360 Panorama

[manumuskin]

I just found a nice lightweight piece of trim out back about 1.5 by 1 by 7ft long.I can rubberband the camera around it and hold it out while bracing one end on my shoulder and jamming my other elbow into my side to steady it.It;s very lightwweight so I should be able to stop camera bounce this way.
I had been considering taking my laptop into the woods with me to make sure the pano was done right before leaving so I could take another shot if need be but if this works it should be dependable.I shouldn't even need to use markers with this technique as long as i remember where the tripod sat after removing it.I will try this technique tomorrow and let you know how it works.
Al

 

[manumuskin]

The pole technique didn't work.Pole too shaky and a big hassle getting camera onto pole without hitting settings on the other hand I found the lean technique.I seen it on a pano tutorial a month or so ago and it suddenly clicked.I raised the tripod back up and when the nadir shots came time to shoot I moved the tripod to the side of the nadir area and set my panosaurus on 40 degrees down and went around the nadir area in six overlapping shots.This did not work and i thought perhaps it was because the nadir was shot at an angle when normally it is shot straight down so i went back and reshot this time moving tripod to side and I set the panosaurus as low as i could without getting the base dial in phtot and then I leaned the tripod out far enough while holding the handle that the lens was facing straight down.I retook my six shots and this time it looked great excepot for a couple of stitching errors,namely one rock was skewed.I then realized i had not flipped these shots into portarit mode like the other shots were so I flipped the shots and restitched the pano again and WALAH! everything is perfect except for one pine tree that was a little off but that was because one of my panosaurus setting had been knocked a little out of whack and had to be reset but the nadir was great!.This has taken me three days of constant head banging when it should've been obvious but back when I seen the tutorial he didn't make a big deal of what he was doing and it didn't sink in and back then i was happy with the tripod being in it till i realized how distracting it was.I did all this in my yard.Now to hit the barrens and check out the technique as soon as the weather allows it.I hear it's about to get nasty again.
Al

 

[manumuskin]

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=75817d31-b5b0-451c-b5e5-3ef4094cfd4a

Wheatons Wharf was a facility related to the GrainElevators just downstream that was used for the local farmers to transport their food crops to market in the early part of the 20th century.There is a freshwater artesian spring visible in this photo exiting the ground under pressure from an iron pipe.This is cold,good water that I have drank from since a kid.It runs as a brick lined stream 50 ft into the Maurice river visible in the other direction.The wharf burnt down by arson around 74.My dad used to take me and Mom fishing here when I was a kid.There used to be planking to walk on out to those poles.

It started rain hence the visible water drops on the lens.The black area up top I write off to the whit sky.For some reason these are seen as blank areas by the software.It may be the pano head missed an area due to rocking caused by the breeze but possibly just a software failure to grab onto anything to stitch by.

 

[dogg57]

Thanks Al for sharing your fun.I have learned alot thanks again

 

[manumuskin]

I just fixed the black areas with a whiteout tool.Is almost unoticeable.Unfortunately I can't post it on the photosynth site because it is now one jpeg.Photosynth insists that the photos be imported into the site and created into one panorama there.And the black areas do not exist in the original photos so it is impossible to fix them there.I'd like to post the fixed shot at a website but at 150 megs or better a pano no sites want pics that large understandably and I refuse to shrink the photos because the resulting pano cannot be zoomed in on without becoming a mess.
I seem to have the tripod removal technique down now and I was hurrying on this one because of the rain so i may have jarred the tripod and caused those black areas myself.I blame this on a forecast that swore south jersey would have no rain until possibly this evening.I trusted said meteorologist and was promptly pissed on for it.My camera too.It hit so fast I couldn't have got the camera off the tripod dry anyway so just kept on shooting.It was already soaked.
Al

 

[Teegate]

You do have the tripod problem solved. it looks really nice down there. Thanks Al!

Guy

 

[manumuskin]

Yes the nadir problem seems to be solved.The black areas up top i patched nicely with whiteout but can't post it to photo synth as a single jpeg.I think that may have been camera shake from the wind off the river or me getting to impatient once the rain started which really PO'ed me.I really want to do some open bog shots and maybe salt marsh shots but the sky is a real problem with a smaller FOV lens.Solid colors with no objects to grab onto totally styme the software.I need some nice high slow moving cirrus clouds (any cloud ten miles high seems to move slowly) so the software can grab a cloud and ground itself so to speak.I want to go back and redo the tulpe but I need them cirrus or some slow moving cumulus to roll in.
Al

 

[manumuskin]

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=6cc7da96-7d8f-4358-a1e6-8c66c0d63c51
Here is what it looked like 70 years ago?
I just went to historical aerials and in 51 there is actually a ship docked at the wharf.here are the coords to the spot.I don't know how to post a good link here since it won't let me copy any link but the homwpage.
39.36751° N
75.03824° W

 

[manumuskin]

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=f61103b0-1dd4-498b-ae58-5ab092b0dac8

another one redone in black n white.

 

[Teegate]

I just went to historical aerials and in 51 there is actually a ship docked at the wharf.here are the coords to the spot.I don't know how to post a good link here since it won't let me copy any link but the homwpage.
39.36751° N
75.03824° W

The ship in 1951.

Thanks for the B&W photo's Al. Nice!

