What's a good lens to shoot 360 images with on FF Canon? Fisheye recommendations?

cayenne

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Mar 28, 2012
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Hi all,
Been looking at a new thing to play with....doing high quality 360 stills with my old trusty 5D3.

I have the 11-24 L lens....but I'm guessing maybe that isn't fisheye enough.....since it is still rectilinear?

What would recommendations for a good quality fish eye for the camera can you give me?

Not sure how much I'd use the lens other than playing with 360....although like with most things I get for shooting, I end up finding fun other ways to create and play with them other than intended use.

But if a lower cost alternative, say like a Rokinon would be good, I'd try that. I found their old 14mm manual lens a long time ago was actually a decent bang for the buck.

But I'd also consider dropping a little coin on a Canon fisheye.....

So, looking for recommendations for fish eye lenses....brand, focal length.....etc

Again, looking to start with doing some 360 images, but also exploring other things with it.


Thank you in advance,

cayenne
 

cayenne

CR Pro
Mar 28, 2012
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Thanks, very interesting.

Well, hmm....I wonder if this would work with my 11-24 Canon lens?

I guess worth just going out and trying, but for some reason I thought to do 360, a fisheye lens was required.

Ok well I'm hoping for more insight and recommendations from others too....but will give this a shot with my existing lens here as soon as I'm able.

C
 
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Deleted member 378664

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I am using the Canon EF 8-15mm Fisheye zoom for exactly that purpose. I use it at 12mm focal length together with an Atom360 panohead as this gives a 180 degree view on the Long edge and you only need 4 shots for full 360 degrees + the Nadir shot.
This lens is really sharp and gives very good results. Also you are not constraint to only one focal length if you also want to use it for single shots with this special look of a Fisheye at other focal length then only 12mm.
Maybe you can look for a used one as a lot of people sell them when they found that it only collects dust. :)
Here are some examples from me taken with the 8-15mm Fisheye:
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Burg Eisenberg/Burgruine_Eisenberg.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Burg Hohenfreyberg/tour.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/ElNino/El_Nino-1_Panorama.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Segel2/Konzertsegel2.html
a complete VR tour around some of the working areas of my working place (replace the TRW logo by the ZF Logo :) ):
http://mx5-twins.de/round tour RIZ/tour.html
and another VR tour around and in a manor house I have access to, because an old ancestor of mine bought this building in 1850:
http://mx5-twins.de/Klingenstein/tour_reg.html

Have fun

Frank
 
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cayenne

CR Pro
Mar 28, 2012
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I am using the Canon EF 8-15mm Fisheye zoom for exactly that purpose. I use it at 12mm focal length together with an Atom360 panohead as this gives a 180 degree view on the Long edge and you only need 4 shots for full 360 degrees + the Nadir shot.
This lens is really sharp and gives very good results. Also you are not constraint to only one focal length if you also want to use it for single shots with this special look of a Fisheye at other focal length then only 12mm.
Maybe you can look for a used one as a lot of people sell them when they found that it only collects dust. :)
Here are some examples from me taken with the 8-15mm Fisheye:
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Burg Eisenberg/Burgruine_Eisenberg.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Burg Hohenfreyberg/tour.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/ElNino/El_Nino-1_Panorama.html
http://mx5-twins.de/Panorama/Segel2/Konzertsegel2.html
a complete VR tour around some of the working areas of my working place (replace the TRW logo by the ZF Logo :) ):
http://mx5-twins.de/round tour RIZ/tour.html
and another VR tour around and in a manor house I have access to, because an old ancestor of mine bought this building in 1850:
http://mx5-twins.de/Klingenstein/tour_reg.html

Have fun

Frank

Thank you!!
Very interesting....may I ask what is likely a silly question. What is the "Nadir" shot?

New term to me.

Thanks in advance!!

C
 
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cayenne

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Mar 28, 2012
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Nadir ist the oppsite to Zenith. So you are taking a Photo of the Grund where otherweise the tripod would bei vissible.


Interesting, I'll have to look that up.

