The Sun is giving me pain, 360 Panoramas

[Metrocruiser]

Hello, I am hoping to get some help with taking drone panorama shots. (Mini 2, no raw) I am an indoor 360 photographer who is struggling to figure out what time and type of day will give me the best results so the panos don't get blown out on one side from the sun. The panos I will be taking are certain areas of a densely populated area that has a lot of high rise apartment buildings. So I have to get up higher to get the tops of the higher buildings. The sun is not friendly to me

I was experimenting with Dodge/Burn today and it seems that this is a good way to balance the difference. It looks a lot better after post, but I would rather take the photo with the optimal settings rather than post-process 150 panos.

Below is an example of one of my failures. The Zenith seems to be a lot easier when there are no clouds.
Thanks for any help you can offer me!

 

[Bodkin's Best Photography]

Shoot RAW would be my first suggestion. If you're dead set against it, lower your exposure compensation, but that in turn will leave you with a darker foreground. As I said, if you shoot raw you can bring down the highlights a bit and recover shadow detail.

 

[EyesWideShut]

As @Bodkin's Best Photography says, shoot raw and adjust.

With my mini I can't shoot raw but I keep in mind that the exposure is set for the panorama with the first exposure. So if you start shooting away from the sun that direction will be properly exposed as a normal exposed image but you'll have some overexposed and burned out highlights towards the sun. If I start your first exposure towards the sun you'll have better highlight detail but when you get to the other direction, less detail in the shadows.

Maybe starting at 90 degrees and shooting in raw along with some post adjustments might be your answer.

Let us know what you come up with. If you can, I'd like to see your pano reshot in raw with adjustments and details.

 

[Robert Prior]

Are you stitching the panoramas in the drone, or yourself?

I have shot hundreds of 360° panoramas and have a workflow that is efficient for me. I don't have a Mini 2 so some of this may not be applicable to you.

First off, I shoot in JPEG because I haven't figured out how to properly devignette the DNG files, and that leads to weird banding in the sky.

With the Mavic 2 I shoot in panorama mode and save the JPEGs; with the Phantom 4 and Mini 1 I manually shoot the panorama with 1/3 to 1/2 overlap between images.

The key thing I realized is that the dynamic range of an image is often too big for a single exposure, so I always shoot multiple panoramas bracketing exposures to make an HDR. I manually set exposure and white balance before shooting, and bracket by two stops.

I usually end up with 104 images at four exposure levels if the sun in in the frame, 78 at three levels if not.

1. I stitch the images with PTGUI Pro, exporting the resulting panorama as separate blend planes (one for each exposure). Often will have to do a lot of manual point addition for the underexposed ground images for sunrise shots, not a big deal for midday panoramas.
2. Next I flood the missing sky in each blend plane with a single colour (sampled from the image).
3. Tone-map with Photomatix in 360 mode.
4. Process copy of resulting image with Color Efex with a bit of detail enhancing and tonal contrast.
5. Import both images into Affinity Photo, masking so I get Color Efex image for groun, plain HDR image for sky. Get to work with gaussian blur and inpainting brush so zenith looks natural.

Another option is to shoot exposing for the ground and substitute the sky in the final image. I know photographers who do that but I haven't mastered the technique so I stick to what works for me.

You can see the results here:

Robert Prior

An avid amateur photographer, Robert Prior has been shooting 360° panoramas for years, and has recently expanded to aerial panoramas as well.

roundme.com

Not an expert by any means, but happy to answer questions.

 

[Bussty]

I have been doing a few of these lately

360 Panoramas of New Zealand Landscapes by Andrew Busst

The following are 360 panoramas taken in interesting locations around New Zealand. Clicking on the image will take you to the 360 Cities website where the panoramas are displayed...

andrewbusst.wixsite.com

3 suggestions.

Use litchi and shoot bracketed exposures using AEB then stitch using the HDR option if PTGUI only issue is its 66 images and quite a time period do the drone can move around a bit causing stitching issues

Take shots at midday with overhead sun. Sun won't even feature and light will be quite even

Take panos at just before or after sunrise/sunset... light is awesome and relatively flat

Good luck!

 

[Metrocruiser]

Hello All and thank you for your replies!!

Shoot RAW would be my first suggestion. If you're dead set against it, lower your exposure compensation, but that in turn will leave you with a darker foreground. As I said, if you shoot raw you can bring down the highlights a bit and recover shadow detail.

Hi BBP,
Thanks for this tip, I tried manual HDR in jpg/raw today just to see if I can do it. I had to work with several control points to get it stitched. Not really what I have to do for this project. It is more of an informational project rather than an artistic one.

You got me out and about trying new stuff, thanks!!

 

[Metrocruiser]

As @Bodkin's Best Photography says, shoot raw and adjust.

With my mini I can't shoot raw but I keep in mind that the exposure is set for the panorama with the first exposure. So if you start shooting away from the sun that direction will be properly exposed as a normal exposed image but you'll have some overexposed and burned out highlights towards the sun. If I start your first exposure towards the sun you'll have better highlight detail but when you get to the other direction, less detail in the shadows.

