General advice for creating hi-resolution panos

[burgor57]

I am relatively new to creating 360 degree panos, but am experinced in creating hi-def stitched images utilizing many images to create the final photo. I use a Nodal Ninja 5 head, Nikon D700 and have various lenses available.

I am very keen to create hi-definition 360 spherical panoramas and have seen some excellent examples on the internet. I have questions about their creation.
I assume you need to use a telephoto lens to get the close details, resulting in the need to take very many seperate photos. I assume the more you take (longer the focal length) the more resolution can be obtained.

I am wondering how you deal with the focal distance. For example - on a project in a big cathedral you would have a very high ornate cieling and then walls maybe less than half that distance, and the floor/near foreground very close. How do you keep it all in focus without having to adjust the focus ring on the lens with every pass?

What is the best workflow for creating large hi-def 360 panos?
Any good on-line tutorials?
Any offers of advice?

[mbb]

Start here:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

If you can't fit everything in your scene within the DOF for the focal length you want to use, then you will need to look into focus stacking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking), which can get pretty big and hairy real quick.

[burgor57]

Yes I have used focus stacking before and I know that is an option. But I suspect few use that tecnique. I know about dof but perhaps not in depth. I have seen gigapixel panos that have apparent clear focus on near and far distance and that is why am asking this question. To get detail and focus at the far distance objects one would need at least a semi-telephoto lens I would say. And if you are focusing in a way that enables the distance to be in focus with that lens - how does the forground also get focused? I would have thought the forground would be out of focus unless you changed the focus on the lens, and then I wonder how well it would all stitch? Or am I over complicating things in my head?
See this 360 sperical pano as a good example:
http://www.interaktive-panoramen.net/?p=58

I would appreciate feedback.

[smooth]

It is all to do with focusing on the "Hyperfocal" distance. Using a Hyperfocal distance calculator you can work out where you should be focusing for the nearest focus range to infinity.

Regards, Smooth

[soulbrother]

To make shure that Gigapixelpanos are in good focus within the complete range of distances, you just have a few possibilities only:

1. To try to get it all in the Hyperfocal distance, it´s the "most easy" solution.

2. To shoot in lines ( not in colums) and to adjust the focus for each line - before the new line will be shooten.

or
3. really to combine different focussed pictures, but it seems almost impossible with thousands of single pictures...

[mbb]

See this 360 sperical pano as a good example:
http://www.interaktive-panoramen.net/?p=58

I would appreciate feedback.

The author of above pano indicated on his page that it was shot with a 50mm lens. You can get a pretty fat DOF with this if you step it down enough. Additionally, the crop factor of the D90 (1.5x) he used can give the final image more resolution than if the same 50mm lens was on a full frame camera (depending on its native resolution).