Panorama Workflow

davevonfintel · Apr 6, 2017

What's an ideal way to utilize the I2 to create dynamic pano'? Do you manually take individual images as you pan the camera around (trying to include an overlap) or rotate the whole drone? Tips?

RobH2 · Jun 3, 2017

I do a lot of panos with still cameras. Generally, I overlap so that I have about 25% of the image overlapping. That reduces edge distortion. I am going to try my first pano today with my I2.

I plan to focus on say a water tower to start the sequence. Then I'll rotate around until that water tower is in the center of the right half of the frame, look to see what's in the center now and then rotate to put that spot in the center of the right half of the frame. When I way "right half of the frame" what I mean is that I draw an imaginary line in the center of the entire frame. That gives me two halves a right and a left. I then split each half in the center. Those split lines in the right and left halves are the places is use to rotate the element in the center to. Then just keep going unitl you are back at your staring point and over lap just a bit again.

I get great panos that way. I imagine it will work just as well with the I2 and my X4S.

rent · Jun 3, 2017

It would be critical to set everything to manual: focus, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance. Also don't use a polarizer.

Dr. Fibinotchi · Jun 6, 2017

We where shooting last weekend. I like doing them manually. I have done a couple with good success. My friend uses Litchi. My results from litchi has not been as good, but believe its the settings. Litchi has to be set for a good amount of overlap and if you shoot near the sun your camera with a manual setting you will have a dark photo that you will need to match up with the rest later. Otherwise Auto will account , but you may have to go into the photo anyway. Is this how others are dealing with the couple of photos that are blown out or diffrent in manual?

-Cody

rent · Jun 6, 2017

Panos with vastly different lighting in the scene are very tough. Auto anything is definitely a no because you will end up having to adjust individual segments which is pretty much impossible to get them all matched up.

HDR can work to some extent. However, X5S is limited to 5-shot auto bracketing with +/- 0.7 EV bias. This means you can over and under expose 1.5 stops in one go. It may work for some scenes, but probably not well enough if one side of your pano is all shadows and the other side is all sun.

I really wish DJI would enhance the X5S's auto bracketing feature to include 7-shot and a wider bias.

Alex

deltalimatango · Jun 7, 2017

There is an app called DronePan that is supposed to be very handy. I have it but have not used it with my I2. It is free still as far as I know.

SanCap · Jun 7, 2017

deltalimatango said:
There is an app called DronePan that is supposed to be very handy. I have it but have not used it with my I2. It is free still as far as I know.

Dronepan does not work on an I2. Their FB page says a V2 is on beta now.

SanCap · Jun 7, 2017

I would post my workflow but the original poster seems to have dissapeared and not thanked anyone for their tips as of yet.

Oyibo VFX · Jun 8, 2017

Have you tried Pano in Autopilot?

deltalimatango · Jun 8, 2017

SanCap said:
I would post my workflow but the original poster seems to have dissapeared and not thanked anyone for their tips as of yet.

Spot on SanCap... If you don't mind, some of us would be grateful and thankful to see your workflow.

Dr. Fibinotchi · Jun 8, 2017

I had a video shot near the sun last week. Sun was setting nice. As soon as I got in the light directly of the sun boom my video changed. I really worked at the editing for blending the two scenes as much as possible, but in the end there is a small flicker of a slight difference in premier. I will have to delete the middle section of this 10 second climbout and use it in two different places in the video. The same issue with pano. If there is a way to blend one photo to the next that would be really beneficial. Even if we blend a nice HDR would it have the same turnout? Would it matter little since its the average of the photo and it will still be affected if its brownout from the sun from the next bracket set that is not blown out?

THANKS.

-Cody

deltalimatango · Jun 9, 2017

Dr. Fibinotchi said:
I had a video shot near the sun last week. Sun was setting nice. As soon as I got in the light directly of the sun boom my video changed. I really worked at the editing for blending the two scenes as much as possible, but in the end there is a small flicker of a slight difference in premier. I will have to delete the middle section of this 10 second climbout and use it in two different places in the video. The same issue with pano. If there is a way to blend one photo to the next that would be really beneficial. Even if we blend a nice HDR would it have the same turnout? Would it matter little since its the average of the photo and it will still be affected if its brownout from the sun from the next bracket set that is not blown out?

THANKS.

-Cody

You use exposure blending where you take the same photo at different exposures and shutter speeds. You can try the HDR settings. I haven't used it as I am not really a fan of HDR (people tend to over do it), but I often bracket. Maybe you can try 5 brackets with 1 EV stops in between. You can then maybe use the first and last two to blend together. If you are using Lightroom, there is an option to create HDR photos native to the app.

Dr. Fibinotchi · Jun 9, 2017

Ill look into that. I actually use photo one Raw 2017 for photos and premier for video side. HDR pano for me did not get the crispness that I had on non HDR pano. Maybe some ghosting or poor alignment. More testing needed for me to get it right.

thanks.

-C