White Rabbit restaurant tour (Moscow)

  • Thanks for reply.

    Very beautiful place. Restaurant is located in the core of the city (Smolenskaya Station) near Arbat Street. There you can see Foreign Office, Ostankino Tower, "Moscow city" business center, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
    Average check is about 60€ without booze, but there you can taste things you'll never meet anywhere else.
    I'm considering to shoot there at night.

    I'm USM hi radius(same for all scenes in final# version), and "man from mars method" from Dan Margulis(a) ;)
    Rc1 has bigger radius and amount, and differs from scene to scene.
    I use adjust, never true hdr, because I don't like it at all.
    4 last scenes was taken a week later, same time and whether.
    In both versions there is a mask for the case ceiling with hi radius USM, but in the second version dark halos masked also where needed.
    Later noticed color differences between scenes, but it bothers only me :)

    Edited once, last by 606r (June 23, 2011 at 11:55 AM).

  • Hi,
    I prefer the first version - in my opinion it's a bit warmer and has slightly more details in shadows. Can you write what HDR/Enfuse software have you been using? I'm curious how many pictures did you have to take to have such a wide dynamic range, probably +-2Ev was not enough. Good work!

    //well, after some time I can say that the second version has more natural colours. Maybye you can mix these layers in PS with 2nd version on top and use color overlay.

  • It's 9steps. My D200 gives me from -4 to +4.
    For this case 7 or 5 steps is sufficient, but in case I prefer to shoot 9.
    I use Photomatix to merge shots with batch and only then stitch them.

    //I'll butch them all with the same settings(colors and USM)
    //I like first too, accept black halos in some places(easy replaceable)
    //And I forgot to mention my TN "workhorse" acer 2416W *cursing*

    Edited once, last by 606r (June 23, 2011 at 1:04 PM).

  • Wow, I've never done more than 3 shots -2, 0, +2 but your completed images look so much nicer around the edges of the windows.

    I guess a lot of my scenes have people in them so not really an option but I'll certainly look into finding a way to more steps with my Canon 5D MK2. It only lets me take 3 automatically *sad*

  • You can use NKRemote or anything to accomplish 9 or even more exposures.
    Edges look this way because I've masked them from hi-rad USM filter.
    After fusing there was (and is) some problems with case - black halos in some places. It's easy but time consuming to get rid of 'em - sampling right color>brushing>fading brush(~30%) - perfect solution.
    // I always feed to Photomatix all 9 exp, just in case *wink*

    Edited 2 times, last by 606r (June 23, 2011 at 9:28 PM).

  • I see. I'll check out what software is available for the multiple steps.

    That would mean attaching a laptop to the tripod though (or holding it)? Many times I'm knackered carry my current equipment around so I'd have to get one hell of a small laptop. Perhaps something just powerful enough to run the software and keep the images writing to the cameras the CF Card?

  • @andrew22222
    Try C1, C2, C3 trick. I've been using D80, D300, D700 and now 5DMK2 and Canon let's you to bracket only 3 exposures. If you have more time to take pictures, everything is steady and there's rather no people I suggest you to check "normal" +-2 EV settings and write as C1, then change exposure to -4 Ev - write as C2 and then change exposure to +4 Ev and save as C3. After that you need to take 3 pictures using C1, then 3 pictures using C2 and 3 pictures on C3. Offcourse there is a possibility to move the equipment between this changes, so you should lock your pano-head still. Some time ago I had very big problems with light in a hotel - sun was shining through the windows and there was a lot of dark places too. I took 9 pictures of each view (total 72 pictures for one panorama) and I enfused them in ImageFuser. Final efect was really good and looked naturally without any big halos.

  • Thanks for the info Globe79. I've never even used the C1,C2,C3 settings on the camera so will give it a try. I think I understand what your process is. I'm fairly clumsy though so perhaps too much of a chance of camera moving when I change the dial setting. I use a Phottix Plato remote to keep me away from the camera.

    What I have done was dig out the usb cable for the camera and install a trial run of DSLR Remote as it mentions online that you can add more stops. Certainly works as I've just done 7 *smile* Unfortunately the suns almost down here so I'll try it again tomorrow at midday.

    606r, you said that you send them through Photomatix first and then stitch after. Is it not hard for the stitcher to blend correctly if each group of 9 images have already been through tone compressor and then the merged images are stitched? I thought the idea was to take your set of images for the 360 degree view with no change in settings what so ever (apart from the speed)?

