Taking Panorama Pictures with the Olympus e-1 Klaus Schraeder May 2004 It is quite easy to get panorama pictures with the Olympus e-1, if you pay attention to a few basics and follow a proven recipe. This article describes a simple nodal point adapter for the e-1, which can be used with the Zuiko 14-54 mm and with the Zuiko 11-22 mm, explains the basic steps to take the single shoots and finally covers the question, how to stitch them into one picture. 1. Nodal point To get a panorama picture, you turn the camera and take single shoots with a certain overlap of approximately 30 to 50 %. But you must turn the camera not where the mounting for the tripod is, but in the nodal point- and unfortunately the nodal point changes with the focal distance. Never heard about nodal point? Think of your famous Zuiko as a single lens: the nodal point is, where the light paths cross. CCD Front lens Rear lens Nodal point If you turn now the Olympus e-1 in the nodal point, you will eliminate all parallax errors, which will occur, if you turn the camera in the tripod mount, which is behind the CCD sensor. Parallax errors will result in visible ghost pictures, especially, if your panorama consists of foreground and background, and will sometimes cause the stitching S/W not to properly stitch your panorama. Turning in front of NP Turning behind NP Turning in the NP
e-1 not turned in the nodalpoint e-1 turned left e-1 turned right result: ghost image e-1 turned correctly in the nodal point e-1 turned left e-1 turnd right result: no ghost image Above pictures demonstrate the importance of turning the e-1 in the nodal point. And as said, the nodal point changes with the focal length. So it is important, first to determine the nodal point in relation to the focal length. This is especially true, if your panorama consist of fore- and background. It plays a less role, if you take landscape panorama, where you virtually don t have any foreground.
For the Zuiko 14-54 mm and the 11-22 mm I have determined the nodal point (measured right as the distance from the tripod mount) as follows: Nodalpoint versus focal length Zuiko 14-54 mm nodal point from tripod mount mm 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 focal length mm Nodalpoint versus focal length Zuiko Digital 11-22 mm Distance from tripod mount (mm) 100 95 90 90 85 80 80 70 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Focal length (mm)
2. Adapter for the correct nodal point Of course you can buy sophisticated equipment, which allows you to adjust your Olympus e-1 properly. Here is the cheaper way: You can see the turning axis, and 2 slides which allow you to adjust the camera in such a way, that you turn it exactly in the nodal point. Unfortunately this is a pretty expensive equipment. But it can be done cheaper: see the following adapter, made out of a simple square of aluminium with a slot to slide the camera to the exact distance. All you need is a friend with access to a milling equipment for the slot. The following 2 pictures show the 3D-Simulation and the technical drawing for those, who want to build the adapter.
Here a picture, how the Olympus e-1 looks like mounted with the adapter on a tripod. 3. Taking Panorama Pictures Now we are ready for our first panorama pictures. First you have to decide, which type of panorama you want to take: a flat one, usually between 120 degrees to 240 degrees or a cylindrical one, which has 360 degrees. You have chosen your object, determined the right focal distance, adjusted the Olympus e-1 to this focal distance on the adapter and mounted this set to the tripod, which is well balanced horizontal. Do not tilt the camera, so the horizon will be in the middle. Needless to say, that the camera orientation should be portrait, not landscape! (To get more picture). Choose the part of the object, which later should appear in the centre (on a flat pano only) and measure the EV. This part should be well balanced, so take care. And now, forget for a while that the Olympus e-1 is a fully automated camera and switch almost everything to manual. WB: manual to a fixed colour temperature, usually 5500 to 6500 Kelvin Focus: manual adjusted to the centre of your panorama Camera setting: manual with fixed f-stop and time, as determined in the centre The manual setting is needed to avoid the camera to alter any of them during the shooting. Now turn the camera to the point, where you want to start your panorama, and take the first picture. Turn the camera and allow an overlap of 50 %. (Remember, what you see on the side, turn the camera, till this is in the middle). Take the next picture. And so on, till you reach the point, where you want to stop your panorama. Sounds
easy, and it is easy. Just make sure, that no moving objects like cars, pedestrians, bicyclists are in the overlap zone- this would be impossible to stitch. For 360 degrees cylindrical panoramas (which can be viewed with Quicktime VR) you follow the same steps, including overlap between the first and the last picture. You would need for a 180 degree flat panorama something between 7 and 12 pictures, depending on the chosen focal distance, and twice as much for a 360 degree panorama. 4. The final step: stitching your panorama There exists a lot of software for stitching your panorama. Many of them are freeware or supplied with your camera. Good ones are -Panorama factory by smoky city design (This is my favourite, shareware) - Camedia master (Olympus) -Photoshop (in newer versions, but very limited) -Image assembler by Panavue -Dersch Pano tools You just need to load your pictures, bring them into the right order, tell the S/W, which kind of a panorama you want, eventually tell the used focal length- and the rest is done automatically. 5. Some examples of flat panorama with the Olympus e-1 Nymphenburg castle, Munich 14-54 mm (14 pictures) Olympic Park, Munich14-54 mm (9 pictures)