The Full 360

Before proceeding I should warn that getting a full 360 degree panorama without a tripod and a fair bit of exposure calculation right is very difficult. Very, very difficult! The main trouble is that during the day the light is quiet variable according to the direction you are shooting. Hence the very old rule to shoot with the sun over your shoulder. In this direction, everything with well lit and their will be some detail in the shadows. in the opposite direct there tends to be very high contrast, the sky will be washed out and the foreground will be just a silhouetted with little or no detail in the shadows. Having set my excuses here is a bit of fun I had…

Using the 360 Android App

I had just downloaded the free version of the 360 app, and haven’t bothered to sign up to the web-site upload or community. I just wanted to try it out. I did patiently follow the instructions trying to keep te progress meter green at all times, but alas my phone keep jumping into the red, despite the slowest progress. So I was not surprised to get a result like this. Further attempts gave less satisfactory results and frustration. Ok it was fun for a while but I’m not convinced it is easy enough to use (perhaps without a lot of experiment and practice)

DSLR Multi-image Autostitched Panorama

I have made hand held 360 with my normal Pentax DSLR before, and I have found it best to let the camera choose the exposure between each shoot (it takes time, it not difficult) with enough overlap (20-30%) to let autostitch do its magic. This sequence is actually 48 photos in two bands (the upper skyline and the lower cobble stones). That is why there are so many truncated people.

If I really want to get a full 360 of the Grote Markt, I will need to do in the early morning or late afternoon, to get those golden hours of even lighting and with a tripod (with a panorama head). Maybe that’s not going to happen.