What to buy for building two panoramas apps

[giannis]

Hi all

I am now to the world of panoramas and I wonder if someone can help me with the following:

I need to create two applications that contain 19 panoramas in 360o. I asked a company to do the applications and they are asking me 3000 Euros, so I decided to do it myself. I wonder if someone can help me

1) I alwary have a sony with 5.1 Mpix (DSC-H1) and mechanical zoom. Will that be enough for full screen flash applications?

2) What lens should I buy in order to minimize the number of pics that I need to take?

3) What kind of panohead should I buy?

4) What tripod should I buy?

5) What software should i buy that will enable me to create these applications with minimal effort. Remeber that the application must allow me to add and edit hotspots on the panoramas

I am looking to spent maximum 1000 Euros. Any help will be much appreciated


Many thanks for any replies

[Tuddi]

1. You can use this camera, but you would be doing yourself a huge favor to get a better one. Check HERE (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=sony_dsch1%2Coly_e330%2Ccanon_eos1000d&show=all) to see what you can get. On the left panel you can click Buying Guide>Side-by-side and choose cameras there for comparison.

2. With a wide angle lens, or fisheye you get towards your goal, but you don't have much to do with, so you will probably have to just pick a camera that comes with a good lens.

3. A good cheap head, fitting for a project like yours (something you are only doing now and not making a carreer out of), would be the Panosaurus from www.gregwired.com which costs you 75 dollars plus freight. maybe 100 dollars in total.

4. Any generic tripod you test for stability and robustness. If it is stable enough during your initial examination of it, it's good for the job. 100 dollars should be enough for the tripod.

5. What software. That's easy.
You need www.ptgui.com at €80 for a single user license for the stitching process.
You need www.flashpanoramas.com/player at €40 for putting the panoworks together
You need www.flashificator.com at €55 for operating the Flash Panorama Player in a painless manner.

6. You need time, practice, sweat, tears and commitment to be able to do your job well.

Price:
Camera: €400
Tripod: €80
Panohead: €80
Stitching software: €80
Flash Pano Player: €40
Flashificator: €55
===================
Total cost: €735

Sweat, tears, trial and error: Lots and lots more.

Actually the price you have been offered by professionals (?) seems to be quite ok, knowing that you would get a good result in a relatively short time.

When you don't have the budget to pay for the pro work, then this is the best path you can take... in my opinion, but don't expect professional results right away.

[giannis]

OK I understand.... but what about if i will request only for the panoramic pictures from the professionals? Do you think that this will bring the cost down? I mean I can't imagine a pro asking me 3000 Euros for a number of pictures. I can learn the software that you are suggesting fast, and it is quite cheap as well.

[Tuddi]

If it was me having to do the 2x19 panoramas (as I understand your project is), it would be 38 panos in total.

In my case, I normally shoot 30 images for every pano (9+9+9+2+1), it would be 1.140 photos to shoot.

With a fisheye lens the same work could be done with 4 shots per pano, reducing the shots to 152 pictures.

There is also the time involved in going on-site and make the shots and lots of other facors.

If you would have them to shoot the pictures for you, and not do the stitching and pack the panos into a player (FFP), you might receive shots that are with errors, and who is going to fix those? If the company making the panos had to make the whole project, they would go out to shoot the photos needed again, and deliver the final project in a fully working condition, without errors.

If you buy the pictures and let's assume bracketing hadn't been used, you would have a set of unusable photos you had bought... and since you have paid for the photos and not for panos, you might have paid for something you couldn't use.... added problems.

Theoretically, you can use your current camera, but I woudn't expect good quality from the end result... but then again... with determination and time on your hands, you just might pull it off nicely.

[Jaume]

If i were you i'd pay for someone who make me the panos. 19 panos at 3000€ it's a very good price. If you decide to do the work yourselve you will waste a lot of time learning how to do it.

You can learn how to do it for the next time, to be sure that you could do the work well.