Maybe starting at 90 degrees and shooting in raw along with some post adjustments might be your answer.

Let us know what you come up with. If you can, I'd like to see your pano reshot in raw with adjustments and details.

Hi EWS, I tried raw but I put it into 4:3 and I had some issues. I am going to try it in 16:9 tomorrow and see if the stiching goes better with more overlap. Ill post it up

 

[Meta4]

if you shoot raw you can bring down the highlights a bit and recover shadow detail.

That's also possible for anyone shooting jpg images.

 

[Metrocruiser]

Are you stitching the panoramas in the drone, or yourself?

I have shot hundreds of 360° panoramas and have a workflow that is efficient for me. I don't have a Mini 2 so some of this may not be applicable to you.

First off, I shoot in JPEG because I haven't figured out how to properly devignette the DNG files, and that leads to weird banding in the sky.

With the Mavic 2 I shoot in panorama mode and save the JPEGs; with the Phantom 4 and Mini 1 I manually shoot the panorama with 1/3 to 1/2 overlap between images.

The key thing I realized is that the dynamic range of an image is often too big for a single exposure, so I always shoot multiple panoramas bracketing exposures to make an HDR. I manually set exposure and white balance before shooting, and bracket by two stops.

I usually end up with 104 images at four exposure levels if the sun in in the frame, 78 at three levels if not.

1. I stitch the images with PTGUI Pro, exporting the resulting panorama as separate blend planes (one for each exposure). Often will have to do a lot of manual point addition for the underexposed ground images for sunrise shots, not a big deal for midday panoramas.
2. Next I flood the missing sky in each blend plane with a single colour (sampled from the image).
3. Tone-map with Photomatix in 360 mode.
4. Process copy of resulting image with Color Efex with a bit of detail enhancing and tonal contrast.
5. Import both images into Affinity Photo, masking so I get Color Efex image for groun, plain HDR image for sky. Get to work with gaussian blur and inpainting brush so zenith looks natural.

Another option is to shoot exposing for the ground and substitute the sky in the final image. I know photographers who do that but I haven't mastered the technique so I stick to what works for me.

You can see the results here:

Robert Prior

An avid amateur photographer, Robert Prior has been shooting 360° panoramas for years, and has recently expanded to aerial panoramas as well.

roundme.com

Not an expert by any means, but happy to answer questions.

Hi Robert,

I have ptgui v. 10, Autopano giga 3.6 and panotour 2.5, but as I mentioned, I have only done indoor photography. I have done many gigapans but no aerial panoramas. I really apprecuate you sharing your workflow! I will most definately try this for my own passion projects.
Ah, I have Photmatix as well, no Affinity, how do you like it?

Unfortunately my subject is highrise buildings, it will be way too much post to layer and mask all that sky in.

I would just like to get some decent panos that dont require much post at all, just a bit of color tweaking and dodge/burn.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Metrocruiser]

I have been doing a few of these lately

360 Panoramas of New Zealand Landscapes by Andrew Busst

The following are 360 panoramas taken in interesting locations around New Zealand. Clicking on the image will take you to the 360 Cities website where the panoramas are displayed...

andrewbusst.wixsite.com

3 suggestions.

Use litchi and shoot bracketed exposures using AEB then stitch using the HDR option if PTGUI only issue is its 66 images and quite a time period do the drone can move around a bit causing stitching issues

Take shots at midday with overhead sun. Sun won't even feature and light will be quite even

Take panos at just before or after sunrise/sunset... light is awesome and relatively flat

Good luck!

Hi Bussty,

Yes! I have watched quite a few litchi videos on utube. This would take care of the -2, 0, +2 jpg/raw issue.

I tried golden hour last night but may last battery coudnt make it.

 

[Metrocruiser]

That's also possible for anyone shooting jpg images.

Hi Meta,

Yes, I am jpeging. So far its not so bad but if I have to go heavy it leaves artifacts.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I shoot a lot of automated 360° panos on the M2P. I shoot in JPG rather than DNG (unfortunately, you do not have the option to shoot both simultaneously, like with single still images) because it is more than adequate for the resulting stitch, viewed on the web. Best results are obtained on overcast days with very flat lighting, like a giant soft box. Alternatively, shoot when the sun is directly overhead, or just before sunrise, or just after sunset, to keep the sun out of the photos. If shooting high rises, you can often hide the sun behind a building from the camera view, like a lighting flag. Time of day and flat lighting are your friends! I use Panorama Studio Pro 3.0 with the saved original images for an even higher resolution output than the camera created stitch, using the camera created stitch as a proof, to justify the higher res version with an output to web for the final viewing on your own website. PTGui has a terrific free viewer included in their paid version for viewing the camera created stitch on your desktop. Alternatively, download the free Ricoh Theta Windows viewer here:

https://support.theta360.com/intl/download/pcapp/windows

 

[lilewis]

Hello, I am hoping to get some help with taking drone panorama shots. (Mini 2, no raw) I am an indoor 360 photographer who is struggling to figure out what time and type of day will give me the best results so the panos don't get blown out on one side from the sun. The panos I will be taking are certain areas of a densely populated area that has a lot of high rise apartment buildings. So I have to get up higher to get the tops of the higher buildings. The sun is not friendly to me

I was experimenting with Dodge/Burn today and it seems that this is a good way to balance the difference. It looks a lot better after post, but I would rather take the photo with the optimal settings rather than post-process 150 panos.

