Digital Photography in Available Light

essential skills: digital photography in available light

Pro tip > If you don’t have a special panoramic head or a camera model with panorama assist

then try rotating the camera around the lens rather than pivoting it around your body. Also if you

are shooting ‘hand-held’ use longer focal lengths rather than wide angle lenses; this will help

with stitching later.

Single shot

In recent years a completely new way of capturing and producing panoramas has emerged. With

dreams of making life easier for the ‘pano shooter’ companies like Kaidan have created technology

options that allow the user to capture a full 360 degrees worth of information in a single shot.

Unlike traditional single shot systems like the Seitz Roundshot camera which captures a full-spin

image by rotating the camera during exposure, the new ‘donut’ technology remains static during

exposure whilst still capturing the whole scene.

Kaidan in conjunction with its alliance partner EyeSee360 have produced a single shot technology

that is suitable for use with a range of digital cameras. The 360 One VR unit is attached to the lens

of a digital camera and the whole unit positioned so that it is photographing vertically. The camera

captures a refl ected image from the device’s mirrored optic. This result in a donut shaped picture

which is then manipulated by the supplied software to create either a ready made QuickTime VR

movie or a fl at panoramic image. This single shot technology is currently the fastest and easiest

way to capture and produce a panorama and is only limited by the resolution of the digital camera

you attach to the device.

Some mid to high range compact digital

cameras now include a panorama assist

mode that ghosts the previously taken

photo so that the next image in the

sequence can be easily aligned. This

approach helps ensure that sequential

source photos are correctly spaced and

positioned.

(a) Area of the scene being framed.

(b) Ghosted section of previous photo

to be lined up with current scene.

(c) Current scene in the LCD viewfi nder

The donut shaped photo captured with the

single shot systems is stretched back to a

rectangular image using some sophisticated

software supplied with the system.