Leica pano camera - one of a kind

[GaryLH]

http://petapixel.com/2015/06/04/lei...feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+PetaPixel+(PetaPixel)

Must be nice to be famous enough for Leica to make a one of a kind s2 for you..drool 😛

For the rest of us..a digital version of the xpan is either gonna be multi-stitch or crop normal frame or the Sigma DP0 Quattro in 21:9 aspect ratio.

Gary

 

[raid]

The iPhone 6 has a great pano mode.

 

[YYV_146]

http://petapixel.com/2015/06/04/lei...feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+PetaPixel+(PetaPixel)

Must be nice to be famous enough for Leica to make a one of a kind s2 for you..drool 😛

For the rest of us..a digital version of the xpan is either gonna be multi-stitch or crop normal frame or the Sigma DP0 Quattro in 21:9 aspect ratio.

Gary

Meh. The "one-of-a-kind" S2 is simply a regular S2 with the top and bottom margins of the sensor disabled by software, and the viewfinder masked to 21:9. A very small hardware tweak would be sufficient.

For us plebeians, there is always cropping in post processing - and I would rather not put 30% of a sensor to waste.

 

[FrozenInTime]

The image shown is one example where a bit of shift would have been beneficial i.e. post capture crop from the full sensor area.
( or setup the software to have a fixed shift like the Linhof 612PC )

 

[Doug]

Interesting modification, where one has to be solidly dedicated to this pano format, no changing back and forth...

This reminds me of an add-on device for Pentax 67 called Widepan, made in China...

This is an adapter to allow Pentax 67 series cameras to use 35mm film, composed of a format mask for the film plane and a matching mask for the focusing screen, plus two pairs of spacer plugs to keep 35mm film reels centered over the mask. Film feeds from one cartridge into another.

Film format is 24x66mm, very slightly wider than the Hasselblad XPan's 24x65mm.

Of course it's reversible, just remove the bits. I gave up on it partly due to the hassle of loading and unloading, but mostly for the same issue FrozenInTime brought up -- that one can simply crop the full frame later and gain some rise/fall effect from the full sensor/film. And, I feel that some pics "need" to be wider than others.

 

[shawn]

For the rest of us..a digital version of the xpan is either gonna be multi-stitch or crop normal frame or the Sigma DP0 Quattro in 21:9 aspect ratio.

Gary

My take on a digital XPan. 🙂

All three fire together to avoid the potential for ghosting in typical stitches.

Shawn

 

[GaryLH]

I recently picked up the dp0. But I've been doing the stitching or crop approach for awhile now. I never like the sweep pano that much because it was never a raw file and u sometimes got weird pano artifacts that u did not notice in camera.. Only saw it later during editing. They all have their good points.

Yeah...the s2 is a crop pano, but there are the following good points
- what u c in the viewfinder is exactly what u will get
- a medium format sensor has more to still use after crop..however the Sony a7r2 is probably just as good, if they would just implement a 21:9 aspect ratio, then u would get the what u c aspect

I'm sure Leica did it for the publicity.
Gary

 

[icebear]

Quote from Kudelka :
"So the digital camera makes it easier, and also more interesting.
I am 77 and I can say, Vive la Revolution!”

 

[GaryLH]

My take on a digital XPan. 🙂

All three fire together to avoid the potential for ghosting in typical stitches.

Shawn

Definitely an interesting dyi. How do u get all 3 to shoot at once?

Gary

 

[YYV_146]

I recently picked up the dp0. But I've been doing the stitching or crop approach for awhile now. I never like the sweep pano that much because it was never a raw file and u sometimes got weird pano artifacts that u did not notice in camera.. Only saw it later during editing. They all have their good points.

Yeah...the s2 is a crop pano, but there are the following good points
- what u c in the viewfinder is exactly what u will get
- a medium format sensor has more to still use after crop..however the Sony a7r2 is probably just as good, if they would just implement a 21:9 aspect ratio, then u would get the what u c aspect

I'm sure Leica did it for the publicity.
Gary

Publicity, yes, but the effort isn't as significant as people make it out to be. Third-party groups modify camera firmware all the time - magic lantern is a good example. A true 21:9 sensor would be much, much cooler.

