camera position best practices
Hi Guys,
now and then there are questions about how to take the photographs.
So I thought it might be helpful to all to post the camera positions of successful shots.
In any case, I will share here my approach from last weekend that worked well.
Background: we wanted to scan the small arcade of this church http://mapio.net/pic/p-23258292/
we had a Nikon D5300 with 18-55 Kit lens, aperture 14, ISO 100, automatic shutter, no extra light and a tripod. we took 438 Photos
So what we did was :
we started at the left in some distance and shot straight at the arcade moving the tripod around 50 cm between shots while maintaining the 90-degree angle towards the arcade.
We repeated this at a smaller distance then.
We then went close to the arcade again shooting straight at it but now moved the camera back between shots.we repeated that for each column and each space between two columns.
The roof of the arcade is kind of an arch vault - so we put some effort into this to make sure we get everything. We set the tripod to lowest setting, with our back to one side of the arcade we slightly shot up towards the other end. we moved towards the other end while adjusting the camera angle.
We repeated that from the other side, then set the tripod to highest setting and repeated that procedure.
finally, we put the camera in the straight up position and went from one end of the arcade to the other shooting straight up, moving the camera around 50cm-1m between shots.
We took some detail shots of the doors, the small windows.
The pillars were the thing we were most uncertain of because of the different light conditions: half of the photos we had to take inside-out and the other half outside-in.
We started outside-in and went around each pillar 180 degrees.
For the inside-out shots we set the focus point and light measurement precisely onto the pillar - so the pillar was ok-ish lit but the background outside was hopeless overexposed. We hoped that would have the advantage that RC would not see anything besides the pillar. (seems to work)
After that, we took shots of the ground (quite easy) and took some more detail shots of this and that.
Below some screenshots that might make the text more understandable
If there is something not making sense in our workflow - please let me know
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That is indeed very well done. You have certainly done your homework there :)
Taking the time to get things right the first time certainly does pay off greatly.
What I would have done here in addition is to take a few more photos from the various distances on the outside path from higher up to reinforce the overall alignment of the outer parts. From the pictures it looks like those photos were all taken in one plane (same height).
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Thanks for the feedback - reading the docs and the forum here really does its thing :-)
What you say about different heights: totally agree - I would need a "higher" tripod I guess. this one is about 1.50 meters. That way I would be able to have a bigger variance in height. Also when you look top down onto a pillar you see that there are some things above the reach of the tripod that are rather guessed than recreated.
gotta look for another tripod ...
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Definitela not bad! Much more systematic than I usually work... :-)
I agree with ShadowTail - with some higher shots you wouls also have covered the tops of the capitals a bit better. On the outside, you would probably have been fine without a tripod.
Also, the short sides of the interior floor need a bit more attention for the texture.
But that's just criticism at a high level...
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To be honest I expected nothing to come out of this test but Information of what i did wrong. So I’m quite happy.
Appreciate the critic - helps me identifying where to be more careful next time
I’ll try without a tripod next time -
Well that's the best way, expect nothing, get everything! :-)
It's not wrong th use a tripod, just much faster if you don't. I think over 1/60 it is almost impossible to get motion blurr if you don't run around with the camera. :-) And if you practice a bit, then you can get down to 1/20 or 1/15 (or even lower, some say).
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Need more practice in shooting without. I’ll definitely try that. Makes things quicker and gives your flexibility in tricky edges. Tripod somehow helps me to stick to my plan. Shoot, move tripod, shoot, move tripod
But maybe that’s just me. -
Whatever works best!
With tripod is certainly saver than without. And if it takes you less time with tripod than without, why change your workflow? :-)
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