What is a good lens for indoor panographic shots?

Craig_Johnson

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I've got a Nikon D810 camera and am using PTGui for creating panographic shots. My goal is to move into Real estate photography and create those dollhouse dioramas using MarziPano (or something).
I bought a panographic head and a used heavy duty professional tripod. I started with a fixed focal length 8mm fisheye lens, but even with 6 shots around the circle and one up and down, the images are very grainy. I figured out how to get my 18-35mm lens working in portrait mode on the setup, but it's heavy and just isn't wide angle enough. Much better detail in the images though. Now I'm looking at some fixed focal length 12 and 14mm lenses, but not sure dropping $300+ is going to do what I want. I definitely don't want another fisheye, but I need one wide enough to overlap well in portrait mode with 6 shots. I can do 8, but that seems like a lot more work. 4 would be great, but I'll settle for 6. I want my panograph to be able to look at the ceiling and the floor without having any black holes there. Has anyone got any experience with interior panographs? I found a flash was very necessary already. These 12 & 14mm lenses have over 100 degree wide angle, but they don't tell me the vertical angle, which would need to be over 60 degrees. I'm guessing either the 12 or 14 would work, but it's a $300+ guess at this point. Any suggestions?
 
I've got a Nikon D810 camera and am using PTGui for creating panographic shots. My goal is to move into Real estate photography and create those dollhouse dioramas using MarziPano (or something).
I bought a panographic head and a used heavy duty professional tripod. I started with a fixed focal length 8mm fisheye lens, but even with 6 shots around the circle and one up and down, the images are very grainy. I figured out how to get my 18-35mm lens working in portrait mode on the setup, but it's heavy and just isn't wide angle enough. Much better detail in the images though. Now I'm looking at some fixed focal length 12 and 14mm lenses, but not sure dropping $300+ is going to do what I want. I definitely don't want another fisheye, but I need one wide enough to overlap well in portrait mode with 6 shots. I can do 8, but that seems like a lot more work. 4 would be great, but I'll settle for 6. I want my panograph to be able to look at the ceiling and the floor without having any black holes there. Has anyone got any experience with interior panographs? I found a flash was very necessary already. These 12 & 14mm lenses have over 100 degree wide angle, but they don't tell me the vertical angle, which would need to be over 60 degrees. I'm guessing either the 12 or 14 would work, but it's a $300+ guess at this point. Any suggestions?
I guess I'll have to reply to myself, since there doesn't even seem to be manufacturer data on the vertical angle of 14mm lens. So the Nikon D810 is a full frame DLSR, and full frame has a chip with a 2/3 ratio. Since the lens is round it should have the same angle in all directions, it's the chip that determines the angles. So with 115.7 degree in the horizontal axis, the vertical should be 2/3 of that, meaning that any lens over 90 degree should do the job. The more overlap the better for the panoramic software. I'm not finding a 12mm lens with much better numbers and did run across a used lens for $129, so I will likely go that route.
 
Here, have a look at some of this. I'm a Canon user so have no knowledge of these lenses but it's a start.

 
Here, have a look at some of this. I'm a Canon user so have no knowledge of these lenses but it's a start.


Thanks! Nice video, but not panoramic specific. For general interior photos I found my 18-35mm to work best, but it is a heavy lens and has a 3.5 f-stop. The video has several in that range as recommendations. The 50mm they show are nice with real low f-stops but I find the NIKKOR lenses to be unaffordable, usually 2-3x more than an off brand or used lens.

For the panoramic photos every thing is fixed and I can switch to manual mode so the autofocus is not much use. I think I'll drop the $129 for the 14mm used lens and see if it will do what I want. The goal is for the software to stitch the images together with as little user input as possible - the time saving is worth it. I finally did get a decent panoramic photo using my 18-35, but it took about 30 photos to get them overlapped enough.
 
Lens are circular therefore the angle of view is the same in all directions.

