Image of the Week...Week#7

[DavidWare]

Sean, I love those little "planet" shots like that. I know (think) you need a fisheye, but what is the exact technique?

[Sean Setters]

Sean, I love those little "planet" shots like that. I know (think) you need a fisheye, but what is the exact technique?

Actually, the "little planet panoramas" I've shot were all created using a Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM (at 17mm). While you can do these panoramas with little gear, if you have a way of controlling the camera so that it shoots from the nodal point, then stitching in PS is much (MUCH) easier.

This is the video I watched that got me started on them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ffmm...dS2l5zdIasvL6g

I created my first one using my tripod with a standard ballhead. However, I found that later ones I tried never seemed to line up quite right. After a lot of research, I ended up buying a Manfrotto 303Plus Panoramic Head and a shoe-mount dual bubble level. The head makes it substantially easier to create the panoramic images. I shoot 18 overlapping photographs (every 20 degrees) for post-processing in Photoshop CS6.

You can do these with a fisheye, but I haven't tried it yet - so I can't really give any input on it. :-)