The lenses for virtual 3D panoramas shooting.
The main criterion when choosing the lens for spherical 3D panoramas shooting is the view angle and the bigger (wider) it is, the smaller amount of frames needs to be made and the smaller amount of time will be spent on the original frames processing and stitching. And the time factor is crucial for those, who are actively engaged in the spherical 360 panoramas production.
So, for example, when shooting the 3D spherical panorama with the help of the standard kit zoom lens, which commonly has the approximately 28mm* focal distance on the short end, you’d have to take something like 30-40 pictures. With the help of super wide angle lens with the, let’s say, 17mm focal distance you can lower the number of frames to only 18. *for 36х24mm matrix With the Fisheye type lens 3-8 frames is enough to cover the whole sphere. When used together with the modern DSLR cameras, even with such number of frames the high quality full screen panoramas can be produced, that’s why the fisheye lenses are popular in the 3D panorama production. There are 2 main types of the Fisheye type lens: Circular Fisheye - the image on the received frame occupies not the whole area of the frame, but the inscribed circle with a ~180° view angle in any direction. The focal distance of the circular FishEye lens is 5.6-8mm (4,5mm for APS-C matrix).. Full frame fisheye - the image on the received frame occupies the whole area of the frame, but the 180° view angle corresponds only with the diagonals of the frame. The focal distance of the full frame Fisheye lenses - 15-16mm (8-10.5mm for APS-C matrix).
Usually people differentiate one more type of the Fisheye lens – Drum Fisheye. , but that is a mistake. Actually, it’s not the design format of the Fisheye, but the name of the image (Drum fisheye image), which is received most often when shooting with the 8mm circular Fisheye lens, installed on the camera, equipped with matrix with the crop factor>1 (check out the picture below). Today the most popular lenses for 360 panoramic shooting are: Circular Fisheye lenses
Full frame fisheye lenses
Ultra-wide lenses
*average e-shops prices |
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