    I'm well impressed with those images you showed us though and even better that you have the down view perfected also *wink*

    I use this guys technique. Simple but works for PTGui.

    360x180° Panorama Tutorial - Pt.4: Stitching in PTGui and you can see the tripod method in Pt.3


    Andrew

  • andrew22222, adjust fuses exposures only(no HDR, no Tone mapping), and there is nothing to blend but issues with your aligning and vignetting(get rid of this in ARC).
    And if you'll try to stitch Tone mapped pictures - there will be issues, if settings are harsh.
    You should think about priority. What's more crucial for final pano? I you do one mistake in the middle of your bracketing set, Photomatix will correct this simply by shifting, but if you first stitch panoramas by exposures and then feed them to Photomatix - there will be huge issues.
    Also I set contrast and blacks to 0 in ACR, because there are many details. It's easy to increase contrast in future, using USM hi radius.
    + use aligning "by correcting shifts" and don't play with adjust blending point.
    //Dan Margulis has some outstanding classes on Kelbytraining.com - "Introduction to Photoshop LAB Color", "The LAB Frontier" and others.
    //Thanks for the link Andrew. I've tried this technique with this tutorial http://www.ptgui.com/examples/vptutorial.html with no result, the other day. I'll try it again. Nadirs are always time consuming
    //I'm considering to buy Nikon D7000 but it only can do 3 bracketing shots and I found great solution using your iPhone/iPod/iPad as a remote(but still need laptop attached) for 20 bones http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/dslr-…ote/how-to.html (also have a look to Dave Cross overview)

    Edited 3 times, last by 606r (June 24, 2011 at 7:36 PM).

  • Got excited there when you mentioned hacked software rtwo2008

    I started reading up on the magic lantern and found this below. (No use in Manual mode). Thats a shame. I'll keep following the progress though as it's nice that someone is trying to fix up a larger selection than 3 stops even if the morons at Canon don't or are not interested.


    Bracket menu


    Added by Chris Barcellos This feature is provided for still photography purposes to test several different exposure level of a scene.
    Test bracket Exposure the desired number of exposures AE Count Number of exposures in the bracket AE Step Number of camera exposure compensation steps between exposures. Each step is 1/8 EV.
    Notes Edit

    • This feature is experimental and may have problems.
    • Sequential exposures are not as fast as the cameras built-in bracketing right now.
    • Must be invoked in liveview mode
    • Camera must be in Av, Tv or P modes (not M)

    606r, many thanks for the extra info. It's really interesting and I haven't explored Photomatix in the depth you have.

    That link I added for the Nadir shot is excellent. I too tried the demo on the PTGui side and got frustrated with all the extra work. Take a look at the 3rd movie he has and it shows you how to set up the tripod for the down shot and put your foot against one of the legs. If you have a good remote you can't go wrong even with bracketing. Then Pt.4 shows you the stitching method. I use it now and have never had a problem unless it's a carpet with a really repetitive pattern on.

    Andrew

  • When I shoot the other day I didn't try to collapse tripod leg.
    I thought there should be no problems with nadir at all with this technique, regardless of the surface. Anyway I'll try this tomorrow. What's your distance for nadir shot from main?
    I've tried NKRemote - I've bind release to the middle button of my bluetooth mouse - voilà, my new remote *wink* . But mirror lock up don't work for some reason *confused* (there is an option)

  • I always put a coin down below to mark the rough centre of the tripod and where the camera was over.

    After taking the 5 around and one up at 60 degrees I turn the camera straight down and take the downshot. Obviously the base of the NN5 and tripod is in the view but that gets masked later in PTGui as shown in the movie. Then I just step back slightly, pull out one of the legs more and lean it over so it's roughly above the coin and within 1ft of the original height. It's only to replace the previously masked areas from the down shot so doesn't have to be exact. The Phottix Plato remote is great because you don't have problems firing the camera if the sensor isn't in view like the problem I used to have with the Nikon D80 and it's standard remote.

    One foot against the extended leg and shoot the 3 stops. Nearly dropped it once but I wasn't concentrating so my own fault *sleeping*

    Ignore the Ptgui website tutorial and instead follow the movie tutorial for workflow with the funky music and Irish accent and all should be good.

  • Looks great 606r! Nice photog work. I always bracket exposures, stitch all exposures as separate panos, then use photomattix for hdr/fusion between the stitched panos. Seems to work well. I always like hearing about other ppl's processes though.

    -Matt
    *thumbup*

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