Panorama problems...

[AeroJ]

Was out with the H doing some 18 shot panoramas yesterday in an effort to find out why some work and some don't at the stitching stage...

I've done about 20 of these so far, and all have completed without issue until one attempt yesterday, where the camera just stopped at shot 9 / 18 and wouldn't do anything else other than remain at the angle it was when it took shot 8. If re-pressing the 'take photo' button changed anything I am not sure, but the screen continued to say it was taking shot 9 for almost 2 minutes ! It was as I tried to land that the camera just went back to front view, and in the following flights, panoramas were working properly again.

Anyone else had that, or know what might have happened ?

As for the stitching problems, I notice so far that they tend to go wrong when there are markings on the ground, such as in the case of this sports ground I visited yesterday. Look at the tennis courts, which have all gone very wonky. I am also learning that lens flare is very much a ruiner of these kind of shots, so will be doing future ones on more overcast days...

http://aerocam.org.uk/panoramas/09-petersfield-rec-155-ft/app-files/

Thanks guys

 

[dondec]

Was there a bit of wind? I shoot a lot of panos and experienced something like what you described, thou not as severe. It hung on one of the 18, my H in GPS mode. I looked up and saw it wobbling up there in the wind and self correcting to its GPS location. Finally it took the shot and completed the series. I assumed it was trying to stabilize the image before committing.

- Don

 

[dondec]

RE: Stitching
PTGUI is probably the best pano stitcher because you can find which markers are not overlapping (40 pixels off say) and either remove them, replace them or add more. Its time consuming but generally you can get street level lines and all buildings to line up. Then again, it might take you 40 min to get to that stage. Don't expect an automatic solutions... PTGUI, at least the version I've got, is more like a laboratory where you fiddle till the pixel errors are minimal.

- Don

 

[rdonson]

Re: Stitching

PTGUI is amazing but it requires some investment in learning to use it and getting the most out of it.

If you have Adobe PS and or Lightroom the pano routines in the most recent versions are highly automated and generally provide good results although if you're picky PTGUI is the way to go.

 

[AeroJ]

Was there a bit of wind? I shoot a lot of panos and experienced something like what you described, thou not as severe.

Thanks for the reply. There was a bit of wind ! And even more the next day, where it hung again, but by then I had read your reply so just waited, and sure enough it continued eventually !

But then it did something even weirder - on the next panorama it took 18 shots in the same fixed place, and the camera didn't rotate at all ! But that has been a 1-off so far, and several panoramas since then have worked totally fine, and stitched OK as well.

PTGUI is probably the best pano stitcher because you can find which markers are not overlapping (40 pixels off say) and either remove them, replace them or add more.

Ah - that is one I haven't tried yet, so thanks for the tip. I don't mind a putting a bit of effort in to get a decent result

 

[dondec]

BTW, while we're talking Panos… I presume you know how to upload your 360s to FB and view them there. But I struggled to find a PC program to display & view them.

FSPViewer64 was the answer. It displays 360s just like FB's augmented reality viewer. With a decently stitched Pano you can take a screen shot of your pano at any angle. I have 1920x1080 display so screen shots end up that size. PC only though

- Don

 

[AeroJ]

Thanks for the tips. I'm not a facebook user, so not too worried about that.

At the moment I use MS ICE or Photo-stitcher to assemble them (between those 2 I can successfully auto-process about 90% of the panoramas the H produces). Then I do Photoshop to grade them / expand canvas to 2:1 and complete the sky, and Marzipano online tool to convert them to interactive 360's that work in a browser. The reason I don't like the auto-stitchers is that if they fail there is nothing I can tweak to change anything and try again, so I'll definitely try PTGUI next.

The results I get, like the one below are 'OK', but I am looking for ways to make them better. Most of these auto-stitch results give me problems at the horizon which are quite difficult to solve with the clone tool in my ancient copy of PS CS3.

Here's one from the other day, where you can see my fairly lamentable attempts to fix that issue

Lammas Lands, Godalming, Surrey, UK

 

[dondec]

Hehe... what's really interesting in your post was you've found a way to show the full 360 here on this forum. I wasn't aware that could be done. What's the secret ? Lol

- Don

 

[AeroJ]

Hehe... what's really interesting in your post was you've found a way to show the full 360 here on this forum. I wasn't aware that could be done. What's the secret ? Lol

- Don

Have I ?!! I only see the link ! (Chrome, Win 7). What are you viewing on / in ?

 

[dondec]

Sorry, I did click your link. But I wasn't aware you could link to 360s in a full panorama viewer like that.

