HDRi test scene

[Lucas3d]

here is another quick project for a local developer:

Let me know what you think.

Cheers
Lucas

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

lit just by HDRI or with vray sun as well?

[Lucas3d]

Both Vray sun and hdri Martin

[ajroane]

Lucas,

I've been wanting to shoot my own hdri environments for a while. Nikon has a good 10.5mm DX lens for cameras similar to my D90. It may not be as nice as your setup, but it should work for now. I'm interested in what other gear and software you used in taking the photos? There are a lot of VR/panorama programs available, and I wasn't sure about which one people have had best experience using. Or is there a way to create a hemispherical pano just in Photoshop? I haven't seen any examples of people doing it all in Photoshop. Besides the lens and software, I am also planning on buying a VR pano head for my tripod, a Nodal Ninja 3, actually. I haven't bought it yet and I'd love to know if you or anyone else has some good advice about what works best for creating HDRI env's from start to finish.

Sorry, I know it's just the 'Image Uploads' forum, but it's something I've wanted to ask about for a while.

Thanks,
Andrew

[instinct]

As for software i'd recommend PTGui.

Regards,
Thorsten

[ajroane]

Thanks Thorsten, that is one of the ones I was considering. I have tried the free Hugin software, but it was a little to cumbersome for me. I have heard that Hugin and PTGui are both based on the same original computer code (panorama tools), but I don't know if that is true. Either way, PTGui does appear to be much more user friendly.

[jstrob]

I have a Sunex superfisheye with pano head (2 or 3 shot 360) on a Canon rebel t2i and I love it! http://www.superfisheye.com/SuperFisheye-Lens-Canon. Stitcher for stitching (it has a mode especially for the sunex lens) and picturenaut or photomatix for merging.

[instinct]

Keep in mind tho, that the fewer images you take, the lower your maximum resolution. Gotta find a balance between what still works for you resolution wise and time needed to shoot/stitch/assemble.

Regards,
Thorsten

[ajroane]

The Sunex superfisheye looks nice. It would be awesome to have a lens that I could just point straight at the sky and snap off all the exposures quickly. As Thorsten mentioned though, the resolution would be an issue. The Nikon 10.5mm does have a 180* view as well, but it is from corner to corner, so it doesn't work to create a full 360* hemispherical view in one shot. The trade-off obviously is that it uses the full frame of the camera sensor.


Thanks,

Andrew

[instinct]

we usually aim at a fullsize of 25-30k width. There's too many issues involved when working lower res. With a pano head and a dedicated workflow for stitching and assembling the time overhead is relatively small and the quality gain is huge.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Lucas3d]

ajroane : As for the software, I use hugin, photomatix and photoshop cs5. Photoshop is used to create the seamless panorama for the backplate and getting rid of the dust and insects that land on my lens
As for the Pano head I did it myself, went to a shop bought some metal parts and I've assembled it with the help of my father, all the materials used cost about 20Euros.
In a couple of days I will try to make a 360 hdri.
Yeah and keep in mind what instinct said about the resolution. with a 8mm lens I do one picture that is about 7000pixels wide, so it can be used of lighting the scene only, I make an additional 30K wide backplate to compensate Hdri resolution in reflections ect.