Nightmares

[Ton den Ouden]

Hi guys, I am just awakening from two nightmares.

Nightmare one: I was working on a number of tours and had a very slow but nasty system crash. I always thought a disk would crash in a second, but this one took a whole week One week with all kind of fixes and only one result in the end... Murphey was a real optimist

Nightmare two is quite different: Imagine a customer asks you to make a tour on two of their ships. Nice old sailing ships with great atmosphere. One of them a threemast schooner. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Now imagine this ship is in the harbour, moving on the waves. Left, right, up, down and all possible variations. And there are more of these ships around, acting the same, but at their own pace.
To finish things of, there is this nice breeze that is blowing through all those (already moving) ropes and woodwork overhead. And now imagine to make a nice 3-shot HDR 360. I like challenges, but this one was more than ok

I hope to show the first tour results in a week or so, but I just wanted to share my frustrations with you now.

Here is a small first impression of what's coming (one of 3 different deck shots), still some 'loose ends' to finish as you can see.



Grtz, Ton

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Sounds as if Freddy Krueger handpicked the jobs for you. Under such conditions... wind and moving waters... I would probably have tried to make the shoot on a different day with better conditions, but when summer is getting shorter, one really can't hope for good things in the weather just around the corner.

And regarding the HDD crash... sorry to hear about that. These things can come like a thunder from the sky... other times it comes bit by bit, byte by byte... and then it finally is complete. I have once had an incremental crash of the HDD... at first I was guessing on all the wrong things.... and tried all kinds of remedies... nothing worked... finally I decided to back up all the data on the HDD and format it. I got very lucky and managed to copy everything over to my backup drive (was only around 80 GB disk) and when I wanted to format it, the complete failure finally arrived.... the disk BURNED with smoke and sparks and all. Other times I have had a complete data-loss without prior warning. Once I lost 3 HDD in 2 puters during the same week. One due to a bad power cable, 2 because of a faulty power source in the puter. Fortunately I found a company that managed to access all the data on the HDD and save me from losing 5 years worth of work that could never be remade.

Backup, backup and backup! That is the key to happy sleepless nights.... which is better than frustrating sleepless nights.

[Ton den Ouden]

Haha, sounds like if you have been there Trausti. The incremental thing as you described it was exactly like my party. I have blamed (and replaced) every other part of the pc before finding out that only the disk was to blame. Lucky thing is that I did not loose anything important. Without a proper backup I would have gone crazy.

The ship just left a week ago for a 6 month trip to the Capeverdian Isles. So it was now or never. After a first visit where I shot a number of images below deck, I quickly realised that this would never work with the lenses that I brought. So I dug up the old Sigma 8mm that I havn't used for two years. It gives me a circular 180 on the 5D. The quality isn't great, but I guess it is the only way to do this. I took seven different angles and shot multiple images, hoping some would fit better than other. All in al every 360 takes about five hours of stitching and masking, leaving the last loose ends for Photoshop. I would not like to do this every day, but when it works it is very rewarding. Still one to go....

Grtz, Ton

[eviterin]

Hi Ton...

May be can you gime a tips about this...? I'll be in Galapagos Islands to work in a very important tourist company that they have a very nice Ship and they want a nice job.

We will be in the sea nearly of many islands, I suposed that the ship have many move it.

Greetings from Ecuador

Andres.

[Bruce Hemming]

Hi Andres

I've also done a number of sailing panos so I might be able to offer some advice. Obviously you will get movement - it can't be avoided - but if you can shoot when the ship is sailing off wind it will be more stable. You have to work quickly and this is an ideal opportunity for using a shaved FE on a full frame camera so that you only need 4 shots around. If you have to take more I wouldn't attempt to shoot multiple exposures for fusion or tone mapping - if you are in good sunlight you ought to be able to get sufficient dynamic range anyway. Fixing the inevitable mismatches in stitching means lots of time spent with your computer in Photoshop - and keep going back to it as I guarantee you won't get every glitch first time around. Hope this helps -

some examples shot on yachts http://www.bhphoto.biz/ARTEMIS/page3/page3.html (QuickTime I'm afraid ) and one of a traditional schooner http://www.bhphoto.biz/rose/rose.html There is one error with moving ropes that I just couldn't fix but I think that it is hidden quite well - see if you can spot it.

One other thing - don't forget to shoot a nadir if you need it - unlike the idiot who shot the schooner

Regards

Bruce

[eviterin]

Hi Bruce,thks so much...

Shaved if it's scary but I think it's a risk to be taken ... but the photographs do with the tripod?

Andrés.

[Bruce Hemming]

All of the panos shot on the yacht were taken either hand held or with a monopod using a Bo Bracket http://www.bophoto.com/bracket/ these are very good lightweight and inexpensive lens brackets. If I were shopping for a similar bracket today I would be tempted by the 360 Precion Atome http://www.360precision.com/360/index.c ... home#atome because I believe that it tilts the camera up slightly to give better coverage at the zenith. So with a shaved lens - the Nikkor 10.5mm on and EOS 5D in my case - I would shoot 4 around and a nadir shot for patching with the PTGUI viewpoint feature. This would give an equirect of about 6000x3000 pixels which is good enough but perhaps a little on the small size for modern large monitors. Shooting just 4 around is essential on a racing yacht as it is very lively and tends to move around a lot and the faster you can shoot with the smallest number of shots means a better chance of a good stitch.

On a larger more stable ship I would consider a longer focal length lens - ie the 15mm Cnon FE which I used on the schooner shoot. The camera was on a conventional tripod with a 360 Precision Absolute head and I would always recommend a tripod. The nearer your camera is to the centre line of the vessel the less movement will be experienced and this will be minimized when sailing downwind. Try and get and loose ropes tightened during your shoot too. A practice run would be a very good idea too - hope all of this helps.

Rgds

Bruce

[Ton den Ouden]

This sounds like a lot of fun Andrés!

Bruce already gave you a number of very valuable tips, so I can't add much more. The further you are from fixed points outside the ship, the easier it will be on that part. And allthough it may not me nessesary, it is a good idea to make an extra upshot. This way you have all things above your head fixed in one shot, making it easier to avoid or repair things like these

On overlapping shots you can use masks to select, or deselect things (like a rope) in the differtent shots (if you work with Ptgui). So you can choose to see the rope in shot one and ignore the rope from shot two, because it has moved.

Good luck and have a great trip!

Ton

[Bruce Hemming]

Thought that you would spot my Indian rope trick Ton - this was one time when I couldn't use masks to get it right. The offending rope is in the zone where two frames overlap and there isn't enough of it in either frame to make a convincing join so I had to make the best of a bad job. Hence my suggestion of getting someone to tighten loose ropes for the shoot

A minor fault compared to my stupidity in forgetting to shoot a nadir of course - which is why I had to insert patch, it works but isn't how I like to do things. My only excuse is that it was the first time that I tried this - the forgetful part might have been something to do with rum

Best

Bruce

[Ton den Ouden]

Haha, at least you had an excuse Bruce,

I have more than once forgot to shoot a complete part of a pano. Without having an excuse

Grtz, Ton

[eviterin]

Hello friends ... I really appreciate a lot for this forum, you have given me a way to do my job, thank you very much.

GBY.

Andrés.