Duel - Update

[WILLIAM D SCHWADERER <WDAVID@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I had a bit of a disappointment today getting ready for the
comparison.  I know some folks want to know if a stitched digital panoramic
image exhibits detail.  So, I grabbed my motorized head and new camera and
drove to the top of the ridgeline overlooking the San Francisco Bay from the
West at about 2500 feet.  The spot I picked was the peak just South of Black
Mountain at the end of Montebello Road.

I set the camera to Aperture priority mode, f11, and 4x Zoom for a 140mm
setting.  I set the SpinScape to 5 degree increments between image captures.
I selected TIFF mode on a 3.8 MegaPixel setting.  I got 20 shots with about
50 percent overlap in portrait mode before filling up four 64 MByte
smartmedia cards and a 32 MByte one.

The math is simple 5 x 20 gives 100 degrees of capture.  The camera was ever
so slightly off vertical, so I lost a few vertical pixels in the final
image.  The final image is 16,732x2216 pixels - over 108 MBytes as a TIFF.

The problem was that I was too high, so half the image is sky.  Plus, it was
a hazy day, which significantly reduced visibility.  None the less, the San
Francisco skyscrapers are clearly visible peeking out of the haze 39 miles
away.

I hope to catch a clear day if the weather continues to warm up.  Then I
should be able to catch the Richardson-San Raphael Bridge 60 miles away from
that vantage point.  If I bring my  laptop, I can transfer the images to it
and continue on, doing a complete 180 or more.  That should produce a 200+
MByte image.  Problem is, I am running out of hard disk space to perform the
stitching.  So, for a competitive 360 degree shot, I will have to use RAW
mode, or JPG compression, or a lower resolution setting.

Not too bad for a first try using a "low resolution digital camera" and
stitching.

The JPG image is about 3 MBytes - small enough to email to anyone
interested.

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Best regards,
W. David Schwaderer
SpinPic President and CEO

http://www.spinpic.com/
http://www.wmrs.edu/VR/Virtual.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Author=Schwaderer%2C%20W.%20David/002-5596
264-0325832