If it isn’t level the whole panorama will be off kilter, requiring excessive straightening and cropping in processing, or the horizon will wave up and down in the final stitch, perhaps causing parts of the scene to go missing. It can be tipped up, of course, but not tilted left-right. Or, if your camera lacks that feature, an accessory bubble level clipped into the camera’s hot shoe will work. Then to level the camera itself, I use the electronic level now in most cameras. Most cameras now have an electronic level built in that is handy for ensuring the panorama does not end up tilted. It eliminates all the fussing with trial-and-error adjustments of the length of each tripod leg. As I show above, this specialized ball head goes under the usual tripod head and makes it easy to level the main head. Though not a necessity, I find a levelling base a huge convenience. However, in most nightscapes our scene content is far enough away that parallax simply isn’t an issue. Parallax shift is certainly a concern when shooting interiors or any scenes with prominent content close to the camera. These rotate the camera around the so-called “nodal point” inside the lens, avoiding parallax shifts that can make it difficult to align and stitch adjacent frames. What you don’t need is a special, and often costly, panorama head. This allows you to move the camera at a correct and consistent angle from segment to segment. The tripod head can be either a ball head or a three-axis head, but it should have a horizontal axis marked with a degree scale. The tripod accessories here are by Acratech. An L-bracket allows the camera to rotate directly above the vertical axis, handy when shooting in portrait mode, as here with a 15mm full-frame fish-eye lens, one option for horizon-to-zenith panoramas. Here it sits on a levelling head with its own bubble level that makes it easy to level the camera. Pano GearĪ tripod head with a scale marked in degrees is essential. For Milky Way scenes you need a fast lens and a solid tripod, but any good DSLR or mirrorless camera will suffice. Nightscape panoramas don’t require any more equipment than what you likely already own for shooting the night sky. PART 1 - SHOOTING What Equipment Do You Need? What software works best depends on the number of segments in your panorama, or even on the focal length of the lens you used. Here, I’ll step through techniques for simple to more complex panoramas, dealing first with essential shooting methods, then reviewing the workflows I use for processing and stitching panoramas. My tutorial complements the much more extensive information I provide in my eBook, at right. “Panos” can be easy to shoot, but stitching them together can present challenges. See Q2.3.Panoramas featuring the arch of the Milky Way have become the icons of dark sky locations. The floating license is handled differently: the same license can be installed on many computers only the number of computers that can run PTGui concurrently is limited. Otherwise, offline activation must be repeated manually every 30 days. If an internet connection is available, this happens automatically while PTGui is running. However to prevent abuse of the deactivation facility, PTGui is required to verify the activation status at least once every 30 days. Deactivation may incur a processing time of up to 24 hours.Ī license may be deactivated and reactivated as often as needed. If you can no longer access the computer, go to your account and request us to deactivate your computer. This releases the seat and makes it available for use on another computer. If you move PTGui to a different computer, deactivate the old machine via Help - License Info - Deactivate. It can be activated on this number of computers. Assuming the permitted total number of installations is not exceeded, we will then activate your license on this particular computer.Ī personal license may be activated on 2 computers simultaneously, but only for personal use by the licensed person.Ī company license is purchased for a certain number of seats. This license key together with your computer's hardware configuration is sent to our servers. When you run PTGui for the first time on your computer it will ask you for your license key.
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