Author: Rainer Stein
Workshop: How to create Panoramas for AFP or Reflex XTR.
Part1: Taking pictures
Hardware needed:
- In principle each digital camera can be used (I have a 3 Megapixel and it works fine)
- A tripod is a must; otherwise you will have many problems with “stitching”
- An air-lever is also very helpful to setup the tripod.
Tips for taking pictures:
1. Go to your field and your pilot position
2. Adjust the tripod to you eye height (at least 1.5m)
3. Bring the tripod to a vertical position (with air-lever). Check for 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees.
Here you must work very accurately; otherwise you don’t need to start making photos. This might consume some time. You can do it with or without attached camera, but if you do it without you will have to calibrate the camera again.
4. For AFP I always start with the pictures to the right (90°) of flight direction.
5. Put the camera to upright format.
6. Make the following setting in the camera (if possible):
- constant exposure time
- small aperture (high “number”)
- Distance = infinity
- Zoom as less as possible, but do not use wide angle, this will result in distortions.
- Bring the camera to a horizontal position. Do not aim it downwards in any case.
The part around you feed can not be seen anyway. It is better to have some more
“sky” on the picture.
If you do not have any influence to the exposure settings use the automatic mode, but this might result in problems with colour transitions.
7. Now take about 20-30 pictures around yourself. It is not a problem if they overlap 50%. Better to have a little more overlapping than too less. On my tripod I have a scale for the degrees of rotation that is very helpful.
General:
I can recommend doing the same pictures again with a different exposure time when you have finished a complete set. Take any “starter” picture before each set, then you can easily recognize where the new set starts.
If anything moves while taking the photos (e.g. a car is moving) take care that this part has gone on the next picture, otherwise you might have some funny effects and the rendering program might be unable to find the transitions..
With our new photo material we move to our PC
continue with part 2 “Processing the pictures on the PC.
In the meantime you can download the program “PixMaker lite”