I once used an Xpan extensively - so I share sentiments for a wider format. But I also take pictures with the intention of cropping to 21:9, but then decide that the content works better in 3:2 or 16:9 with the extra margins. That ability you also lose with the modified S2.

For me, having the corners in the EVF view is good enough. I know what I'll get in 21:9, and I also know what I'll get in a taller format.

 

[shawn]

I bought three cheap cable releases and spliced them together with diodes on each signal line to be sure I wouldn't get reverse current if one camera happened to be off. Works great.

Link to full size sample.

Shawn

 

[rbelyell]

i get confused by these intermittent comparisons of X-digicam to the film xpan. my understanding is the uniqueness of the xpan is that it allows for pictures across two traditional 3:2 35mm film frames. in so doing, it elongates the traditional fov by 2, but it maintains the distance-perspective of the lens used. it is my further understanding that neither of these imo critical and singular elements are to be found anywhere else in either the film or digital world. all these digi cams do is crop a single traditional 3:2 frame. with respect to the oft-cited-as-xpan-like-panorama-cam, the dp0, it merely crops a traditional 21mm fov single frame photo to 21:9. conversely, using the 45mm xpan lens yields a 24 or so mm fov over two frames, but importantly maintains the 45mm distance perspective. it is my assumption that this cannot be replicated unless a digital camera in effect uses two side by side standard sensors to record a single elongated image. so these comparisons are thus all inapposite. am i incorrect?

 

[raid]

I bought three cheap cable releases and spliced them together with diodes on each signal line to be sure I wouldn't get reverse current if one camera happened to be off. Works great.

Link to full size sample.

Shawn

Very cool! Not for everybody, though. May be challenging for stealthy street photography!😀

 

[shawn]

Very cool! Not for everybody, though. May be challenging for stealthy street photography!😀

Not terribly stealthy. After I get the angles where I want I will be making a smaller mounting board to cut down on the size somewhat.

For more stealth, shooting just two cameras cuts the size down quite a bit. For a subject in front of you it makes it look like the cameras aren't really pointed at them.

I haven't tried it with a bunch of moving people yet. Should be OK since they fire together. I have shot moving cars in the blend zone and they stitch fine.

Shawn

 

[GaryLH]

i get confused by these intermittent comparisons of X-digicam to the film xpan. my understanding is the uniqueness of the xpan is that it allows for pictures across two traditional 3:2 35mm film frames. in so doing, it elongates the traditional fov by 2, but it maintains the distance-perspective of the lens used. it is my further understanding that neither of these imo critical and singular elements are to be found anywhere else in either the film or digital world. all these digi cams do is crop a single traditional 3:2 frame. with respect to the oft-cited-as-xpan-like-panorama-cam, the dp0, it merely crops a traditional 21mm fov single frame photo to 21:9. conversely, using the 45mm xpan lens yields a 24 or so mm fov over two frames, but importantly maintains the 45mm distance perspective. it is my assumption that this cannot be replicated unless a digital camera in effect uses two side by side standard sensors to record a single elongated image. so these comparisons are thus all inapposite. am i incorrect?

It actually supports single frame normal 35mm frame and dual 35mm pano mode at the same time at the expense of lenses that barely had enough of an image circle that could handle the pano width. The 30 and 45 mm lens needed centered graduated nd filter to handle vignetting. Thus, the xpan had the advantage of more negative for pano mode but the same as normal otherwise.

The DP0 has more than enough resolution to handle a 21:9 crop..until recently w/ the advent of cameras like Sony a7r2, cropping to pano, the detail loss may not have been acceptable to some people..

Those that have shot enough pano can pretty much pre visualize the pano but the Quattro series cameras is the first that I am aware of w/ built in support for 21:9 aspect ratio as well as standard 3:2 and 1:1..

In the digital world, I doubt that anyone would ever go to trouble a creating an actual 21:9 native aspect ratio camera.

