Underwater Panorama

[suzie q]

http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full30.html

By Mal Yeo

24m deep at Nelson Bay, Halifax Park, Australia.

He is also responsible for the impressive Tulamben Wreck 'rama in Bali:

http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen/fullscreen45.html

 

[darkmoon3d]

Looks awsome! But how do you do a panorama underwater? Stitching wouldn't work given that scene and objects would move in time it takes between taking pictures.

 

[drbill]

A dive buddy/underwater videographer friend of mine was doing underwater QT panoramics in Catalina waters years ago (mid 90's). I think some of them are on his web site but I can't find the URL at the moment. I know it was much more difficult than the panoramics from land-based sites on Catalina that we were doing for our web site at the time.

Dr. Bill

 

[Sebastian]

wow that is excellent

I love Blue Gropers; one of the coolest fish in the sea

 

[SimonJ]

Amazing pics....I really love the QuickTime VR images that you can create, but have only ever done them above the water. A few of mine are at http://www.simonandmerith.com/qtvr/index.htm ...but they take a while to download.

Would be extremely interested to know what equipment was used to take the underwater shots and how they were achieved.

Has anyone taken any others like this underwater ?

Simon

 

[suzie q]

it's possible he used one of the new 'bubble' lens cameras that take 360 degrees in on one shot, in one instant. that would account for the seamlessness of the image.

i mean, how else would you get it so perfect?there isnt even a visible 'north or south pole'.

 

[pwfletcher]

I absolutely have to find out how these panoramas were made and what equipment was used. If anyone knows what underwater camera may have been used, please let me know!

 

[pdoege]

Panoramas are easy to make on land. Trickier in the water I imagine.

Basically, you turn in a circle, taking a picture every 30 degrees or so.

You can find software at http://www.panoramafactory.com/

There are a lot of others, try a google search.

Peter Doege

 

[pwfletcher]

Let me clarify my request ... I want to know what camera and underwater housing he used, I know all about the land based units and the software.

Thanks

 

[my panos]

Glad you liked the image.

It was taken using a Nikon F4 & 16mm fullframe fisheye lens in a Subal housing.
Software was PanoramaTools which I think is the best of it's kind of software for high quality images, though a little difficult to learn initially. I use PTGui to "drive" the software and save my brain, though you can use PTAssembler, PTMac or PTOpenGui.

PanoramaTools allows me to manually decide where the joins between the exposures are so the final image is seamless.

I need a minimum of one portrait format shot each 60' around horizontally and one shot straight up & another straight down. That's a minimum of seven but when narked at depth it can reach eighteen per image!

It's very refreshing as I haven't used a flash underwater for more than three years. I use 800ISO negative pushed to 3200ISO.

Mal.