Manual Panos for the M3 Brain Child.

[Phantomrain.org]

It been mentioned Numerous times on the Forum about the Manual Panos and I was not a fan as I liked the instant Gratification of the Air 2S robotic turns and stitching.

My first Pano took me about 5 Seconds to complete once I knew the Process.


The Process for Panos : Adobe Lightroom : Drag picts to Library : choose pics after import < Right Click choose setting and click on Panos and done . Very easy , I used a 30% over lap as suggested and the stitching was quick and painless.

I miss the Automation of the Air 2S but I do see the advantages of having no limits on the Panos size or number of Pictures .

Shout out to Dale for his efforts that got me here . I took 3 Pics of the tree to see if it would assemble the branches in a snow storm.
and the winter wonderland came to life.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

View attachment DJI_tt5-Pano.jpg

 

[VenomXts]

Ugh, but lightroom (I don't own it)... The M3 is still going back... at this point its just principle.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Ugh, but lightroom (I don't own it)... The M3 is still going back... at this point its just principle.

It is hard to get past the Principal , and I have to the 29th to take mine back. But I did find new life and its hard to give back that extra time in the air, its makes a big difference.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[VenomXts]

It is hard to get past the Principal , and I have to the 29th to take mine back. But I did find new life and its hard to give back that extra time in the air, its makes a big difference.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

Video quality on the controller alone makes me hesitant, camera is awesome.... My amazon original return date was 22nd but the pushed it to 31st.

I am still gona do it though.. debating buying a Air2s to hold me over now for the next step

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Video quality on the controller alone makes me hesitant, camera is awesome.... My amazon original return date was 22nd but the pushed it to 31st.

I am still gona do it though.. debating buying a Air2s to hold me over now for the next step

How did you go about getting the Extension ? Mine is the 29 th or did they just change it on there own. ?

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[VenomXts]

How did you go about getting the Extension ? Mine is the 29 th or did they just change it on there own. ?

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

it updated by itself.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

it updated by itself.


View attachment 141883

Seems that all the items that I purchased have been changed to Jan 31 very interesting. I was thinking it was just the Mavic 3 .

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[Dale D]

It been mentioned Numerous times on the Forum about the Manual Panos and I was not a fan as I liked the instant Gratification of the Air 2S robotic turns and stitching.

My first Pano took me about 5 Seconds to complete once I knew the Process.


The Process for Panos : Adobe Lightroom : Drag picts to Library : choose pics after import < Right Click choose setting and click on Panos and done . Very easy , I used a 30% over lap as suggested and the stitching was quick and painless.

I miss the Automation of the Air 2S but I do see the advantages of having no limits on the Panos size or number of Pictures .

Shout out to Dale for his efforts that got me here . I took 3 Pics of the tree to see if it would assemble the branches in a snow storm.
and the winter wonderland came to life.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

View attachment 141859

Phantom:

You see? I told you it was easy! And you have ultimate control of editing of the image after the image is merged. You could also throw in auto-align, but I rarely have to do that.


I find it easier to open the three or 4 overlapping images in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)> Then, Command+A (select all)>then right click on any image>merge to panorama>then eliminate any missing parts of the image with sliders and voila, you have a pan. If you do this vertically with your DSLR (you can hand hold, overlapping 30%) you can take as many as 12 or so images. You get an amazing product.

Dale
Miami

 

[VenomXts]

Phantom:

You see? I told you it was easy! And you have ultimate control of editing of the image after the image is merged. You could also throw in auto-align, but I rarely have to do that.


I find it easier to open the three or 4 overlapping images in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)> Then, Command+A (select all)>then right click on any image>merge to panorama>then eliminate any missing parts of the image with sliders and voila, you have a pan. If you do this vertically with your DSLR (you can hand hold, overlapping 30%) you can take as many as 12 or so images. You get an amazing product.

Dale
Miami

this isn't the point, I can do a hell of a lot with my time, money and input...…. dji is screwing us as consumers.

 

[Dale D]

this isn't the point, I can do a hell of a lot with my time, money and input...…. dji is screwing us as consumers.

