Hi all

I'm new to the forum, so I'm really sorry if this has been covered elsewhere! I use a Nikon D70, Agnos Mrotator bracket, Sigma 8mm and Panoweaver 4.00.

I've just changed from the Nikkor 10.5 as I had so many problems getting a decent "down" shot handheld I figured that the Sigma would do better and then just use a (much smaller) disc to cover the tripod. The instant I changed I've not yet been asked to create match points so I'm much happier!

I know from experience that the larger the subject the less apparent any problems, so I tried a 4+T test in a small bathroom. This is a link to the floor stitch and its got errors - on carpet this won't be a problem, but as you can see at 2pm and 8pm there are parallax problems with the straight lines in the floor. I promise the joiner did a good job, its just the 360 I need to sort out!

http://www.catscollection.co.uk/360_page.html

I'm not a massive perfectionist; I just have to do a pano next month with grey slate tiles and white grouting lines, so I thought I'd get it as right as I could first!

I'm quite willing to believe its not perfectly lined up, although I've done my very best to line it up correctly. What should I tweak to get rid of these errors?

Cheers

Andy

Hi Andy,

I can see straight away that your nodal point is off very slightly. Not back to back but side to side. That said, you are asking a lot! The errors are small and would be easily fixed in Photoshop in about 3 to 5 minutes while cloning out the tripod. If you are capping it then it even faster.

Small rooms and areas that are closed in will always show small error and they will always be to the very bottom and very top. This shot outdoors you wouldn't even find faults as your nodal point is very close to perfect.

You either live with it and learn how to use Photoshop to quickly fix the small errors or you spend a few more hours perfecting your nodal point position.

What would I do? Leave it and learn Photoshop to get this job finished and maybe have another go and repositioning at a later date.

If that is the worst stitching error you ever have you life will be easy.

Regards, Smooth

I agree 100% with Smooth.

When doing what I call "production" work  it is not necessary to have a "perfect" pano. If you are creating a piece of "art" then that is another matter. Your clients and the public are NOT going to notice such little imperfections. You and I do because we know where and how to look at a pano to find them. Most normal people will not be able to see any of these imperfections.

Even if you have the so called "perfect nodal point setting" you will still get "some" stitching errors depending on the scene you are shooting. It is beyond this topic but technically you can't actually rotate exactly on the nodal point only around it. The object is to get as close to the arc around the nodal point as possible.

When you see those "perfect" panos and go "how do they make that so clear and with no errors" it is from some skillfull photoshop work.

About the tile floors you have to shoot. HUmmm. This will be a problem near the bottom seams. But don't worry. Shoot the floor with a normal lens. Convert the pano to a cube. Either clone out the errors using the other parts of the floor or compost in the floor shot you took. This should take you all of 5 to 10 minutes.

A note about your Nikkor 10.5 -  I use this lens. True about the matching points. It gets irratating sometimes. This happens because you have 6 seams to stitch. This lens is a full frame meaning the angle of view is 180 diagonally(not vertically). The seams sometimes cross areas with no detail like across a wall with no features that meets the floor with solid carpet. PW can't find any matching features in this situation so it asks you to find some. The sigma is a circular fishey lens that is cropped. It has a verticle FOV of 180 degres(in portrait). This means PW can almost always find matching points somewhere in the frame because it is searching the frame from the top to the bottom. The seam area covers a full 180 so you are likly to have featurs on the ceiling and close to bottom that can be matched and you are matching only 4 seams vs 6 on the nikkor. This problem has nothing to do with your nodal point. This is why you can't automatically stitch a sky frame. There are no features in the sky to match with the other frames. The sigma covers the sky to to ground and can therefor stitch a sky because you are using 4 frames that have the sky in them. It is a matter of knowing "how" to shoot a scene with your particular lens.

General Lee.