Taking Panoramic photos?

[cpw006]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I by no means am a profesional photographer, really I am an idiot when it comes to cameras. I work for a 3d scanning company which creates a 3d point cloud of structures that we will survey from or create 3d architectural drawings and models from. The scanner has a built in camera used for draping an image over the 3d point clouds. We purchased a canon rebel xt with a ex dg fisheye lens (which is required to drape on the point cloud) and I am having a little trouble with the settings for bright sunlight. A lot of our work is scanning faces of high rise buildings with white or bright colored facades. For the photo stiching that is required to drape the image we are unable to change the settings or the focus for the 360 degree photos. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience in settings like this and how I would best attack these obsticals. Thanks for any help and sorry for the long post.

[AlexMonro]

I'm not precisely clear on exactly what you problems are, but contrast can get excessive when photographing buildings in bright sunlight, especially with the slightly restricted dynamic range of most digital sensors. You might get better results if you do your photography on a bright overcast day (thin high level cloud), when the cloud acts as "God's own softbox" and gives you more even, difuse lighting.

[TDN169]

I've been making panoramas for ages, even before I had a pro digital camera. What you do is simple, and doesn't need a fisheye lens.

1.Place the camera on a tripod. If you have no tripod a wall will do.

2.Make sure it is horizontal. You must have a spirit level somewhere in your company.

3.Look through the viewfinder to check that either the horizontal or vertical dimension is in focus.

4.Take a photo. Then remember a feature in the viewfinder in the direction you are about to pan the camera.

5.Tilt it up or right (always start either at the bottom or the extreme left) until the feature you remembered is still in view.

6.Repeat 4&5 until you have taken all the images needed.

Use Arcsoft Panorama Maker (www.arcsoft.com/en/products/panoramamaker/) to combine them automatically

Then use perspective correction in Corel Photopaint or Adobe Photoshop to get a rectangular image. I asume you use UV mapping to get the image over the cloud.

If you can tell me the name of the software, I'll put my 3D graphicist's hat on and hope that the software hasn't changed too much.

Or, post a low res image of the screen when you are using it, so we can puzzle out what's going on.