Stitching HDR panos with PTGui

[venchka]

I was going to suggest my $10 solution until you mentioned that you use a MacBook. My software is Windows based.
Workflow:
Canon Raw OR TIFF files from scanner
Lightroom processing
LR/Enfuse exposure and focus stacking
TIFF output
Microsoft ICE stitching & TIFF output
Back to Lightroom for final tweaking

For pure HDR processing, OLONEO Photo Engine worked nicely when I had the early beta/test version. I haven't purchased the commercial product.

Wayne

[Peter De Smidt]

Well I have a Gigapan unit but it sits at home most of the time. Way to bulky to fool with. And all of the other gizmos seem to be expensive too. The RRS pano systems to be very nice but way too expensive. I've tried a friend's RRS pano rig and it too adds bulk and e$pen$e I prefer not to have.

Sorry that I wasn't clearer. I meant that it's not hard to make one. A Nodal slide is super easy to make and not very bulky. A 3d head is also easy to make, but they're quite bulky. Results without pivoting on the entrance pupil of the lens can be very good if there's nothing close to the camera, but if something is close, proper pivoting really helps the results.

[Greg Miller]

I don;t worry about the nodal point very often because pivoting with something very close to the camera mean that "thing" will look very weird anyway. When I do care about the nodal point I just use this plate which allows me to vary the position of the camera very easily.

[Paul H]

Autopano Pro handles this quite nicely too, and is a bit cheaper. You can shoot (auto or manual) bracketed exposures, then just point APP at the directory. It will take care of blending and stitching.

IIRC, you can also do the same with Hugin - it requires a little more effort, but the output is similar. Best of all it is free.

[Bill L.]

Thanks for suggestions.

Another issue is that the final pano was an 8-bit jpeg (starting with RAW HDR shots), but perhaps this was because of the limitation of the trial version of PTGui.


Sandy

The full version lets you output 16-bit PSD files. I used to use photomerge, but I've found PTGUI much more flexible and less problematic about distortion for more troublesome images.

Cheers,
Bill

[jb7]

The Pro version of PTGui includes a masking function, which is particularly useful, and worth the upgrade in itself, in my opinion.

I find the Exposure Fusion function to be more predictable, and give more realistic looking output, than the True HDR, which I've never really liked...
Exposure Fusion has more basic tone mapping controls, compared to some of the more esoteric HDR versions, and doesn't challenge you to have to search for the least cartoon-like result.

[sanking]

I have a simple contraption to deal with nodal point. However, doing a HDR bracketed pano shot with PTGui takes a lot of processing time.


Sandy