Smooth360 Panorama Blog

Samyang/Falcon Fisheye Tester

Today I received my new Falcon (Samyang) 8mm fisheye lens from Poland (via ebay). Quickly I connected it to my old Canon 10D 6.3mp DSLR and then wacked it onto a Nodal Ninja 5 panohead. Located the (NPP) and raced out to shoot a tester pano you see here. The lens is fully manual, meaning no electrical contact or feedback to the camera. Manual Aperture selection along with Manual Focus. Resulting file is around 7300x3650 pixels. Absolutely no editing other than the removing of the tripod footprint.

My 1960 FB Holden in front of Historic Bathurst Gaol

1960 FB Holden Rear View in front of Historic Bathurst Gaol

The things we do at 1.00 am in the morning at 5 degrees Celsius. I had been meaning to test out some bracket shooting at night and what better too shot than my favourite car? In general I was happy with the results as the tonal range was greatly improved and I achieved good penetration into the shadow. I think now that I have processed these images I feel I can achieve better after finding the errors of my ways (after the fact as usual!). Still, I like the panoramas - more so because it features my 1960 FB Holden Station Sedan.

Gigapan Epic 100 Robotic Panohead

Today I received my recently ordered Gigapan Epic 100 Robotic Panohead and thought I would share my initial thoughts and observations. First off let me say I wish to thank Chris in Florida, USA (one of my regular tuition customers and good bloke) for posting the item out to me in Australia after allowing me to have the item shipped to his address because I felt the shipping charge from Gigapan in Portland, Oregon USA to Australia was a HUGE rip-off. I was proved right when Chris managed to send it to me for under $53.00 USD postage full insured when Gigapan wanted far more than double this amount and refused to send it to my secure Post Office address. Now I know that they use UPS and UPS pick up which is no doubt convenient and that UPS won't deliver to a Post Office but still you would think somebody could make the effort to go to a Post Office and send items. I have had the people at Raw Work Flow, USA go out of their way to send to my Post Office delivery address without a fuss.

Price: $449.00 USD + $10.21 USD UPS delivery to Florida (8 days actual) $52.03 USD Fully Insured Postage to Australia (7 days actual).

Anyway, the boxed Gigapan Epic 100 arrived in good shape without any noticeably damage to the packaging. The robotic panohead was packaged well in a custom contoured foam cell for perfect fit (nice). More to come ...

Armidale Teachers Collage (NEU)

Bathurst City Centre Shopping Mall Nearing Completion

Totally Hand Held 3 shots using the Canon 5D MKII and Tokina 10-17mm Zoom Fisheye @10mm. Nearing completion, the Bathurst City Centre Shopping Mall. This panorama shows the Howick Street Entrance.

ISO 6400 Canon 5DMKII (Show Rides)

(High ISO Tester) Bathurst Show 2009

This panorama was shot with my latest camera and primarily was a testing session at high ISO levels with this panorama image shot at ISO 3200 @ f/8.0 in low fading light. The master image is just over 14000x7000 pixels and 879mb in total 16Bit .tif format. With the low resolution version show online at 6000x3000 and 3mb.

McFeeters Motor Museum

The Dish

The Dish as it is commonly called is located around 20 klms from the New South Wales country town of Parkes . It is a radio telescope that was used during the Apollo moon landing ( Read More ) Measuring a whopping 64 metres across (210 feet+) and still fully functional. " The Dish " was made more famous with the release of the movie of the same title in the year 2000.

Bridge at Dubbo Zoo

Dubbo Railway Station (Last pano of 2008)