Panoramas with tele lens?

[Bussty]

The Air 3 has a huge opportunity in my opinion and that is to use the tele lens to do high res mosaics but as I understand it there is no auto pano mode using the tele lens only the wide?

Imagine if you could do a bank of images using the tele lens and stitch those to form a single image? Wow what quality that would be and in something a lot cheaper than the Mavic 3.

I guess you can achieve the effect manually but not as convenient, one day maybe...

 

[izometric]

You will have to take 150+ photos to cover everything. Manually, that would translate in probably 250+ shots because you cannot overlap as efficient as the drone. At that level, it is very easy to make an error that will ruin your shot. Plus the time needed will probably take 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of movement, especially from the clouds will happen, which will make the sky shots stitching very challenging or impossible.

I do not see how you could take a panorama with the tele lens manually and still achieve acceptable quality. Or if you do, you will need to put several hours in photoshop as well.

Most likely DJI will try to differentiate a little, so they will keep such an automated feature off the table.

 

[GadgetGuy]

You will have to take 150+ photos to cover everything. Manually, that would translate in probably 250+ shots because you cannot overlap as efficient as the drone. At that level, it is very easy to make an error that will ruin your shot. Plus the time needed will probably take 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of movement, especially from the clouds will happen, which will make the sky shots stitching very challenging or impossible.

I do not see how you could take a panorama with the tele lens manually and still achieve acceptable quality. Or if you do, you will need to put several hours in photoshop as well.

Most likely DJI will try to differentiate a little, so they will keep such an automated feature off the table.

DJI has already done it with the Mavic 3 Pro on the 3x 70mm equivalent camera, with the latest FW update. 126 images are shot in 3.5 minutes. The top row of 18 images of sky is useless, and has no detail for stitching. The remaining 108 images are easily stitched in under 5 minutes in PanoramaStudio 3 Pro or PTGui for incredible detail, and are imminently useable for any subset of a 360 as well!

However, the Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Pro 1x main camera 360° HiRes 75MB stitch takes just over one minute, including the stitching, and a cloned-in ceiling. There is definitely more detail in the manual 3x stitch, but hovering for 3.5 minutes is bound to attract every Karen in the neighborhood, each certain you are flying over their house, when you aren't above any of them! Use it wisely! Make sure the extra detail is worth the unwanted attention. Most viewing the result on a phone or iPad won't be able to tell the difference without pixel peeping, and certainly not on any commercial 360 viewing website like Kuula!

 

[izometric]

Yes, this is what I said. DJI did it. A normal human can't shoot a tele-panorama by hand with good results.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yes, this is what I said. DJI did it. A normal human can't shoot a tele-panorama by hand with good results.

Not true. It's easy, but very cumbersome, and therefore takes longer than a fully automated process. I've even created panos manually with the 7x lens on the Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Pro. You just use the 3x3 grid lines and overlap each successive image by 33%. It works very well, as long as there is any detail visible in the frame. If there isn't, it doesn't matter until there is!

 

[izometric]

Problem is with the sky. The 3x3 grid will not provide any aid with the correct overlapping.

Also, with a long focal distance, the movement of the drone will create bigger issues with the stitching. And the biggest problem is that you will not realise that until you get to the computer and start stitching,

Can you post a link to any of the panoramas you created manually with the 7X zoom lens of the Mavic 3?

 

[GadgetGuy]

Problem is with the sky. The 3x3 grid will not provide any aid with the correct overlapping.

Also, with a long focal distance, the movement of the drone will create bigger issues with the stitching. And the biggest problem is that you will not realise that until you get to the computer and start stitching,

Can you post a link to any of the panoramas you created manually with the 7X zoom lens of the Mavic 3?

The sky with no detail will not be properly stitched in any stitching program. All stitching programs need control points. So, as I stated, if there is no detail, the precision of overlapping doesn't matter. Close enough is good enough. The empty sky should be cloned in anyway. You will always have to clone in some amount of a ceiling anyway. Stitching empty sky ruins panos, which is why the top row of 18 photos are best thrown away, leaving 88 useful photos on the 3x. It does not need anywhere close to the 250+ that you suggested.

The Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Pro are both very stable, and when the subject is far away the movements are insignificant at 7x and good stitching programs compensate for minor movements that change the degree of overlap. If you want to go overboard, use a 50% overlap. DJI's own in camera stitches use less than a 33% overlap.

Many other people have already posted stitches of the 7x for you to examine, should you still question the viability.

 

[Meta4]

Also, with a long focal distance, the movement of the drone will create bigger issues with the stitching. And the biggest problem is that you will not realise that until you get to the computer and start stitching,

There are no particular problems manually shooting panoramas with the tele cameras of the Mavic 3 pro.
It's quick and easy.

Can you post a link to any of the panoramas you created manually with the 7X zoom lens of the Mavic 3?

 

[izometric]

Ok, these are not 360 panoramas. A lot easier to frame and shoot, they take 1-2 minutes, if there is no wind they come out nice.

I was referring to 360x180 panoramas. If these are not automated, it is very hard to gt something of high quality. I'n not saying it is impossible, but it will be a hit and miss most of the time.

 

[Bussty]

I'm talking about 3x3 grids of images or maybe bigger. The DJI M30 has this feature you draw on a grid what you want and the drone takes them. That would make the Air 3 a real photographers drone. There are other pro features coming down the line (Mini 4 now has waypoints!) so maybe one day...

 

[Bussty]

I'm talking about 3x3 grids of images or maybe bigger. The DJI M30 has this feature you draw on a grid what you want and the drone takes them. That would make the Air 3 a real photographers drone. There are other pro features coming down the line (Mini 4 now has waypoints!) so maybe one day...

Even better imagine if you could fly the Air 3 in normal 24mm mode and frame your shot then select a "TRUE HIGH RES" photo option and take the photo. The drone would then kick in the 3x lens to "map" a series of tele shots to cover the 24mm view (probably something like 5x4 images). You could have the option to just keep the images and stitch later in PTGUI or PanoramaStudio or the drone could do or both. But doing a quick calculation your 24mm scene would have effective 4032 x 3 by 3024 x 3 pixels... that is 109734912 pixels! That is better than a Sony A7RV full frame camera! If anybody can do a manual shoot of this on the Air 3 I would love to have a look.

 

[bkushner]

So to sum it up there isn't really any way to stitch the 70mm DJI Pano's easily? I have 137 images taken with the Mavic 3 Pro and have tried about 5 stitching programs all to NO AVAIL.

 

[GadgetGuy]

So to sum it up there isn't really any way to stitch the 70mm DJI Pano's easily? I have 137 images taken with the Mavic 3 Pro and have tried about 5 stitching programs all to NO AVAIL.

Ditch the useless top row of sky images, and stitch the rest with PTGui or PanoramaStudio 3 Pro.

 

[bkushner]

Ditch the useless top row of sky images, and stitch the rest with PTGui or PanoramaStudio 3 Pro.

Not sure what you mean by top row of sky images.. Here are my 137 images

 

[Bussty]

Is a real shame DJI hasn't incorporated a grid of 70mm images to match the 24mm view hopefully that will come as will be very useful for many.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Not sure what you mean by top row of sky images.. Here are my 137 images
View attachment 171326

The top row does not refer to the order of the images on the card. It refers to the very top row of the images in the grid being stitched. Note the sky only images in your screenshot above that appear without any detail from image 21 until image 49. Eliminate those and stitch the remaining images.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Is a real shame DJI hasn't incorporated a grid of 70mm images to match the 24mm view hopefully that will come as will be very useful for many.

That's essentially what eliminating the top row of the current 70mm grid does. Just exclude them from the stitch.

 

[bkushner]

The top row does not refer to the order of the images on the card. It refers to the very top row of the images in the grid being stitched. Note the sky only images in your screenshot above that appear without any detail from image 21 until image 49. Eliminate those and stitch the remaining images.

I'll try that.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I'll try that.

It also depends upon your stitching program. Some can align images to the original shooting grid order, once you figure out the DJI order of shooting. I use both PTGui and PanoramaStudio 3 Pro without issues.

 

[bkushner]

It also depends upon your stitching program. Some can align images to the original shooting grid order, once you figure out the DJI order of shooting. I use both PTGui and PanoramaStudio 3 Pro without issues.

Panorama studio pro stitched them. Trying to figure out how to get Facebook to post it. Thanks.