Hi Ryan

I have - untill recently - used a 8700 and fc-e9 and all the panoramas you see at my web page www.wideeyes.dk have been made with this setup including these 2:

http://www.wideeyes.dk/tours/fullscreen/poolsilkeborg.html 

http://www.wideeyes.dk/temp/politikken/folketinget.swf

It is possible to produce fairly good panoramas with my set up, and it should also be possible with your current set up.

I am no expert in this area, but I think that you should focus on improving your skills before buying new equipment. From what I read - with your problems with dark and bright areas and blown out windows - it will not improve very much by investing in new equipment.

It is hard to help you improve when we can't see any of your examples and when we do not know much about your workflow.

When you bracket - how many shots do you take? It sounds like you only take a few. Personally I often take 8-10 bracketed shots with 6 underexposed and 3 overexposed - all depending on the light in the rooms. I then combine the images in photomatix and finally stitch.

Hope this helps.

Hi Mungojeerie

I always use manual mode. My workflow on a location is more or less like this:

1) I walk around the room to determine the best place to set up the equipment.

2) I measure the light all way around (with the camera) to determine the best average setting. I also set the white balance and ISO.

3) I choose the brightest area and take a couple test shots to identify the fastest shutterspeed I'll be using.

4) I start shooting the same no. of pictures all way around.

5) I go home, run the images through photomatix and stitch. I open the final panorama in PS and adjust the levels, curves, color balance and saturation. 

I almost always use ISO 50 as a higher ISO setting produce a lot of noice with my set up. I always use manual mode, I set the white balance accordingly to the situation (you can always take a couple of test shots to determine the right setting)

I set the camera to fish eye.

I have upgraded my equipment to a canon 5D and sigma 8mm. The colors and sharpness have improved greatly in my panoramas.

You can see a fullscreen picture with my new set up here:

http://www.wideeyes.dk/tours/fullscreen/comwell_reception/comwell_reception.swf

And you can see a whole tour made with this set up here:

http://www.wideeyes.dk/tours/fullscreen/park/park.html 

Best regards

Morten

Hi Ryan

Congratulation with the progress. It feels good when you improve your skills right?? I float on a white sky every time I figure out how to improve my images or my workflow.

You should keep you fstop at 8 to get the best DOF. You then just compensate by using longer shutterspeeds. i even go as high as 8 seconds. It is no problem when using a tripod.

To help with the noise, I can reccomend NOise Ninja from http://www.picturecode.com/ I use it on all my pictures and it really do reduce the noise. And it is easy and fast to use.

Best regards

Morten