360 Panoramic question

[diverb32]

I currently do a lot of real estate photo/video and wanted to add virtual tours to my list of services so I have been researching panoramic heads. I currently shoot stills with a 7D and was planning on using either my 10-17mm fisheye or 2.8 14mm. I also shoot a lot of motocross events and would like to shoot some panoramics of them so my question is, If I buy and cheaper Panoramic head and a 5.6mm 185degree fish eye so that I can shoot motocross events(and only have to take two or three shots) Will the quality be greatly reduced for the Real estate panoramics using the 5.6 rather then if I bought a more expensive head and used the 14mm (requiring about 18 shots)?

 

[480sparky]

FWIW, I used a Nikkor 10-24 @ 10mm, and a normal head on a tripod, for this shot:

I sometimes shoot a pano either hand-held, or on top of a 20' painter's pole, with no issues:

 

[diverb32]

Sorry should of added that I wanted to do spherical panoramas

 

[Garbz]

Wait what? Why do you need a fisheye to shoot spheical panoramas? In fact you probably don't want one to shoot these types of panoramas. ... Or am I missing something...

 

[diverb32]

I want to use the fisheye so that I can shoot Spherical panoramics in places where people and things are moving.

 

[diverb32]

Stiching 16 photos (if shot with 14mm) is a lot diffrent then stiching 2 photos (if shot with fisheye) when there are people and things moving around.

 

[480sparky]

Stiching 16 photos (if shot with 14mm) is a lot diffrent then stiching 2 photos (if shot with fisheye) when there are people and things moving around.

Stitching two shots taken with a highly-distorted fisheye won't be a cakewalk either.

 

[Garbz]

Yeah I figure the edge distortion would be a killer for panoramas.

 

[Dp-PARIS]

I shoot a lot of panos (an example (cheap) tour of a Paris bar here). I have been using a 14mm, but like you, it means I have to stitch a lot of photos. I hope to try with my new 8-15 fisheye this weekend, mainly so that I can offer very cheap and quick tours. It does mean the resolution will be lower, however, if a client wants higher resolution they need to pay more for the time it takes.

Regarding head, I use an adjuste head from 360 precision. They are expensive, but the quality of the head is very good and it is easy to set up and pretty much lock it for your camera/lens combo.

For stitching I use either PTGUI or Autopano pro, creating the tours with KRPANO as it is very flexible.

The software is getting so good at stitching now, perhaps a pano head is no longer required. I have taken a few handheld 360 panos when out in Paris. They seemed to work ok, but for a 360/180 I think handheld or with a standard tripod will be more difficult and you defnitely increase the risk of stitching errors, meaning more processing time for you to correct the errors.