As for me, stitching is not my prefered method, cropping to pano is...the additional aspect of being able to c the final result in 21:9 aspect ratio is a plus for me.

Gary

 

[Doug]

i get confused by these intermittent comparisons of X-digicam to the film xpan. my understanding is the uniqueness of the xpan is that it allows for pictures across two traditional 3:2 35mm film frames. in so doing, it elongates the traditional fov by 2, but it maintains the distance-perspective of the lens used. it is my further understanding that neither of these imo critical and singular elements are to be found anywhere else in either the film or digital world. all these digi cams do is crop a single traditional 3:2 frame. with respect to the oft-cited-as-xpan-like-panorama-cam, the dp0, it merely crops a traditional 21mm fov single frame photo to 21:9. conversely, using the 45mm xpan lens yields a 24 or so mm fov over two frames, but importantly maintains the 45mm distance perspective. it is my assumption that this cannot be replicated unless a digital camera in effect uses two side by side standard sensors to record a single elongated image. so these comparisons are thus all inapposite. am i incorrect?

Hi, yes... the perspective is only related to where you stand in relation to the subject matter, not the camera or lens or film format. What you get on film or sensor is, then, what the camera sees from there, and that does relate to frame size and lens angle of view.

 

[rbelyell]

not sure i understand where youre going doug. if you stand in one spot photographing a static subject, you will have a different distance perspective with a 45mm and a 21mm lens. certainly you will also have a different fov, but thats not what i'm talking about. that same static subject will fill more of the frame with a 45mm lens. standing in that same spot with the sigma dpO the fov will be similar to the xpan+45mm in pano mode, but the distance perspective will be much different. that is my point. because the xpan fills two standard frames it offers a wholly unique pano perspective (about a 24mm fov, but a 45mm distance perspective) than any other tool to which it is constantly and incorrectly compared, unless i am incorrect in my facts. stitching together two 45mm photos will achieve the same end, but that by definition is not an in camera pano, nor is it really a pano. its a franken-photo. ):

btw, gary, ive shot extensively with the xpan and 45 and never had a single vignetting issue. the 30 is known to have that issue, but ive never shot with it to confirm that.

 

[shawn]

" because the xpan fills two standard frames it offers a wholly unique pano perspective than any other tool to which it is constantly and incorrectly compared, unless i am incorrect in my facts."

I am not sure I understand how that makes it unique? As you said it is essentially two frames shot with a 45mm lens. A two shot digital stitch shot with a 45mm lens is going to be roughly the same thing with a little less width due to the blend zone. Three shot stitch would be wider FOV with the same basic perspective.

Take something like a Bronica RF645 with the 45mm and crop it and it should be very similar. The actual film size would be almost the same and both are shot with a 45mm lens.

Shawn

 

[rbelyell]

imo it is a 'unique' product simply because it is the only product that does what it does! i believe that is the definition of 'unique'. my primary observation was simply that: that no other product to which it is constantly compared does what the xpan does, the way that the xpan does it, with the results the xpan produces.

addressing your point shawn, the fact that the end result can be otherwise obtained, not by a product but rather by human gerry-rigging (stiching together multiple photos) is fine and accurate, but imo lies outside both what i said and the OT, which was about acheiving actual pano photos from a (leica) product that was then compared to the xpan. additionally regarding your bronica suggestion, as long as we talk about 'cropping' we are fully and totally failing to understand the uniqueness of the xpan. it is simply not the same, either in process or result, as explained twice above.

 

[brbo]

imo it is a 'unique' product simply because it is the only product that does what it does! i believe that is the definition of 'unique'. my primary observation was simply that: that no other product to which it is constantly compared does what the xpan does, the way that the xpan does it, with the results the xpan produces.

The "uniqueness" of the XPan can be replicated in ANY other format. Theoretically.

And in real world, I'd be VERY surprised if there wasn't a lens/camera combination that would give pretty much the same result (after cropping to 65x24 format). So, XPan's results are not unique. Not really sure about the "unique way of Xpan" that you describe. It just exposes a bit more film than FF cameras, a bit less than some other MF/LF cameras... So?