Who cares about getting a pano head?

[gstark]

Less than US$400, and works with your phd!

http://gigapansystems.com/system-page.html

Apparently, this image of President Obama's inauguration was made with it, using 220 images made on a Canon G10.

Colour me impressed.

[wendellt]

i saw that amazing inauguration image

just wondering why this device would be made for point and shoot cameras
instead of a dslr

[gstark]

Good question, Wendell.

My guess is that there are a couple of basic reasons for this.

The UI on a PHD is pretty simple, so they're easier cameras to interface with from a mechanical point of view. Most cameras of this sort, for instance, have their shutter release simply mounted upon the top of the camera, which is just a rectangular box.

By way of contrast, SLRs are complex in shape, with an angled shutter release hanging somewhere off the front/top surface of the body. You'd need to interface through the use of a remote control connection, which is not difficult, but certainly more complex.

More importantly, these cameras are also fairly lightweight units, and I suspect that, with the pano unit being driven by a handful of AAs, this might also be a factor.

[wendellt]

sounds logical to me

although could say if you had a hasselblad xpan it woudl suit this purpose better less photos

and are saying that this pano head controls the camera, focus and shutter release as well i thought it just handles the movement and inciments needed for making a gigapan

it is an amazing technology one gets blushes when thinking of its practical applications

[gstark]

Focus would be handled by the camera, although I might be inclined to say that the use of a camera in MF mode might produce better results than one in AF mode.

The head movements and the shutter release would be handled by this device. I would expect that head movements include both pan and vertical movements.

I'm not sure that the Hassy would give you less images. The key to that equation would be the field of view presented by the camera, and given that for any camera, a "normal" FoV is always expressed in terms of the FoV that our eyes present to us. Thus a 50mm lens is considered norm for a 35mm camera, 80m for a 6x6, and so on.

PHD cameras have smaller sensors and shorter lenses, but most things relating to the FoV are still expressed as in terms of a comparison with a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera, and thus by reference, with the human eye.

Thus, while the Hassy should present individual images of far greater quality and resolution, the underlying fields of view should be similar, and thus the number of images needed should also be somewhat similar.

[Matt. K]

A very impressive image...and 1 that I suspect will make him a lot of money if he promotes it correctly. Now folks....your challenge is to find Al Gore in the picture. It ain't too hard.

[shakey]

A very impressive image...and 1 that I suspect will make him a lot of money if he promotes it correctly. Now folks....your challenge is to find Al Gore in the picture. It ain't too hard.

Here he is...Oops sorry... that's one of the other visitors from Planet Xeon



Info...This image is a very small crop from the original image by David Bergman. The copyright is his. This image is posted for education purposes only. I'm trying to educate all you people that aliens were present at the inauguration and we should be worried....very worried. I've heard theat several people are still unaccounted for.

Actually I immediately thought of "Where's Wally" when I saw the original panoramic image.

[Matt. K]

Bloody aliens! I thought we finished them off but this one obviously slipped the noose.

[Big V]

Impressive result and from the sport shooter website it says they are in the process of making a dslr version...

[Ben.bb]

Have you seen the 4 armed sound guy?
We were laughing so hard at it, at work and wishing that we all had 4 arms!
The only problem with the gigapan system is that it doesnt adjust for the nodial point so your stitches come out very wrong.
That is why am building my own robotic pano head much chepper, more accurate and more controll over everything plus i can use my 40d (or any DSLR) with any lens on it and adjust for it perfectly. For fast repeatable accurate stiches every time.