Don

 

[AeroJ]

Ah OK, I'm with you. Yes that Marzipano tool is properly amazing Just gives you all the files in a zip you can (unzip and) upload straight to your web server.
Index and Data javascript files let you easily adjust titles, rotation speed, initial view / zoom level etc.

 

[dondec]

Since we're talking technique now, let me tell you, I shoot 3 panos from the same location at different exposures, then stitch the best photos from all 3 sets into the final. Usually the sun burns out the sky, so shorter exposure there, for the 2 ground shots, seems like I need the longer exposures. Anyway, seems to work a lot better than... what you get is what you get.

- Don

 

[AeroJ]

Since we're talking technique now, let me tell you, I shoot 3 panos from the same location at different exposures, then stitch the best photos from all 3 sets into the final. Usually the sun burns out the sky, so shorter exposure there, for the 2 ground shots, seems like I need the longer exposures. Anyway, seems to work a lot better than... what you get is what you get.

Awesome ! I thought I was the only one to have tried that ! I did a post about it a couple of months back (I only did 2 different exposures though, and my test failed because the darker of the 2 wouldn't stitch properly). Very encouraging to hear you have got this working - I will try again !

If anyone's bored on a Sunday afternoon, here's a whole page of (slightly ropey) Panoramas !!

ALL the Panoramas.

 

[thoneter]

To the issue of stalled pans, I usually hit the picture button and start again to avoid the wait and to make sure you don't get goofy pans. I like others have speculated agree that the bird got confused with either GPS data or it drifted or it thinks it drifted.

I'm into the 360's so I do alot of them. They stall on me also and like I said I just start over. What drives me up a wall is the auto exposure when it hits the sun and then it goes into the dark cave mode when shooting the ground shots. I used to do a WB b4 taking off but gave up because even after locking the WB it readjusts for me everytime. My method is to hit the pic button and if the WB goes wacky I just hit the pic button and it readjusts.

I'm to cheap to buy Ptgui so I've learned to adjust to ICE. I copy the sky and a good portion of the land and invert in PS so that I get a small planet at the top. I like this as it makes me feel cool about having a sort of easter egg at the top of the 360. Others have complained about how stupid it looks but I find it more interesting than the funky distorted redundant sky at the top.

To each their own! Here's one with a good small planet Project Title , Flocked and here's more if your bored Index of /Pans

I'd love to have the 520- or H+ to do 360's but Steve wont give me his. Can someone make him give me his. You know the rich people have to much $ and need to give it to us poor victims!

 

[AeroJ]

Aww man - that snow one you did is AWESOME !

I'm surprised you use auto exposure - I thought it was better to lock that up in manual before starting the panorama ?

 

[thoneter]

Aww man - that snow one you did is AWESOME !

I'm surprised you use auto exposure - I thought it was better to lock that up in manual before starting the panorama ?

I have 2 480's and they do the same thing with both and I have 3 st16's. What I've noticed is that it doesn't really matter if I lock the WB. The 480's decide to do their own thing so I no longer do the lock thing. I start just off axis of where the sun is and if it does the white elephant thing in a blizzard (white blown out) thing then I hit the pic button and start over.

The Marzipano tool is awesome. By far better than crapbook.

 

[AeroJ]

That's interesting, because I'm sure mine does respond to manual exposure, which is how I am able to shoot one panorama exposed for the sky, and then another in place exposed for the ground. So what's going on there then ?!

 

[thoneter]

One of the problems for sure is that if you switch to video and then back the lock doesn't hold. The other from what other fliers tell me is that Yuneec didn't fix this issue with the updates. I got frustrated doing a WB on the ground and then locking and doing 360's so I find it easier to do the pic button twice if needed.

I've been on drugs before so you see if the lock stays for you in different scenarios. Maybe the Euro firmware got it done correctly. The Europeans are ahead of us mainlanders in regards to FW, hardware etcetera.

 

[AeroJ]

One of the problems for sure is that if you switch to video and then back the lock doesn't hold.

Ah yes, I noticed that if you stop video and then change to photo mode before doing the panorama. But if you stop video, then just hit the photo button without changing modes, then I find the manual exposure settings stick ! White balance doesn't however, for some mystery reason.

 

[thoneter]

That's interesting, because I'm sure mine does respond to manual exposure, which is how I am able to shoot one panorama exposed for the sky, and then another in place exposed for the ground. So what's going on there then ?!

The Yuneec cgo3 is an inferior camera in every way shape and form. No aperture control, the WB is flaky and it's a glorified Sony security camera. The Yuneec thingy that spinds the camera is awesome. In my opinion Yuneec got that right and it does that better than DJI.

I just do what works and get bye.