Anybody shoot panaramics?

[gregr]

A few months ago I got a panaramic head (Nodal Ninja). I've done a few of the standard landscape panaramics and here's the first aquarium panaramic. The original file is about 27,000 pixels wide Oh yeah, the tank is not mine... wish it was. It's the display tank at a lfs.

[charlie]

That is really kind of nice!!!! How long is the tank?????

I know you can do this in Photoshop, I just never have figured it out.

[Poseidon]

That is great Greg! I have tried briefly to do a stitch, but never a panoramic camera.

[gregr]

Thanks!
Charlie- that tank is 14 feet long. It is incredible to say the least.
The trick with shooting panamrams is rotating the camera at the nodal point of the lens. If you do that right then the computer side of it is easy.

[charlie]

Can you splain that in English????

[gregr]

lol- not really... Instead of butchering the explanation I'll point you to some articles written by people that really do speak english
This one is pretty good (might be a little on the overly technical side) and has lots of links:
panoguide: Panoramic heads
Here's a good bunch of articles and a forum:
Everything else

[charlie]

lol- not really.

Oh great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanx for the links, I shall take a cruise thru them.

[zhenya]

Man, this is awesome, Greg. I never tried something like that but it seems like lots of fun. Thanks for those links, I shall investigate...

[gregr]

Thanks Gene. I'm a newb when it comes to panaramics- I've got a grand total of about 8 of them under my belt The people that really know what they're doing are producing some absolutely amazing images.

[zhenya]

Well, I saw some on your site and I liked them all.
I don't know about being a newb in this category, at least you are doing it. I'm doing nothing at the moment in my photography hobby and it upsets me...
Maybe when I'm like 70, or something, everybody will leave me alone and I'll just go on safari..? :eek3:
Probably not!

[gregr]

lol- I say go somewhere now. And go somewhere often!

[zhenya]

lol- I say go somewhere now. And go somewhere often!

That is sound advice, now I just need to follow it...

As soon as this snow business is over I am off to the coast to try taking some shots. It;s pretty boring during winter cause there is no cliffs or anything like that. Pretty flat...

[Ninong]

Wow! I just opened that sucker up and it spread 19" across my monitor. I actually measured it!

The photo gives the impression that it's a 12-ft tank instead of just an 8-ft tank. I'm assuming that it's an 8-ft, 300-gal tank, 96"L x 30"W x 24"H. That would be a four to one length to height ratio. If you use that same ratio for this photo, which measured 19"L x 3"H on my monitor, then we would have a tank that is approximately 12-ft long.

If the tank is 8-ft long, shouldn't the photo be 4.75" x 19" instead of 3" x 19"???

[gregr]

lol- I think the original unresized version is about 8 times as long

Correction- I just checked and it's almost ten times!

[Ninong]

lol- I think the original unresized version is about 8 times as long

Correction- I just checked and it's almost ten times!

Exactly how long is the original unresized version of the photo? And does it have different dimensions as far as the length to height ratio?

The photo as displayed on my monitor is exactly 3"H x 19"L. That just doesn't seem to fit with any 8-ft long tank???

An 8-ft tank that photographs as 19"L x 3"H would have to be 96"L x 15"H. Was it a very shallow 8-ft tank???

[gregr]

The original, directly out of the stitching program, is 19,854x4782 and 362mb. I cropped out some of the top and bottom by the way so the length/height ratio was affected by that. I think I cropped just a small amount (maybe 10%?) from the sides but probably close to 25% from the top and bottom. I'm not so good with the math but there is some overlapping in the stitching, quite a bit probably. If you're interested I can grab the exif info from one of the shots.

[Ninong]

No, that's okay, I was just noticing how long the tank appeared in the photo as it was displayed on my monitor and was wondering why it appeared so very long. If the tank is 96"L x 24"H, then the length of the tank in the photo should be exactly 4 times the height. If the tank is 96"L x 30"H, then the length should be exactly 3.2 times the height. In the photo as it is displayed, the length is 6.33 times the height (19" x 3").

It's a beautiful tank and a beautiful photo, it's just that the photo makes the tank look very, very long and not very tall.

That's a good way to photograph a full frontal shot of a reef aquarium. Most of the time you have to get back pretty far and then you can't tell very much about the details of the tank's aquascaping from the resulting photo, which is why most people prefer to post shots of just sections of their tank -- the left side, the middle, the right side.

[gregr]

I just asked- the tank is actually 14 feet long and 30" tall. Regardless- the math has been rendered moot because of my selfish cropping

[Ninong]

I just asked- the tank is actually 14 feet long and 30" tall. Regardless- the math has been rendered moot because of my selfish cropping

It's a beautiful photo of a gorgeous tank!

With any tank, you won't get the exact length to height ratio unless the photograph shows the bottom of the tank and the top of the tank. You can easily see the bottom of the tank if it's in the photograph but you can never see the exact top of the tank unless it's a rimless tank without a canopy. Most tanks have top trim that covers at least the top 1" of the tank.

Anyway, your photo has a length to height ratio of 6.33 to 1. The tank is 168"L x 30"H, so it has a ratio of 5.6 to 1, so you didn't crop off all that much. You captured 88.5% of the actual height in your photo. It's appears to have a shallow sand bed. Is that the way you remember it? What's that bronze-colored stip across the bottom? Was that added by the LFS to hide the sand bed?

Anyway, you now know the exact dimensions of the tank, so you can post them when you post that photo from now on. It really is a very long tank. It's 168"L x 30"H and probably at least 36"W, which would make it 785 gallons. If it's wider than 36", then it could be a lot bigger.

Looking at the photo again, I would say that it's probably 48"W, making it a 1,047-gal tank!!! It's probably acrylic and sticking with the 30"H would allow them to make it with just 1" thick acrylic. Had they gone taller, they would have had to increase the thickness to either 1.25" or 1.5". They might have used 1.5" anyway but I think they could have gotten by with just 1" if the top is thicker than 1".

[Ninong]

Greg, why don't you ask them what the full dimensions are? Or do you already know that? And ask them if it's acrylic and what thickness was used for the sides and what thickness was used for the top. That way you could post that or at least you would know it if anybody asked.