I know there are some people doing high quality work here and from those that do, I'd like some help on how I can improve my shots... these had horrible lighting problems - the rooms were way dark... even with the lights on, and the window blasting light in... how do I deal with this? I'm using a Nikon 990 with an MRotatorA. Thanks for any tips. There are 10 shots in this gallery.

http://oz-homes.com/panogallery3_1.htm

Your tours are not horrible by the way.

And i liked the secret hall tour, thats a cool house.

-ARe you ussing the same settings for all the rooms?

or are you adjusting your camera and resetting the AE everytime you change rooms?

What happens is that a camera is not as advanced as the human.

It either does a good job making the outside views nice and the interior dark,

or makes the interior nice and the windows blown/bright.

I see both sceneraios in your final panos. and thats why you complain about both this issues.

Thats why is recommened to close the blinds/curtains for interioor shots but at the same time turn all the interior lights. This is perfectly acceptable and common on fast production low budget tours.

But if your doing advanced, custom, high quality tours, you might want to read on.

if you close the curtains you wont see outside. If this is a problem for you then you can take a set of pictures that capture well the outside views, then take a set a pictures that capture well the inside views and blend them away to have the best of both worlds.

Some nice felas from the forum have touched this topic in further details

http://easypano.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=1&TopicID=1118&PagePosition=1

http://easypano.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=1&TopicID=1124&PagePosition=1

Thanks for the info, and yes I agree that they are not terrible, just not great... I have a CP990 and am not sure if it supports bracketing - which looks like the solution. I''m using basically the same setting for all the rooms, and I do reset the AE for each set of shots.Thanks for the links to the related topics...  I'm sure I'll learn a thing or two!

My indoor images usually turn out too dark and I have to lighten them up a good deal in my graphics program - they look ok in the camera monitor when I take the picture, but afterwards are much darker than they looked in the monitor - I think I have the camera set to Automatic for the lighting, exposure, etc.

Hi there,

• I don't use ae lock.
• I do set my white balance so that it suits the environment (don't use auto white balance as the balance will change in each given direction.) and it's worth experimenting with a few shots in a few different environments with different white bal to see the effect.
• I have the camera set to infinity (mountains)
• I set my coolpix 4500 to M for manual
• I then adjust my aperture to as high a number as possible for max depth of view eg fe:8.0
• I am then able to change the exposure times by just a turn of a wheel between shots.
• I tend to take at least 5 (just in case something goes wrong with one  of the shots... and you don't really want to go back because one shots slightly off) shots in each direction with a couple to light and a couple to dark either side of my "base" shot which is the one most evenly exposed.
• I then input my 5 shots to Photoshop (in total 15, 3x5 each 120) and will blend in highlights... lowlights as needed and save as bmp before stiching.

To start with... this can take some time. However, after a bit of practice you'll be able to do most blending work really quickly and hugly improve your images. I have not at present tried any HDR software... however as I've now received my Sigma 8mm lens... I'll give it a go.

hi amaxis,

Please check your toolbar of the tour.

When I clicked the direction icon, the viewer did not rotate.

But when I clicked upper a litte, it would rotate.

Thanks for the tips phoenix - I have a lot of experimenting to do - I'm sure I'll work it out so the shots are at least respectable.

Observer - thanks I'll get that fixed - I never use the bar!