Getting a better fit with nadir shots

Doing 360° panorama shots is a lot of fun, but they are also a lot of work on assembling the panorama with software like PTGui or Hugin. Especially to get rid of the tripod is a time consuming work.

Regardless if you use PTGui or Hugin to assemble your panorama, if you find enough control points for the nadirshot it is relativly easy to substitue the tripod in your image. This will avoid retouching the image with Photoshop or any other image processing software.

But what to do on an even underground or pavement where you don’t find enough control points, which help PTGui or Hugin to fit in the nadir shot properly in your image. To get an orientation you sometimes are grateful for a ciggarette or a piece of paper on the ground, which helps you to set control points manually on the nadirshot and the other images.

Sometimes you’ll find different colors or different forms, which help you not to loose orientation within the images. But it is still hard work, because all orientation points in the nadirshot have an offset to the other shots, where you want to set the controlpoints for the software.

To avoid these problems i use colored rings.

These colored rings are placed on the edges of the tripod legs. With this help you wan’t loose orientation in the nadirshots. I usally take 2 nadirshots, ecspecially for panoramas with long shadows i’ll take one shot against the sun.

Those rings are the enclosure of nurses watches, which are available thru amazon for a couple of Euros. I cut off the long part, leaving a small edge for further orientation in the nadir shots.

Sometimes you can set control points in the inner circle of the rings to assemble the nadir shot properly within your panorama. Any way they help a lot to keep orientation within the shots and those are easy to retouch in the final image.

The result is not optimal, because the sun was almost going to set, but i find it ok to show the panorama to you.

How do you handle the nadirshots? Leave me your comments and/or suggestions. Questions are always welcome

ciao tuxoche