Hi everybody

http://www.threesixtyimages.co.uk/wideeyes/equinox3.html

On the above link I have a couple of pictures. I was wondering if any of you would be so kind and take a look at them, and let me know what you think in regards to the quality. I would love your oppinion on ways to improve my skills.

If you feel like it I would also appreciate a few words on the skin (tried to post this topic under tourweaver but got no reponse) I know it is very basic, but it is my first and I have no prior knowledge about web page design, photo shop or anything similar.

Best regards

Morten Andersen

- a newbie trying to improve

It appears that your panoramas are color temperature on the cool side. 

You might want to consider looking at the type of lighting.  Are the lights flourescent, incandescent or natural light?  Then set your cameras white balance menu setting for the appropriate light type.

What camera and lens are you using ?

Did you shoot RAW images?  Maybe you can correct the color temperature color in Photoshop CS2  Adobe Raw Converter software.

Dave

I might not be as gentel.

You got stiching errros.

 If you look at your pool pano its very obvious.

• Where wood conects to tiles
• Tiles

For my tast the images are compressed to much. If you have exclusive pano locations, I would rather have the client wait a bit longer but get better quality.

Also you might want to explore using multiple exposure shooting.

Regards Markus

Hi everybody

@ Dave

My set up is a nikon coolpix 8700, the FC-E9 lense and Agnos Mrotator and photoshop7. I shoot my pictures in Fine Jpeg quality. Earlier I took the pictures as TIFF, but I can't really see any difference in the result, and it is much faster taking the pictures in Fine Jpeg resolution.  

You mention that the panos are color temperature on the cool side. I that due to the white balance? (just want to make sure I understand it, or else I can't change it in the future) The lightening was incandescent and natural light.

@ Markus

I also wanted to add buttons but my client did not want them.........

@ Marktold/Markus

I don't want you to be gentle. Just lay it all on me. I believe that the best way for me to improve is to ask all of you who are much more experienced, and then get all of the beating I deserve. *loll* I appreciate your comments. I know that I still have stitching erros.

I did actually take serveral exposures, and I have used photomatix on the first pano of the reception. I would love to use this technique some more, but I always end up with blurry pictures. I have just discovered a program called TheForce that lets me control the shutter from my laptop so I can awoid mooving the camera. I am though having a lot of problems getting the program and camera to work together, but hopefully I will find a solution shortly.

best regards

Morten Andersen

Does your client also prefer cool color temperature ? 

Color temperature and lighting is a technical science all by it self.  On a big photo shoot many professional photographers actually hire a lighting specialist to assure that all lighting is the same color temperature.  That means the lighting technician must change out all light fixtures to have the same lighting type, before the shoot.  They make them all incandescent OR all halogen, flourescent etc.  Then the specifications and light recommendations are given to the photographer so they can adapt the camera settings.

What can we do as small companies?  We can observe our ambient lighting conditions and make the required White Balance changes to our camera. 

MIXed lighting is the most difficult [but not impossible] to determine before we actually begin photography work.  The Gray (or white, gray, black) card is placed in the lens view - it reflects ambient light back through the camera lens and is recorded on the cameras CCD or CMOS recording chip.

For example,  we can use an 18% gray card.  A digital camera typically uses 16% to 18% gray as a baseline for determining the remaining colors.   Using an 18% gray card in your actual images will help Photoshop determine what the color Gray is.. and will automatically adjust the balance of the color spectrum.

Below find an example of an A4 (8x10") 18% gray card.  I made Gray rgb (209,209,209). I place the card in the camera lens view,  take the shots and after post processing I clone out the card.  White Balancing adjustments can be made in the camera or in photoshop. 

If you use Photoshop "Levels" you will find 3 eye droppers.  1 is for sampling the image's 'What is White'.  2nd is to tell photoshop 'what is black'  and the last is 'What is Gray'. 

So using the gray card, you are telling the camera (and photoshop) THIS IS GRAY.

As an alternative in mixed lighting conditions, you can place an A4 (8x10") piece of white printer paper on the floor,  then in the camera menu... select something called White Balance "LEARN" mode for the first shot.  The ambient mixed light is reflecting off the White paper back to your cameras CCD  and the camera now learns that THIS light is WHITE and the camera will self adjust the white balance.

I would not be too quick in assuming that it will work for you.  Try it on 2 or 3 image series and see what results you get.  If they are better OK,  if not maybe we should try a different approach.

Dave

Using the laptop software sounds cool but it is much easier to use a corded remote. You camera uses the "MC-EU1 REMOTE".

This remote is around $70 but is worth it.

Your color problem is definitly related to white balance settings. I have a coolpix 500 and D70s. On both cameras I have never been able to use the flourescent settings without "blue" problems.

As Dave states it is difficult to shoot in mixed lighting conditions. Then you have to throw in the color of the area you are shooting. If the paint and floors are a "designer" color it will be impossible for the camera or computer to properly render that exact color. All this combined will effect the end result. Computers use the RGB color table and this table has a limited number of colors that can be displayed accuratley.

You will have to experiment with your camera to see how different white balance settings effect your images. If there are any windows you will have natural lighting  to deal with. In this case if you use a incandescent or flourescent setting the natural light will turn the image blue.

You should try shooting with "cloudy" settings in situations like the lobby. Sometimes this will cause a yellow or red color cast depending on the color of the walls and floors but this can be corrected in Photoshop.

Check if your camera has a ev setting for white balance. If so you can set white balance to cloudy or whatever and then increase or decrease the ev setting. This will cause the white balance to compensate for a red or blue cast.

You should take a test shot with different settings to determine what setting you should use. The display on your camera is pretty good at displaying color casts. If your test shot is blue then try another white balance setting. You wil be surprised to find out that a crazy setting like cloudy in a flouscent setting can sometimes create the correct color or at least get close so you can fix it in photoshop.

Also as Dave state you can use a grey card to measure the white balance then save that setting in your shooting menu. You can then use this setting to shoot the scene. This means using the grey card at the scene and measuring the light at shoot time. Not at onother location.

Gen. Lee

Ok,  I made a test show to demonstrate using a white, gray and black combination card.  Look for the rock in lower left corner,  find the card.

The first image is untouched.  In photoshop I used the levels  and black eyedropper and clicked on the black section of the card.  Notice the image immediately self adjusted with the proper white balance.  I will say that the sky highlights got blown out, but with minor level adjustment that too can be recoved.  This was just a single click on the black to see the color affect change.  After achieving a satsifactory color arrangement,  I would use the clone tool and remove the card.

OH, the short stone wall in front is curved.