I'd not thought of that with doing a DSLR for 360....as that I"d seen the dedicated 360 cameras all have some sort of tripod/holder auto delete, and It hasn't crossed my mind I'd need to do that manually.

So, for everything else, you shot on tripod, but I"m guessing for this Nadir, you take off the tripod and manually just shoot towards the ground where the tripod was?

Thanks!!

C
 
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Jethro

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Jul 14, 2018
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So, for everything else, you shot on tripod, but I"m guessing for this Nadir, you take off the tripod and manually just shoot towards the ground where the tripod was?

Thanks!!

C
On some tripods, you can 'reverse' fix the camera pointing underneath - I've never had cause to do it with my Manfroto, but this would be an example of when you might want to!
 
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Deleted member 378664

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Interesting, I'll have to look that up.

I'd not thought of that with doing a DSLR for 360....as that I"d seen the dedicated 360 cameras all have some sort of tripod/holder auto delete, and It hasn't crossed my mind I'd need to do that manually.

So, for everything else, you shot on tripod, but I"m guessing for this Nadir, you take off the tripod and manually just shoot towards the ground where the tripod was?

Thanks!!

C
Most of the time I'm using a tripod as it is useful to do bracketed HDR shots (you will allways have a great dynamic in the shots as you are photographing in all 4 directions). For the Nadirshot I place my tripod outside of the tripod footprint of the first 4 shots and shoot the Nadir sideways (it is a bit tricky to stitch this shot with PTGUI and is only possible with flat surfaces, some easy to retouche marks placed on the floor will help with stitching). Mind the shadow that the tripod will produce and place it in such direction that there won't be a shadow on the Nadir area.
If you are not too much experienced with stitching of panormic shots including the Nadir, one can also paint a black circle or place a mirrorball with Photoshop instead of the Nadir. Sometimes the ground with the visible tripod is also easily to be repaired within Photoshop like graveled floor or gras as it can be retouched by stamping and cloning neigboured Pixels.

Sometimes a handhold shot from the floor can be done (when there is no need for HDR bracketing)

Frank
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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I can't recall the details of how I did this. It is my house and yard as seen from my deck and shown as my own little world. I think it involved stitching a panorama and turning it upside down and doing a rectangular-to-polar conversion. Most of you guys will know the technique better than I can recall.

But what I mainly don't recall is how I photographed the deck itself without showing a tripod or my own feet. I find the pattern created rather interesting. As suggested above, I could have cloned planks from the rest of the deck to make it look more natural.
deck3.gif
 
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I can't recall the details of how I did this. It is my house and yard as seen from my deck and shown as my own little world. I think it involved stitching a panorama and turning it upside down and doing a rectangular-to-polar conversion. Most of you guys will know the technique better than I can recall.

But what I mainly don't recall is how I photographed the deck itself without showing a tripod or my own feet. I find the pattern created rather interesting. As suggested above, I could have cloned planks from the rest of the deck to make it look more natural.
View attachment 186591
You cropped the tripod/feet out before doing the polar transformation. :)

Making images like this is fun time-to-time, but I find I usually have to manually stitch at least some of the panos because the auto fails especially when there are objects close to the camera.
 
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cayenne

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Mar 28, 2012
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You cropped the tripod/feet out before doing the polar transformation. :)

Making images like this is fun time-to-time, but I find I usually have to manually stitch at least some of the panos because the auto fails especially when there are objects close to the camera.


I"m guessing that is due to parallax?

I've just bought the RRS pano gear...waiting on a backordered nodal slider....but I"m hoping with these, I can get the 'nodal' point set for the camera and then on my panos avoid that parallax and make stitching easier.

At least, that's what I read and what YouTube tells me....
;)

C
 
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Deleted member 378664

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Your hope is completely correct. Having adjusted the Nodal point correct is essential for any easy stitching afterwars, especially with wide angel or fisheye lenses, as for the most time with such focal length one will have near and far objects in the frame that need to have the same overlap (foreground to background) on the right side of one frame and on the left side of the right adjacent frame. Otherwise you will get ghost effects.

Frank
 
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