Below is an example of one of my failures. The Zenith seems to be a lot easier when there are no cloud

hanks for any help you can offer me!

Hello, I am hoping to get some help with taking drone panorama shots. (Mini 2, no raw) I am an indoor 360 photographer who is struggling to figure out what time and type of day will give me the best results so the panos don't get blown out on one side from the sun. The panos I will be taking are certain areas of a densely populated area that has a lot of high rise apartment buildings. So I have to get up higher to get the tops of the higher buildings. The sun is not friendly to me

I was experimenting with Dodge/Burn today and it seems that this is a good way to balance the difference. It looks a lot better after post, but I would rather take the photo with the optimal settings rather than post-process 150 panos.

Below is an example of one of my failures. The Zenith seems to be a lot easier when there are no clouds.
Thanks for any help you can offer me!

I agree with GadgetGuy:

1. Shoot when the sun is at it's peak or at least very high
or
2. When cloudy
or
3. Wait until the sun is behind a cloud and will stay there until you're finished.

A full bright sun shining into any lens always creates a challenge for a well balanced exposures.

 

[HarleyFlyer]

I have been doing a few of these lately

360 Panoramas of New Zealand Landscapes by Andrew Busst

The following are 360 panoramas taken in interesting locations around New Zealand. Clicking on the image will take you to the 360 Cities website where the panoramas are displayed...

andrewbusst.wixsite.com

3 suggestions.

Use litchi and shoot bracketed exposures using AEB then stitch using the HDR option if PTGUI only issue is its 66 images and quite a time period do the drone can move around a bit causing stitching issues

Take shots at midday with overhead sun. Sun won't even feature and light will be quite even

Take panos at just before or after sunrise/sunset... light is awesome and relatively flat

Good luck!

Does Litchi work with Mini 2? I’ve been waiting for news of an SDK release for us?

 

[Josiah S]

Panoramas are about the only thing I shoot in auto. It properly exposes everything for you so your skies are much better.

 

[Meta4]

Does Litchi work with Mini 2? I’ve been waiting for news of an SDK release for us?

There's no need for Litchi to do the same as he is.
Your DJI app will do it just as well.

 

[tlswift58]

Cloudy / overcast days are about only good way to beat the sun. Even at "golden" hours in morning or evening - you're going to get it. Would think Vancouver would have a fair amount of cloudy / overcast days to get those shots.

Prefer those types of days when waterfalling too - to keep the glare and harshness out as much as possible.

 

[HarleyFlyer]

There's no need for Litchi to do the same as he is.
Your DJI app will do it just as well.

Thanks, I was more interested about Litchi working with the mini 2 generally, after seeing it mentioned in the post.

 

[sarimento1]

early morning or late afternoon, just to have sun low and perhaps partly occluded.
clouds should not be too much of a problem in vancouver!
keep working at it, you'll master the technique.

 

[Robert Prior]

Hi Robert,

I have ptgui v. 10, Autopano giga 3.6 and panotour 2.5, but as I mentioned, I have only done indoor photography. I have done many gigapans but no aerial panoramas. I really apprecuate you sharing your workflow! I will most definately try this for my own passion projects.
Ah, I have Photmatix as well, no Affinity, how do you like it?

Unfortunately my subject is highrise buildings, it will be way too much post to layer and mask all that sky in.

I would just like to get some decent panos that dont require much post at all, just a bit of color tweaking and dodge/burn.

Thanks for your help!

I really like Affinity. Does everything I want that Photoshop would do, without having to pay Adobe rent every month. I kept Photoshop CS5 running as long as I could, but Affinity Photo is a fine replacement — and much zippier!

You can download a month free trial, and at the moment it's only $35 (Cdn) for a perpetual license.

Should also mention Affinity Photo has an equirectangular projection mode, which lets you scroll around an equirectangular image and edit pits of it as you like. Very useful for cleaning up the nadir and zenith of the panorama!


Thinking about your dispassion projects, shoot two panoramas: one exposed for sky, one for ground. Stitch in PTGUI or other pano software (whichever is faster/has fewer errors) and export blend planes. Run through Photomatix to either tone-map or exposure blend (both can be batched with ghost detection up high and the ground-exposure set as the default one.

Should give you a serviceable image without a lot of fiddling. On my older, slower computer I used to do a lot of batch processing and it really made a big difference in terms of my time.