How to shoot fisheye images for creating panorama?

It is easy to shoot fisheye images for creating panorama with panorama stitching software Panoweaver. Follow the steps below, and you are able to create your own panorama with Panoweaver easily and fast.

How to stitch fisheye photos to panoramas? | How to make a virtual tour?

What equipment do I need?

In order to stitch panorama with Panoweaver, you need digital camera, fisheye lens, pano head and tripod. Most DLSR cameras are compatible, and for fisheye lens and pano heads that can be used, you can refer to Panoweaver 5.00 compatible equipments.

Fisheye lens:
A camera lens capable of capturing 180 degrees or more Field Of View (FOV), the lens has a bulbous appearance like a fish's eye that causes a barrel distortion in images taken with the lens.
Pano Head:
Pano Head is also called tripod panoramic head, or rotator. To understand the function of pano head, "nodal point" should be explained first. The nodal point is a special point in space, where light entering the lens converges into a point and then diverges to impact on the recording medium. As one rotates a camera and shoots a sequence of images to later be stitched together, all of the images must be shot with the camera rotating about its nodal point! The pano head is just used for this purpose.

How many pictures should I take?

You can take 2-8 fisheye pictures for stitching a panorama with Panoweaver. Image types supported by Panoweaver 5.00 are:

How should I shoot the images?

Before shooting your first fisheye image, please adjust your camera. Refer to Chapter of Panoweaver manual.

1. Shoot the first fisheye image
Place the point of interest in the center of the viewfinder then half press the shutter to focus.

2. Shoot the other consecutive fisheye image
To guarantee the tripod stableness, hold it with one hand. Turn the pano head gently with the other hand. Rotate appropriate degrees and take the images around 360 degree.
Note: It is suggested the images be shot clockwise, otherwise, you may have to reverse the sequence when loading images in Panoweaver.

3. Shoot top/bottom fisheye (optional)
Please shoot Top/Bottom fisheye image on the last rotation. For 4 fisheye, please rotate pano head up and down to shoot at the 4th location. For 6 fisheye, please shoot up and down at the 6th location. You should stay with the last rotation. Shooting in some other location will cause an incorrect stitching.

4. Shooting another scene
After shooting a scene, cover the fisheye lens cap. Move all the equipment to the other scene you want to shoot.
Note: Turn the “AE Lock Off” otherwise the shutter speed and aperture are locked. The shooting procedure is the same as stated above.

5. Import the images to the computer 
After Finishing, import the fisheye images to computer through DC or card reader. If the original image has much noise or are not sharp enough, it can be retouched in any image editing application such as Photoshop, Fireworks etc. 

How to stitch fisheye photos to panoramas? | How to make a virtual tour?

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How to shoot fisheye images for panoramas