number plates ;-)

Eugene

 

The stitching was pure PS CS2 automatic, and didn't take more than a
few seconds on a 3.2MHz, 1GB computer. I've noted before, my skills
and patience are no match for the requirements of serious
panorama-ing, and I'm delighted when something 'mechanical' can come
this close to OK. I did clone out one ghost of a guy in a red shirt
since he moved between exposures.

I believe those _are_ 'gum' trees. You know the legend: in the era of
rail expansion in the US West, Eucalyptus were imported because they
grew quickly and relatively straight, and planners expected to have a
continuing crop of raw material for rail ties. They got some of what
was expected: the trees grew fast; however, it seems Eucalyptus wood
won't hold a spike, so it was not an appropriate material for railroad
construction. The trees do have a useful life in many California
agricultural areas, as windbreaks. And they make nice shade; I have a
fifty-footer in my front parkway. They are also self-trimming, with
those too-heavy branches falling without help or warning. San Diego
has the largest population of Koalas outside Australia, last I heard,
at the World-Famous San Diego Zoo. Seems to me I learned the code to
unravel 'Waltzing Matilda' as early as the fourth grade in school. So
yes, Eucalyptus are familiar here in California. Three different kinds
on my block, although I know only the Red by name.

The location of the panorama is Paramount Ranch, east of the Malibu
Beach colony, north of Los Angeles, in the Santa Monica mountains. It
is site of hundreds of film and television scenes, and of several
automobile road races in the 1950s. The cars are actual or similar to
those raced there in those days.
http://home.san.rr.com/fsheff/covpr856.htm

Frank

 

By one shot, I do mean those donut like lens's. Is it possible that the fuzz
you see is the compressed-for-web-JPG factor? I would think that the optics
in these one shot lens can't possibly compete with top of the line *normal*
lens. I think that if you want top of the line quality, you have to do it
the hard way, prime lens and top notch stitch software, or go with the high
end video stuff.

Spirit levels are your friends for sure, and a decent tripod and bracket
assembly are important.

Your primary question - which lens. Match the lens to the shot, like you
would any shot. The better the lens, the better the shot, the better the
pano. Focus on the tripod and mount and set it up to shoot with the camera
vertical and it make it adjustable so you can use any lens you want.
Shooting vertical puts the wide angle lens edges on top and bottom, which is
where you tend to crop anyway, so go for it, use wide angle lens too if you
have one.

http://www.vrseattle.com/ have you seen this site? They shot a site for
my fathers business and used a video camera set up.

My site has several hand shot pano's. I use 3DVista software.

David A.

 

Well, it's not me that's seeking it But you can get about a
double-wide shot with little distortion by taking 3 shots and shifting
(camera and lens in opposite directions).

 

I used the PTLens filter to correct the lens in Photoshop Elements,
and used Element's Panostitch feature to join the images (with lots of
manual intervention). To be honest it wasn't really a serious attempt,
more a case of "oooh, look at that view - let's try a pano!". The
individual images are great, but to get a decent panorama from them
probably requires more time and skill than I have at the moment.

Al

 

That's cool. I had heard that there were red gums in California. I
didn't realise they were common though.

I think red gum was generally the wood of choice over here for the
railroad sleepers. It's very hard and very heavy, but it's apparently
inclined to warp as it dries. Perhaps that's the problem.

On the farm where I grew up there's an ancient red gum swamp. Most of
the trees would be at least 200 years old. They're pretty impressive
when they get that old. We were always told about the dangers of camping
under them though. They are notorious for losing limbs even in still
weather. Often around the base of really old trees you'll see the
remnants of the limbs they've lost during their life.

 

Many of the panos I'll be doing will be inside, so I'll need something
wide. At the moment I only have a 24-85 lens, which isn't wide enough
when shooting horizontal, although it might be OK shooting vertical. I
just have to make myself a suitable bracket. I've just added some spirit
levels to my tripod, which should help a lot.

Just had a look at that site, pretty impressive stuff. I've read about
the PanoScan system before, and it does sound like pretty much the
ultimate way to do panos. It's very expensive though
http://www.panoscan.com/Pricing.html, certainly way out of my price
range. For the whole system $US33,900.