RE: QuickTime VR Panoramas

How are you doing your panoramas? I'd love to take some myself, if I could get into it at a reasonable cost. I've got a reasonably nice digital camera, though it doesn't have much in the way of manual settings.

Well, you'll want to be able to set manual focus, and for outdoor shots, set the focus to infinity. For indoor shots, set as required.

In some cases being able to lock the exposure is important.

I would assume you'd need a decent tripod that would rotate the camera around its focal point and the appropriate software at a minimum. Is there more?

You need a pano rig. http://www.kaidan.com/ I have the KiWi+...

http://www.kaidan.com/products/kiwi+.html

I don't have the QuickTilt leveler they show in that picture, but damn I wish I did!

Your tripod must be very sturdy.

You need QTVR stitching software. I use VRPanoWorx from http://www.vrtoolbox.com/.

I also have VRSceneWorx and VRObjectWorx, but I've not even opened the packaging yet on those ones yet. ;-)

Apple makes a very very good QTVR authoring package, but it's not cheap. There's also a package available from Kodak with Apple's software, a Kaidan rig, and more (with or without camera!). It looked like a great deal.

That's about all you need. I also have The QuickTime VR book (by Susan Kitchens, who I think is the same SK that works/worked for UserLand) and a video called QTVR for Photographers, the latter of which is very very handy, even if you're not a photographer. I haven't read the book yet. :-(

Jim