Mounting the Walimex 8mm Fish Eye with the Novoflex ASTAT-NEX

The Novoflex ASTAT-NEX is usually used to mount any of the different Novoflex adapters to a tripod. However the diameter of the ring fits the Walimex 8mm perfectly. The following images illustrate the mounting with the Sony ILCE-7. I only made a small change to the ASTAT-NEX adapter: I removed a little piece using a hand saw to improve the mounting options. With the small part sawed off I can mount the lens both ways round. Both options allow it to change the aperture and the distance on the lens! Depending on my setup (pole, high pole or table top) I use one or the other option.

I called the first option Reverse in the image series below.

Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse No Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse No Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Front
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Front
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Front Camera
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Front Camera
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Back
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Reverse Back

The following images show the normal mounting option you can use when you do not want to saw a small part from your ASTAT-NEX adapter.

Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX No Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX No Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Lens
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Lens Camera
Walimex 8mm on ASTAT-NEX Lens Camera

Reprojected WWP314 ‘Decade’ – Stereographic Up and Stereographic Down

The WWP event 314 has the theme ‘Decade’. I participated with this submission. The event is scheduled to go online on 1/Apr/2014.

Reprojected WWP314 ‘Decade’ – Stereographic Down
Reprojected WWP314 ‘Decade’ – Stereographic Down
Reprojected WWP314 ‘Decade’ – Stereographic Up
Reprojected WWP314 ‘Decade’ – Stereographic Up

Comparing a Mercator projection with a Cube Face projection

One of my favorite panoramas I shot recently is the atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice. Why? Because I managed to capture the almost perfect symmetry in the room. See for yourself here or here. I also reprojected the full spherical panorama to the Mercator view you see in the following image.

Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice - Mercator projection
Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice – Mercator projection

What I don’t like about this panorama are the curved lines. It came to my mind that a rectilinear reprojection of the image would result in straight lines. However it is also not possible to reproject the full 360° field of view into one single rectilinear image. But it is possible to split the full 360° into 4×90°. The following image is the result of this technique.

Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice - Cube Face projection
Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice – Cube Face projection

All the straight lines in the panorama are also straight in the real building. The problem is now you get some discontinuities at border between the four cube faces. This is not a real problem in this panorama as the floor tiles just look fine wih the additional discontinuities.

The following image shows the four cube faces reprojected back onto the equirectangular image. You can see here clearly why the floor tiles are not curved in the final Cube Face Panorama. You can also see that the cube faces are not really cube faces, because I moved the individual cubes faces towards the zenith to see less of the floor and more of the ceiling.

Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice - Cube Face (Making Of)
Atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice – Cube Face (Making Of)

The following panorama shows the extracted cube faces in an interactive view:

[pano file=”https://www.panotwins.de/wp-content/panos/MMatern_20140107_1741_Justizpalast_Halle_CubeFaces_MakingOf.xml” preview=”https://www.panotwins.de/wp-content/panos/MMatern_20140107_1741_Justizpalast_Halle_CubeFaces_MakingOf.jpg”]

Barnafoss Bridge Downstream (Making Of)

Recently I got a question about this panorama I published on Maps Views:

  • Hi Markus, nice shot, but what happen with the focus, the right of the river is blurred?

Here I try to explain the problem. In short: I’ve just been too lazy to make an “up” shot (zenith). It is completely missing. The stitching result has not been retouched at all.

When making a horizontal pole shot the “zenith” and “nadir” end up near the equator of the photo sphere. You can see this clearly in the image below, where the red image borders cross. “Zenith” and “nadir” in this case means the direction where the pole is pointing!

Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (1)
Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (1)

When removing all images but one, this looks like the image below. You can clearly see, that the worst part of the fish eye lens ends up in an area of interest. In this case the right side of the river bank.

Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (2)
Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (2)

This image shows the original fish eye shot. You see the bad part of the lens ending up on the right hand side of the river bank.

Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (3)
Making Of Barnafoss Horizontal Pole Shot (3)

The solution to this problem is easy: You just need to take an “up” shot. However in this case “up” is again in the direction of the pole! Unfortunately for minimizing the parallax problems I would have needed a different mounting option for my camera.

Bavarian Ministry of Justice Atrium

This panorama shows the atrium of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice in Munich.
[pano file=”https://www.panotwins.de/wp-content/panos/MMatern_20140107_1741_Justizpalast_Halle.xml” preview=”https://www.panotwins.de/wp-content/panos/MMatern_20140107_1741_Justizpalast_Halle.jpg”]

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