So, let me understand this Venom. You are returning the M3? I've read this thread several times, scrolling up and down, but couldn't find the reason for the return. If you have been reading my posts- I am still in the deciding stage. Vic VideoPIC from Italy makes want to buy the M3 as soon as possible when I see his great night shots with such great detail in the shadows and the big dynamic range. But then I read of others, such as here, where the M3 is being returned. So hard to decide to buy or not buy. To tell the truth, I don't do any night or even dusk flying.

It is not the money that keeps me from the purchase. It is that I am getting along pretty darn well with my M2P.

Dale
Miami

 

[adcimagery]

So, let me understand this Venom. You are returning the M3? I've read this thread several times, scrolling up and down, but couldn't find the reason for the return. If you have been reading my posts- I am still in the deciding stage. Vic VideoPIC from Italy makes want to buy the M3 as soon as possible when I see his great night shots with such great detail in the shadows and the big dynamic range. But then I read of others, such as here, where the M3 is being returned. So hard to decide to buy or not buy. To tell the truth, I don't do any night or even dusk flying.

It is not the money that keeps me from the purchase. It is that I am getting along pretty darn well with my M2P.

Dale
Miami

Hey Dale - just wanted to weigh on this. I've been reading a lot of the negativity around the M3, and honestly, I don't get it. Compared to the M2P, I don't expect the image quality increase to be revolutionary, but it will be better. Same goes for the M3 vs the MA2 or MA2s, it's just got better dynamic range and IQ across the range from daylight to night flights. If you're interested in flying towards sunset or night, it's well worth it IMO.

 

[Dale D]

Hey Dale - just wanted to weigh on this. I've been reading a lot of the negativity around the M3, and honestly, I don't get it. Compared to the M2P, I don't expect the image quality increase to be revolutionary, but it will be better. Same goes for the M3 vs the MA2 or MA2s, it's just got better dynamic range and IQ across the range from daylight to night flights. If you're interested in flying towards sunset or night, it's well worth it IMO.

Thanks for that-I'll put it down on my pro/con list as a pro vote. Still thinking about that M3. I think there was supposed to be another January firmware update for panorama, right? Or what else- anyone?

 

[BlairAir]

It been mentioned Numerous times on the Forum about the Manual Panos and I was not a fan as I liked the instant Gratification of the Air 2S robotic turns and stitching.

My first Pano took me about 5 Seconds to complete once I knew the Process.


The Process for Panos : Adobe Lightroom : Drag picts to Library : choose pics after import < Right Click choose setting and click on Panos and done . Very easy , I used a 30% over lap as suggested and the stitching was quick and painless.

I miss the Automation of the Air 2S but I do see the advantages of having no limits on the Panos size or number of Pictures .

Shout out to Dale for his efforts that got me here . I took 3 Pics of the tree to see if it would assemble the branches in a snow storm.
and the winter wonderland came to life.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

View attachment 141859

Precisely the encouragement folks need. I'm also guilty of taking the instant gratification path. It IS great to get automated, tweaked panoramas, but things attained easily, with little creative input beside pointing the camera won't have the value of something requiring more creativity and effort.

Would anyone know of, or be willing to create a cheat sheet for different editors - the main steps to import, order and stitch? Not looking for start to finish walk-through, just a high level outline; menu choices to import, auto or manual sort? The lighting and color grading is all personal choice anyway.

I've tried open source and discontinued software titles with mostly poor results. Microsoft ICE -Image Composite Editor. The biggest fail was trying to get a spherical pano from the 26 photos Autel E2P takes but does not stitch. I can make all kinds of groovy stuff, that would work... in a 1960's psychedelic thriller. What I can not make is a sphere panorama or anything that someone would recognize as a shere pano.

The challenge here is to figure out how to do this before DJI drops panorama firmware and it becomes a push button process. Odds are in DJI's favor, I'm thinking

 

[Dale D]

Precisely the encouragement folks need. I'm also guilty of taking the instant gratification path. It IS great to get automated, tweaked panoramas, but things attained easily, with little creative input beside pointing the camera won't have the value of something requiring more creativity and effort.

Would anyone know of, or be willing to create a cheat sheet for different editors - the main steps to import, order and stitch? Not looking for start to finish walk-through, just a high level outline; menu choices to import, auto or manual sort? The lighting and color grading is all personal choice anyway.

