What is the technique for shooting panoramas Google interiors
About the work of a photographer on Google Street View (formerly Interior Panorama)
My name is Ilya, I'm a member of the Google Street View project. My main job is shooting virtual tours of institutions and publishing them on Google panoramas. I have been participating in the project since 2014, and I started shooting virtual tours since 2008, at first not on a commercial basis, but simply for my own interest. In this article I will talk about the technique that I used before and what I came to now.
In the photo, steel, homemade head
In general, there is only one obstacle between the photographer and the shooting of panoramas - this is the parallax effect, just because of it you cannot just take and remove the perfect panorama with the help of a regular tripod. To minimize this effect, the photographer should use a panoramic head. For my first panoramic head, and for the first experience of panoramic shooting, I am grateful to my teacher Nikolai Matrosov, it was he who gave me a self-made steel head for a SLR camera.
With this head, I safely shot the panoramas until 2014, but due to the participation in the Google program of interior panoramas (now Street View), the question arose of buying a more suitable and modern panoramic head. The reasons for this were as follows. The steel head is, of course, cool, this poker could fight off the dogs (it weighed 700 grams), but it was rather heavy for photography - this is the first reason, but not the main one. And the main reason was that this head was sharpened (literally sharpened) under a reflex camera.
Personally, in 2011 I finally switched to mirrorless cameras for all types of filming, except for reporting, as these cameras are better suited to their older counterparts. This is by the way. The platform from the mount to the tripod to the objectiv is different for mirror and mirrorless cameras. My homemade head did not have the adjustment of the distance to this site, and I could not remove the panorama, avoiding parallax, to mirrorless. For this, I decided to purchase a Nodal point BASIC head. From the older version of ORBITA, it mainly differed by the acceptability of a smaller weight, and my Sony NEX 6 camera was just very light. The difference between shooting a panorama on a homemade product and on a factory head with adjustments and a small weight is simply evident. Needless to say, I found the nodal point ideally (the nodal point is a necessary term for adjusting the panoramic head,
As a result, my set for shooting came out easy and compact, and most importantly budget, but without sacrificing quality. Since the panoramas for the project are removed exclusively in HDR, I did not see the quality differences between full-frame counterparts, seriously, because the ISO for shooting is not needed, and the more expensive matrix is mostly a cleaner ISO and a wider dynamic range! And where it is wider than HDR.
I will add that in addition to the head I had to purchase a rotator. I will tell you honestly that you will not find a rotator that is cheaper and better than the Nodal point, even on Aliexpress. I seriously considered the main option as buying a rotator on Ali, but with the current course it is useless. With the rotator shooting is faster. You can hear the rotation of the camera on the click, and it is easier to align the horizon on the tripod head, because you do not have to twist the ball head itself.
As a result, my set is NP Basic and Sony nex 3n, by the way, not a single mirror has yet failed me!
And finally, a few words about the work of the photographer in the Google Street View project.
It was complicated. You need to be responsible for the quality - the panoramas must meet the strict criteria of Google. When I got involved in a project, it was quite difficult for me despite my experience. I’ll say right away that photographers have no material connection with Google - the customer of the virtual tour pays. Personally, this is my main job, although the majority combine work in the project with something else. I think that among the competitors I currently have the most compact set of equipment, which makes it easy to move around the city and quickly assemble and disassemble. I do not plan to change the equipment, it is not necessary.
PS In 2016, Google abruptly changed the course - almost all of the shooting rules were canceled, the exam was removed, now it's just sales. It is a pity that the program ends like this.
That, in principle, is all that I wanted to share with you in this article.
Trofimov Ilya piter360.ru