Guy

 

[manumuskin]

Wish I knew how to grab a pic off of that site.I'm sure I could figure it out but I'm lazy somwtimes.I knew if I put up the coords you'd find the spot and see the pic.I didn't know you'd post it though Thanks,
Al

 

[manumuskin]

matter of fact i just birds eyed it and the north view shows a boat pulled up there when the birds eye was snapped only it's a smaller boat and it's pulled all the way into sure.

 

[manumuskin]

I just went out and did an experiment trying to see if I could capture the sky over the marsh.Not a total success but not as bad as I feared.If you look you;ll notice two different lines descending from the zenith all the way down and skewing the guard rails in two places.I think what happened is the clouds moved and caused the whole stitching process to shift a little in one directions and possibly even resulted in the nadir warping as it did. I have been waiting for high cirrus clouds to try this out and was going to try it earlier but I was needed for a trip to town and by the time i got back the clouds had thickened up and lowered.I am going to have to try to move faster which means a shorter timer and risking camera shake.The stitching software neglected to stitch the top five overlapping zenith photos probably because of the shift in clouds which made them impossible to line up.I am going to have to stick to cirrus 50,000 ft up and move fast.I really want to get some open bohs and salt marsh panos and the sky and my lack of fish eye capability is really making it rough
I am having problems posting this one to photosynth so when I get it posted I'll link to it here.It is of Toms bridge,a small bridge across the upper end of Dividing Creek.It was abandoned about twelve years ago due to lack of will to fix it on the townships part which resulted in the sand company north of the bridge shutting down their end of the public road because sand plants around here do whatever they want to whenever they want to.In any case it's a nice seldom visited place to crab or telescope at night now.
be back with the link when i get it posted
finally,midnight and here it is.
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=92e3e532-f44a-4a4d-aa26-a0afb5361d80

 

[manumuskin]

updated

 

[Teegate]

It says it was deleted.

Guy

 

[manumuskin]

yeah I got disgusted and deleted the imperfect ones today.gotta keep my space down so i don't run out to.
sorry about that.
Al

 

[manumuskin]

Okay I have found a way to fix all my less then perfect panoramas.The problem is I cannot post them to photosynth since they have to be posted as their composed and the errors are in the stitching not in the individual photos.I have found a way as inconvenient as it sounds to make them available here.I am posting a list of links to enable anyone here to either view my panos or create and share ones of their own.First you'll need the FSP viewer availabe here.
http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/FSPViewer.htm
it does not need installing but does need unzipping so you may need this to unzip it
http://www.jzip.com/
You will also need the website that allows you to email very large files.What I will do is upload my large jpegs to this site which will hold them for thirty days.Then you can download the jpeg there and use the fsp viewer to see it.You can also upload your own very large files to this site.I will not password protect the files so anyone here can download them.They are over 100 megs a piece.Here is the site.
http://emaillargefile.com/
also if you'd like a panorama screensaver one is available here
http://download.cnet.com/Panorama-Screen-Saver/3000-2257_4-10574865.html
I am going to upload my latest to the large file site now and then post a link to it.
Al

 

[manumuskin]

http://emaillargefile.com/getfile.aspx?d=64GO4JH7CXA

This is Toms bridge.an abandoned bridge over upstream Dividing Creek.Abandoned about 12 years ago due to lack of fund and lack of interest to fix it.Nice spot now.

 

[manumuskin]

http://emaillargefile.com/getfile.aspx?d=QCY8CGDZIAS

This is the link to "White Oak Impaled".
I went to this spot three times.The first time it was raining and when I got back there were spots on every picture.I assumed it was rain.So today i went back again,took another set went home and spots again.I realized the lens was dirty.cleaned it off and back again.This is a mile walk from the car some of which is up and down hills.Got home and the spots were gone but my ICE totally screwed up part of the pano by leaving a black rectangle and taking part of one pic and superimposing it over another where it should not have been.My photos were all good and overlapping properly.This was the result poor software. I have cloned/fixed it hence it cannot be imported into photosynth so if you want to see it it has to be done the hard way.Go to link above and download the large 165 meg file and then unzip the FSP viewer and put the file in it.There is a neat i beam imbedded in the big white oak.Been there at least since the early 80's.I also believe there was a house in the grassy area to the left of the mossy ridge but no cellar hole there and more to the left along the river is an old landing visible in the distance with the remains of wharf pilings along the river.
Al
PS
this file will be there for seven days.I forgot to raise it to thirty.

 

[manumuskin]

http://emaillargefile.com/getfile.aspx?d=UCQZXY0WJVQ

Buckscrotem Bog
again i had to fix part of it and there is at least one stitching error probably due to me falling in the much and grabbing the tripod and the top is warped but that isn't bad and the sky probably caused that.woulda been better to left a hole I coulda filled in but it's okay.
This is a bog my Uncle told me about for years on Buckscrotem creek and since this dows not show on the topo which is all i had back then I told him he was crazy.The topo doesn't show any open water in that swamp and i had crossed it in quite a few places.Well about a year after he died I first found aerials on the computer and I remembered his secret bog I didn't believe in.Within a minute I had found it and ran right out to see it.No gps then so i had to hold a course and grin and bear it.It was worth it.I cant get a good view of the bog without wading hip deep into it and I'm not taking 400 bucks of equipment out there to see the whole thing.This is the best I could do for you all.It is a power spot.
Al