More full report on 70mm spherical panoramas

[Thmoore]

OK! Ran some tests on the Air 3's new ability to do spherical panoramas with the 70mm lens. The new images are, in a word, impressive.

I stitched on my Mac with Panorama Stitcher, a $15 utility: ‎Panorama Stitcher

Stitching, and then exporting, the 70mm spherical panorama takes a pretty good chunk of time. I didn't time it. 10 minutes total, maybe?

Panorama Stitcher creates a noticeably better image than the internally created file for only being a little bit bigger; the 137-photo sphere is more than seven times bigger than the 24mm sphere, but includes dramatically more detail – it's a 50394 × 25197 file versus a 18698 × 9349 file for the 24mm (33-shot) panorama.

Here's a screenshot of the full photo, with the bit I examine below highlighted:


Close detail of 24mm sphere created internally on the aircaft (43 MB):

Close detail of24mm sphere with Panorama Stitcher (44 MB):

70mm sphere with Panorama Stitcher (320 MB):

Zooming in much further on the window air-conditioning unit in the middle of the frame shows the difference. Here's the 24mm:

Here's the 70mm:

I took spheres in RAW as well; it didn't seem to make much difference. I exported from Panorama Stitcher in .TIFF and .PNG, also; that didn't seem to make much difference, either.

If you'd like to pixel-peep the photos yourself, all the files are here:

Air 3 70mm Panos

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[DanJ]

Thank you for the hard work.
I can really see a difference in the zoomed in pics of the air conditioner. Quite an eye opener.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Thank you for the hard work.
I can really see a difference in the zoomed in pics of the air conditioner. Quite an eye opener.

Clearly, if you compare an optical 70mm image with a digital zoom of a 24 mm to a 70mm equivalent frame, the 70mm will always be significantly better, and show more detail without pixelation. The 360 pano stitches are only as good as the individual images.

Whether that level of detail is necessary, and whether it is worth 3x the flight time, and the additional necessary manual stitching time after you get home, vs. the automated HiRes 75MB stitch in 75 seconds total at 24mm, is up for debate.

You can shoot 30 panos at 24mm on a single battery and be done, or shoot 9 panos at 70mm, and have hours of work to do when you get home! You choose!

 

[Ralph thompson]

As said above, you got what you'd expect with a longer lens but the purpose of a panorama is to show a wide field of view, not sure what the practical reason is for using a 70mm lens. The sensor is the same size for both cameras on the Air3. The only possible reason is if you are going to make a very large photo quality print.

 

[Thmoore]

The 360s are a little different. You end up with the same image, but much more detail.

 

[GadgetGuy]

The 360s are a little different. You end up with the same image, but much more detail.

More detail only if you are shooting from the same spot. Fly closer and use the 24mm and there will be no difference, except in perspective. It also takes 3x as long to shoot and you have to stitch yourself later. Flying closer will still be faster on the 24mm camera, including the time to fly closer, with an included HiRes stitch! It's 3 extra minutes to shoot the 70mm pano. At 30mph, that's time to fly 1.5 miles closer for each 70mm pano you shoot, which can then be shot at 24mm in 75 seconds! The more 70mm panos you shoot, the more time you save by flying closer and shooting with the 24mm instead.

 

[Thmoore]

That doesn’t apply to the spherical panos. If you take a 24mm pano and then a 70mm pano in the same spot, they look just the same on the surface – they capture the exact same area. But the 70mm captures a great deal more detail in the process, because it is taking 137 pictures, not 33.

 

[GPM Drones]

OK! Ran some tests on the Air 3's new ability to do spherical panoramas with the 70mm lens. The new images are, in a word, impressive.

I stitched on my Mac with Panorama Stitcher, a $15 utility: ‎Panorama Stitcher

Stitching, and then exporting, the 70mm spherical panorama takes a pretty good chunk of time. I didn't time it. 10 minutes total, maybe?

Panorama Stitcher creates a noticeably better image than the internally created file for only being a little bit bigger; the 137-photo sphere is more than seven times bigger than the 24mm sphere, but includes dramatically more detail – it's a 50394 × 25197 file versus a 18698 × 9349 file for the 24mm (33-shot) panorama.

Here's a screenshot of the full photo, with the bit I examine below highlighted:
View attachment 171322

Close detail of 24mm sphere created internally on the aircaft (43 MB):
View attachment 171316
Close detail of24mm sphere with Panorama Stitcher (44 MB):
View attachment 171317
70mm sphere with Panorama Stitcher (320 MB):
View attachment 171318
Zooming in much further on the window air-conditioning unit in the middle of the frame shows the difference. Here's the 24mm:
View attachment 171319
Here's the 70mm:
View attachment 171320
I took spheres in RAW as well; it didn't seem to make much difference. I exported from Panorama Stitcher in .TIFF and .PNG, also; that didn't seem to make much difference, either.

If you'd like to pixel-peep the photos yourself, all the files are here:

Air 3 70mm Panos

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[GadgetGuy]

That doesn’t apply to the spherical panos. If you take a 24mm pano and then a 70mm pano in the same spot, they look just the same on the surface – they capture the exact same area. But the 70mm captures a great deal more detail in the process, because it is taking 137 pictures, not 33.

Isn't that exactly what I stated?

"More detail only if you are shooting from the same spot."

 

[Thmoore]

The thrust of your answer was that it was more efficient to fly closer to the stuff you wanted to shoot and take a panorama there with the 24mm lens. That may well be true under certain circumstances. But it does not apply to 360 panoramas, which is all this thread is about.

 

[hedbonker]

The thrust of your answer was that it was more efficient to fly closer to the stuff you wanted to shoot and take a panorama there with the 24mm lens. That may well be true under certain circumstances. But it does not apply to 360 panoramas, which is all this thread is about.

What are you using to view the Pano?

 

[Thmoore]

What are you using to view the Pano?

I'm using Spherualizer on iOS. I'll see if any other software has trouble...

 

[GadgetGuy]

The thrust of your answer was that it was more efficient to fly closer to the stuff you wanted to shoot and take a panorama there with the 24mm lens. That may well be true under certain circumstances. But it does not apply to 360 panoramas, which is all this thread is about.

Yet your measure of comparison was to take a specific crop of a small subject within your two panos and compare it, which is no different than comparing the two photos containing that subject from each stitched batch of photos, except the method of stitching and the degree of detail selected for the stitch result are polluting your comparisons taken from crops of the the resulting stitches. You then falsely concluded that the 70mm lens is sharper than the 24mm lens, which it is not.