In my earlier blog on Panorama using 8mm Fisheye, I had explained how I was struggling to take panorama using the earlier version of Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Aspherical IF MC. Recently after selling that lens, I got a newer version of the same lens called – Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye CS II with detachable hood. The lens is identical to my earlier lens. Even optically it is very similar. Only difference is now, the hood is detachable. This removable hood allows a full frame lens like my Canon EOS 5D mark III to produce a nearly circular fish eye image. This is very helpful in creating 360° panorama for which I plan to use it most.
[pano file=”bb/bb.html”]
Last week me and my friends Roshan & Ajith accompanied me for a trail run of this lens. We wanted to try taking panorama in a open place unlike the last effort where there were too many trees crowding the view. So we chose Basket Ball court of St. Aloysius College at Mangalore. The basketball court was empty on that cloudy Sunday.As it was a over cast day I used a shutter speed of 1/200th sec, Aperture f/5.6 & ISO 100 for all these photos. It was a manual focus lens. I also set the exposure in manual mode so that there won’t be any variation between the frames. For all the details and techniques as well as video tutorial check my earlier blog Panorama using 8mm Fisheye.
Here again I used same Philopod Pitch variation technique without using the tripod. Only difference I used from that was I took only four images instead of the six I had to take with the earlier lens. I attached a string with a weight (thread with a key at the end) to the end of my lens at no-parallax point. Samyang has no-parallax point just at the base of the hood. Hand holding the lens I took 4 pictures. North, East, South and West by tilting the lens down 20° from horizon in North & South direction. 20° from horizon up at East & West direction. These 4 images were 90° apart. Then using those 4 photos I created The panorama. The panorama uses a field of view of 360° horizontal by 180° vertical projection also called Equirectangular projection.
I also tried The other projection. I have posted here is what is known as Stereographic projection. It is also called Little Planets. Once the Little Planets was created it was fun to test the down-the-rabbit-hole, tunnel image. So you can play around quite a bit and come out with several projections. In both panorama I posted here don’t miss to checkout other views like Fish eye View, Architectural View, Stereographic View, Pannini View And Little Planet View. You can access these views by right clicking on the Panorama.
[pano file=”ab/ab.html”]
Once I finished shooting at Basket ball court I wanted to try another destination. We went towards the Administrative block of the St. Aloysius College. The garden in front of the admin block looked tempting enough for the Panorama. I took similar set of four pictures from the center of the garden in the similar fashion as the earlier one. As it was in shade I had to raise a shutter speed a bit more. I used a shutter speed of 1/200th sec, Aperture f/5.6 & ISO 100 for all these photos.
Here is the little planet from that panorama which looks quite interesting. When you shoot amongst trees there is a good green planet you can create unlike the other panorama where there was a single large tree on one side.
Now it is time for the tunnel view with my friends sitting at the edge of the tunnel 😛 Even though I could not get Alice to jump into this rabbit hole, it surely looks interesting.
Very Interesting Dr. Krishi. How did you create the Panaroma? Does your camera have a software or external software?
I used a software called freeware Hugin. It does everything what you see here. Check my earlier blog http://www.drkrishi.com/panorama-using-8mm-fisheye for detailed explanation.
Wish my Alice would have jumped when i was there on the edge of the tunnel hole.
Lovely work- the last time I used this ( other than your previous tutorial post) was in the Encarta encyclopedia, where they had rendered some of the worlds historic places in Panorama. But honestly this is so much better.
Dr.krishi,
superb blog ,great work and narration , thanks to my son for talking about you and i will be following your blog from now for all the amazing info you are sharing. thanks a lot
Lovely !!! Inspiration for photographers !!!!!!!!
creative idea sir…….
Hi
I just got the 8mm CSII lens on 6D. I have a black border which is not helping hugin/autopano to process the panoramic shots.
Do you crop/manipulate the images before putting them in the panoramic software? If so, can you please explain the process? settings of hugin?
Finally, I found an Indian who has actually written post on 360 Panorama. Nice experiments there. Where did you obtain Samyang lens from? The Opteka re-brand is being sold for cheaper in USA. I am contemplating on ordering one through a friend but soon I am planning to buy Canon 10-18mm. I want to experiment panorama on 10-18mm before. Surely it will take more pictures than a fisheye but I think results will be better on rectilinear lens (less distortion and CA + better resolution than fisheye). Also have bought a cheap-ish Pano head. Do you have an experience of capturing panoramas with rectilinear lens?
Wow. You have a Tilt-Shift lens too *drools*. I liked the second image from this post the best out of all panos you have posted here. The first one of basketball looks extraordinarily distorted at places when I am interacting with pano viewer. Probably due to fisheye nature of the lens.
I got my Samyang from Dubai. Thanks for your compliment. It is available in India too. Opteka is identical lens and re-branded Samyang. It is available for around 21K.
You need to decide what sort of panorama you plan to take. If you are trying 360×360 like the one I took. Fisheye is better choice. Rectilinear lens like the 10-18mm is very good for wide angle but will loose lot of details when you wrap around as 360. In fact 10mm (widest setting) you would need 6 shots at 60 degree intervals each & one zenith and one nadir shot to get the panorama. Using Samyang I did with just 4 shots. Distortion is part of 360 panorama. You can avoid distortion using a different zoom level. Go yo my page and play around with middle mouse button to feel the different zoom settings.
I haven’t really used the latest 10-18mm as I didn’t have a cropped sensor camera. I had used sigma rectilinear wide angle lens and the result should be equivalent. If you like rectilinear panorama which is 180 degree view Rectilinear lens are just fine. Else stick to Fish eye or non rectilinear wide angles. Pano heads will help in the latter. For fish eye, these are not needed.
Thanks for contacting me 🙂
Hey Krishna,
What is the size (in pixels) of the panorama you get when you shoot with this combo?
Thanks!