The body crops it off more in vertical, unless you shoot a square format body.

To my knowledge there is no such thing as a panoramic lens, old film cameras used to be made for that purpose. They used a vertical slit shutter while the camera rotated. Digital cameras rely on software.

Fish eye lens won’t be good for pano as you have discovered.

Try an 18 or 24mm med wide, or software that will make a single image from a short video made while panning. That’s what phone cameras do when they shoot in pano mode.
 
Is there such a thing?
Apparently not, but there should be. Matterport has a panoramic camera system and tripod that the realtor just puts in position and presses a button and it takes 4 shots and they produce a panorama from it. I'm sure it uses a flash. I think this system was $1500 'used' pre-covid, but you are locked in to using their software, and webservice for additional bucks on monthly subscription. Matterport is technically my competition in this project. I want to see if I can do better for less. I picked up a DJI Phantom 4 Pro v2.0 Drone and a backup Phantom 3 (since I crashed it on the first flight), and two Dell PowerEdge R730xd Servers that I can co-locate at my local ISP - I'll put Windows server on one and Linux on the other. I'm hoping this can turn into a nice retirement job.
 
Lens are circular therefore the angle of view is the same in all directions.

The body crops it off more in vertical, unless you shoot a square format body.

To my knowledge there is no such thing as a panoramic lens, old film cameras used to be made for that purpose. They used a vertical slit shutter while the camera rotated. Digital cameras rely on software.

Fish eye lens won’t be good for pano as you have discovered.

Try an 18 or 24mm med wide, or software that will make a single image from a short video made while panning. That’s what phone cameras do when they shoot in pano mode.
Like I said, I did get the pano software to produce a good image with the 18mm lens, but it took almost 30 photos to do the job. I'm going to order the 14mm lens today and see how it works - it's between 8 and 18 so it has to be an improvement. Since there are no 13mm lenses, and I should get slightly less distortion from the higher number, I'll try the 14mm.
 
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I use the Nikon 14~24mm and PTGui.
Nice to see I'm on the right track. I'm going to stick to a fixed focal length lens for this. That way I can set it up once and just leave the settings. The lens will be shorter than a variable and probably lighter too. Less is more sometimes.
 
Lens are circular therefore the angle of view is the same in all directions.

The body crops it off more in vertical, unless you shoot a square format body.

To my knowledge there is no such thing as a panoramic lens, old film cameras used to be made for that purpose. They used a vertical slit shutter while the camera rotated. Digital cameras rely on software.

Fish eye lens won’t be good for pano as you have discovered.

Try an 18 or 24mm med wide, or software that will make a single image from a short video made while panning. That’s what phone cameras do when they shoot in pano mode.
I know the Nikon D810 can do video, but I'm afraid of it. Old dog, new trick.
 
Some people believe there are lenses designed specifically and solely for landscape, sports, portraiture, pets, crime scenes, street scenes, birthday parties, weddings, proms, etc.
 
Some people believe there are lenses designed specifically and solely for landscape, sports, portraiture, pets, crime scenes, street scenes, birthday parties, weddings, proms, etc.
Yeah, they are thinking of mechanics wrenches. A 10mm wrench can be used on a lot of things these days, not just Japanese cars. I just need the right tool for the job, I'm hoping it's a 14mm.
 
I tend to shoot my panos with a 50mm, then stitch them together in Lightroom. I overlap about 25% on each side. Inside I’d probably try a 24 or 20.
 
I was checking out a Matterport doll house 3d tour yesterday and their shots have a hexagonal blank spot at the top and bottom, meaning that their system takes 6 shots for each panorama. I'm guessing they use a 12mm lens. If you have 12-16 panorama shots in a house for a real-estate listing then there is no way I'm going to take more than 8, its just too time consuming both in the taking of the photos and working with the software. I'll check out Lightroom and see if I like it better than PTGui. I haven't dropped any $$$ on the software yet, so thanks for giving me another option.
 

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