On a little trip out today I thought I would revisit the test for finding the best/easiest solution for panoramas
Subject is South Milford Sidings (went to have a look at the Drax Biomass hoppers parked up.
Or the images that Hangar took stitched in APG and infilled the top in Photoshop, all in auto, no messing.
They both look superb! No detectable difference in quality.
Both look great.
Kuula and APG definately seems to be the best choice to retain image quality.
Just need to find the best option for capturing the images.
I tried a few different ones but didn’t have the time to complete and do a comparison.
I think DJI GO takes the images too quickly with no pause. There was also a difference in exif with one of them, could have been hangar where it used a different exposure metering than the rest.
In manual exposure, all mine from Go4 have the same exif info.
I found the same this morning, GO4 was very quick to take the photos and the exposure was all over the place.
I tried the Dronepan route, again exposure all over the place and AGP wanted too much input from me, I like flying more than editing (in the summer)
Next on the list is Litchi see if it fares any better.
Still seems Hangar takes the best photos (with little input or bother) I can use the originals from the SD card and not even upload them to Hangar servers.
Hangar is still the best and easiest I think, but them owning the images is a massive stumbler for me
Did you have it in manual/fixed exposure?
Auto.
The sun was too low in the sky (around 9am) it would have just blown half the frames ;o(
Yeah - I gave up on Auto.
The one in Lymington a couple of weeks ago was in manual, and even with the low sun (early morning) it still came out acceptably.
I set the exposure at 90 degrees from the sun direction with 25% sky / 75% land. Seems to get the best overall result.
Did you set a delay on dronepan? I found that a 0.5 -1s delay gives it time to settle and get the exposure metering correct.
Same goes for litchi, small delay when it’s in place to take image.
If you have manual exposure the metering is irrelevant but the pause seems to help let the AC settle.
I don’t really get the point of Auto … the ground is the main subject and will be roughly the same exposure in all directions … but shots toward the sun will totally underexpose the land.
Getting the land exposed the same, should, IMO, give the best stitching.
I think auto works quite well sometimes. Hangar uses auto exposure.
Manual I could always get a nice effect on ground but sky blown out.
Auto seems to expose the ground and sky well as there are not many shots with a high contrast between sky and ground.
That pano you sent me while back in manual over your house was simply stunning though.
You got the impression of low sun flooding in and the ground shadows were spot on.
Think both modes have uses under different conditions.
Could always do two panos on different exposures, one specifically for sky, and then combine sky from one and ground from the other.
This I must try! 