I've tried open source and discontinued software titles with mostly poor results. Microsoft ICE -Image Composite Editor. The biggest fail was trying to get a spherical pano from the 26 photos Autel E2P takes but does not stitch. I can make all kinds of groovy stuff, that would work... in a 1960's psychedelic thriller. What I can not make is a sphere panorama or anything that someone would recognize as a shere pano.

The challenge here is to figure out how to do this before DJI drops panorama firmware and it becomes a push button process. Odds are in DJI's favor, I'm thinking

Hey Blair:

Not to be redundant, guys, but Colin Smith of Photoshop Cafe has been my guru for at least 20 years. Here is the best video to show what I have been doing for years. This is about 12 minutes and covers DSLR and drones. If you want to make great panos using Photoshop or Lightroom, you cannot get better than this lesson. You will thank me for this, as Phantom Rain has discovered. You can shoot these images manually with your drone with 20-30% overlap ( I use my grid screen), and this technique can be used with any drone. You also have the advantage of being able to shoot HDR (bracketed images), and the ability to have much more control over processing your images after the images are merged. I would save this video in your archives for further reference. You do not need to wait for the Mavic 3 firmware for this. We can all do much better with manual panos using this technique.

This does not include 24 image drone shots or spherical orbs.

Dale
Miami

 

[BlairAir]

Thank you. I will start here. I can't complain if I haven't made the effort. Mostly need to know what software is a good choice, without spending too much.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Thank you. I will start here. I can't complain if I haven't made the effort. Mostly need to know what software is a good choice, without spending too much.

Renting the Lightroom is $10 a month but you can find Classic lightroom for fee also if you have windows. Than its just a few seconds of work. I could not believe how easy it is to have full control of how big I want my panos to be.

Thanks again Dale.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain and Land on the Water.

 

[Dale D]

I know most of you out there disdain Adobe costs, and I am not happy with them either, but thankfully, I can afford the discounted rate. For those of you who want to do fantastically easy and excellent panos and use their amazing new masking tool that allows you to individually adjust any portion of your image (like dark foregrounds of sunsets and sunrises), the Photoshop/Lightroom masking tool is one of the best things that has happened to my work flow in years. for the mere cost of $9.99 a month there are practically weekly improvements, updates, etc that no other program I have used can even come close to.

We all spend $10.00 USD a month on stuff we want but do not really need.(Starbucks, cigarettes, beer, wine). I get so much pleasure out of Photoshop and Lightroom that I will forego those other expenses for the very good benefits of these two fantastic products. I get no remuneration from Adobe for saying this. To me, it is $120.00 a year well spent.

 

[Chrislaf]

If you want more advanced tools for stitching panos PTGui or the more advanced PTGui Pro are excellent tools especially if you are going to be shooting lots of manual high resolution multi-row panos. The software is not cheap especially the Pro version but it is excellent software and is updated regularly.

Chris

 

[Dale D]

If you want more advanced tools for stitching panos PTGui or the more advanced PTGui Pro are excellent tools especially if you are going to be shooting lots of manual high resolution multi-row panos. The software is not cheap especially the Pro version but it is excellent software and is updated regularly.

Chris

Chris
I've tried the demo or free version of PT Gui and had a lot of trouble. Can you recommend a good You Tube or other video source? I am using Mavic 2 Pro and when I generate the 24 image RAW I cannot process it in Photoshop.

Dale
Miami

 

[VenomXts]

So, let me understand this Venom. You are returning the M3? I've read this thread several times, scrolling up and down, but couldn't find the reason for the return. If you have been reading my posts- I am still in the deciding stage. Vic VideoPIC from Italy makes want to buy the M3 as soon as possible when I see his great night shots with such great detail in the shadows and the big dynamic range. But then I read of others, such as here, where the M3 is being returned. So hard to decide to buy or not buy. To tell the truth, I don't do any night or even dusk flying.

It is not the money that keeps me from the purchase. It is that I am getting along pretty darn well with my M2P.

Dale
Miami

Sorry Dale, I know I sound a little salty. I also hold a grudge and am gona be sending it back to Amazon/DJI out of spite. Good chance I will pick it up again probably with that RC combo they were talking about. Point being, I wouldn't be if they had a core feature I use. I know I can make my own Pano's but really I want a return invoice to DJI for this drone they shipped prematurely and I don't want to be part of the #$# until its a fully fledged out product.