I finally received my Planix system this week! I shot two houses as practice yesterday with the system. One of the interesting things that I noticed was camera orientation to bright windows. It seems that keeping the stitching area pointed towards the bright windows helps in reducing glare and lens flaring. It also seems to keep the exposure consistent between the two sensors and produces a cleaner shot.
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Excellent observations. So you found it’s better to “more or less” point the side of the Theta towards the windows?
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Allen
Yes, I found it reduces the flaring and even provides better contrast.
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My Planix Core (2021) is on it’s way now. I “should” have it by Friday or Monday at the latest.
I’ve been using Theta Z1 for Matterport tours for over a year now and I never realized that positioning of the camera in relation to the bright windows. In fact I added the Theta because the other camera did a HORRIBLE job in a room with bright windows.
Now that I have your experienced tip I look forward to doing my next tour and experimenting with fine positioning of the camera in relation to the bright windows. THANK YOU!
Allen
This is definitely a “best practice” approach with the 360 cameras.
Keeping the side means that both lenses have roughly equal amounts of high brightness and shaded areas of the image so the whole balance should come out more realistic. If you have one lens full on facing the window each side of the camera is seeing one of the two extremes of light or shade.
I have to say, as a new operator to iGUIDE, I love the whole teamwork approach of the membership, sharing hints, tips and advice.
So happy to be a part of this.
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If I’m in a high contrast situation, I start the first pano shot with the camera pointing at the darkest part of the room. Then, I find that when I’m shooting the second and third pano shots in the brighter parts of the room, the windows are not blown out and the darker parts of the image are still nice and bright (because that’s where I started). It seems like there is an ambient light sensor that “resets” with each new pano. I’ve tried testing this theory - once by starting the pano looking at the darkest part of the room, and once by starting the same pano looking at the brightest part of the room. The difference is pretty remarkable; when you start in the brightest part of the room, all the darker parts are almost black and way too dark. I have these test panos somewhere and will post them if I can find them…
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That would be really interesting to see as a comparison. Great idea for improving workflow
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Great tip, thanks!