Gazing/Chrome Ball vs 180° Lens - for reflections

[RobPhoboS]

Just wondering which method to choose, not looking for 'how to' just more like your own experiences.

I'm just weighing up which method to roll with when it comes to getting a map to use on my CG environment for reflections.
I recently bought the HDRI Handbook, and in the past have shot my own HDRI's (with a large gazing ball) but not particularly well, fine for testing though.

Obviously going with the chrome ball means that it will be the easiest, and cheapest way of getting some workable results. But obviously these reflective balls aren't high quality, fine for the lighting info but not great for reflective qualities.

Now with the panorama shots, I'd need to hire a lens, which isn't expensive ( £45 a week), plus I'd need to fabricate some kind of pano head as well (due to parallax issues) , since I don't own one, and cannot afford one. I guess I could potentially hire one but haven't searched yet.
The plus on this, is that obviously the end result is far superior but will cost me some money, and more time testing, setting up.

I know that both still need some tampering with in post but I have Stitcher and Photoshop, so shouldn't be too tricky to solve.

So, finally, have any of you tried both, which did you end up going with, and why ?


p.s
I forgot to mention, these are mainly for matchmoving shots, so I'm guessing that the chrome ball is probably going to be ok ?

[m1jackson]

I personally have a 12mm-24mm Tokina lens on a Canon 20d (with remote trigger) mounted on a Nodal Ninja. I end up shooting 28 positions at 3 exposures at 2 stops apart.

I know that I could use fewer positions and a wider lens, but this way, I'm getting a 18k x 9k wide shot that is good enough for a very large print if I so want it.

I put the first exposure together in Stitcher and use a folder trick to exactly match the other two exposures rather than combining them into an hdr in stitcher.

I do the hdr in a program called photomatix pro and create a tone mapped version for beauty's sake for me.

I'll then scale the image in Photoshop for it's various uses (refletion, image based lighting) and bring it into maya.

This isn't everyone's method, just mine.

[RobPhoboS]

Well the lens I was going to hire is the Sigma 4.5mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye, and to construct a cheapo version of the Agno's 'MrotatorC' - in a similar fashion to 'Nodal Samurai Lite' http://www.peterloud.co.uk/nodalsamu...alsamurai.html (the last one on that page)

But I was thinking, do I really need mega high quality reflections on things that will be in my matchmoved shots.
I guess I'll need to experiment in the coming week.

But do you go to that extent because you aren't matchmoving a CG object into a camera shot ?

[Gravy]

I've always heard that the chrome ball isn't really good enough quality for reflection maps on things with shiny surfaces such as cars etc. But, I have no real world experience of it.

Why not shoot both and do a nice blog post about it.

[farhaad_yousefi]

I've always heard that the chrome ball isn't really good enough quality for reflection maps on things with shiny surfaces such as cars etc. But, I have no real world experience of it.

Why not shoot both and do a nice blog post about it.

chrome balls are not usable i think for reflection case that is..
because there's no vast use for them being so smooth so they produce it 's quality to a limit that cg guys need more.
so i think this camera wide angle shooting business is far better case..

[RobPhoboS]

But that's the thing, won't it be CG object material dependant ?
Meaning, that if the object is highly reflective, then, yes, sure, it'll need to be highly accurate but if it's not glass/polished/chrome etc - surely it doesn't matter?

I WILL do testing, perhaps starting today but I've got loads of lessons to get through as well.

[Gravy]

Paul Devebec's site has loads of info on this sort of stuff. With samples of chrome balls and pano's.

http://www.debevec.org/

[RobPhoboS]

Of course, he is the grandfather to it all.
http://www.fxguide.com/article268.html (also great read)

I'm just mainly intrigued as to what other members on here have done as well.

[krizard]

i am going to supervise a short film and i will use the pano instead of the chrome ball to shot those HDRI for reflection, i think the quality will be way much better than chrome balls, the only problem is that i have to find an 8k camera or at least 4k to shot those pano...
any ideas on nice and cheap cameras out there???

[RobPhoboS]

Ideally you want a proper dslr with a 180 deg lens, or you'll be shooting around 30 + exposures, difficult if the light is changing rapidly.
Can you hire one ?

[Inlakechh]

I recommend using a dslr like at least the canon 350d to 550d/ rebel camera with sigma 8mm or (4,5mm for cropped sensor but you get less resolution then, but only need to shoot into 3 directions instead of 4) with the agnos M-Rotator. I`m using it to shoot 7k HDRs for 8k car cgi advertising prints / 1080p animation. Works great. I wish canon would implement a mode that goes through set up exposures automatically. I hate adjusting the exposure inbetween which can cause differences in the cameras position during an exposure range.
Does anyone have a solution for this, else than carrying a laptop around and shooting remote from it ? where`s the iphoneapp for that ????

[Loud]

I'll look at the manual, but I thought my Canon 400D (Rebel XTi) could do automatic bracketing, where the first shot is normal settings, and the next two shots are +/- X stops.

Edit: Yes, you can. You turn on AEB (Auto-Exposure Bracketing) in the camera's menu by setting the offset, up to 2 stops. When it's on you'll just press the button once, and it'll automatically take your normal picture, then darker, then lighter pictures, in sequence.

[Inlakechh]

I know of that possibility, but wish it would give the range of 16 Shots, not just 2. A firmware hack could solve this. Does anyone know about one for the 550d ?

[red_oddity]

You could try using DSLR Remote Pro with a cheap netbook to do automated bracketing with up to 15 shots.
It works great and is really portable this way.

Just make sure the Netbook runs Windows.

[RobPhoboS]

Hey guys, well I've been lent a D50, and I have a 300mm lens for my chrome ball(s), so testing has begun today but I'm expecting some better chrome balls tomorrow.
I thought I'd trial out the simple solution first of all, see how it looks in a finalish render, then if it's ok, roll with that, if not, trial out the 180deg lens.