Panorama Photography Forums 360 Rage

[Bert]

Yesterday I go the Nikon 10.5mm, and I tested it on my Canon EOS 350D, with an Elefoto Nikon > EOS adapter.

The Nikon 10.5 is supposed to be one of the "great" fish-eye lenses, and definately the top of its class, and according to me, Canon should really take note of all the people using this Nikon lens on Canon cameras....

The idea is ofcourse to "shave it" and use it on the Canon 5D, but for now, a little test on the 350D.

Since the Nikon is made for 1.5 sensor size Nikon Cameras, the field of view is a bit smaller when used on a 1.6 sensor type Canon camera.

You will specially notice this in the larger "nadir hole" the Nikon makes when used on the 350D. Its larger then when using a full-frame fish eye on a EOS 5D, or an 8mm fish eye on the 350D.

To overcome this, you can point the lens a bit down, say 10 degrees. This gives an acceptable "nadir hole", but then there is (even) less overlap between the zenith and de rest of the shots. No problems when there is enough detail, but may cause some problems if there is not....

I ordered a Elefoto adapter, and it *seems* that this adapter is not totally perfect. It looks like infinity focus is ok, but focus (and CA) is unevenly spread over the picure. I didn't see this on the 5D, so it may be something specific for my 350D and this adapter...

I squeezed in some paper to set the diafragm a bit closer, I guess it must have been around F8.

If look at the Panoramas, (maxiumum size about 10.050 pixels) I think that the quality is about as good, or maybe even a bit better, then my Sigma 15mm with EOS 5D combination... even when resized to 7000px, my "usual" size for generating tifs to convert to Quicktime panoramas.

I use the 360Precision Panorama Head, and unfortunately this head cannot simply be changed to make shots tilted 10 degrees down, or else I may consider to use to 350D and the Nikon as my permanent pano set-up. Afterall the images are much smaller, and therefore the stitching process is much faster....

As for as I can see, the No Parralax Point (Nodal Point) of my Sigmas and the Nikon is close enough to use the Nikon on my existing 360Precision for the 350D.

Panos were now shot with a Nodal Ninja (v2) on a Manfrotto 300n.

I have made some samples (forgive me the stitching errors):

This is the pano, stitched at 7000x3500 px and converted to Quicktime with Pano2QTVR, at 45% jpeg compression.

http://www.360rage.com/nikon-fish-eye-eos-350-d.php (1976kb) (Pitch -10 degrees)

You can download the (jpg, quality 8 with Adobe Raw) shots here (Pitch -10 degrees):

http://www.360rage.com/forumpics/350D-Nikon-jpg.zip (7029kb)

To see the EOS and Nikon lens at 0 degree pitch:

http://www.360rage.com/view-panorama.php?p=29 (300kb)

Pano was shot with a Nodal Ninja (v2) on a Manfrotto 300n.

[mhc1]

Hi Bert,
thank you for the 10.5 image-set.
They realy helped a lot !
If anyone is interested:
http://www.360precision.com/360/360.cfm
Has also some Nikkor 10.5 images to play around.

I searched a lot of time - but finally John gave me the link.
360 is made with a Nikon D200 -> needs Smartblend 1.2.2 an a
smarter machine if not downsizing the images.

These and yours gave me a pretty good idea to create a workflow for the 10.5 (not to forget Johns patient with me).

So god luck with your website and this forum.