Huh? Panorama? Usually it's to show a skyline of a place or to show a large expense of landscape. I normally just put the horizon on the lower one third of the frame and then shoot. Determine the start point and end point and just shoot away lor... I have no special rules.

Set to f8 or f11. Focus to infinity or somewhere in the middle of the frame. I usually do horizontal panning lor. Vertical panning I think you should just focus on one subject. Either tower or tree or mountain.

If you have too many conflicting lines maybe you should consider if panorama is the best way to shoot it.

Try not to use wide angle to shoot panorama. If I know I'm going to stitch together a few shots, I will shoot using my 50mm lens and then stitch. Barrel distortions on wide angle makes it difficult to stitch shots together. Also light fall off in the corners of UWA also makes the exposure become not even. If you're going to stitch, might as well go a bit tele and then stitch. Just take a few more shots lar... Dun be lazy.

To minimize distortions on UWA lens you must level the lens with the horizon. Pointing the UWA up or down will cause converging lines. Just to let you know lar.

Haiyor.. If you use focal length of 50mm or above, sure dun have problem with trees or tiang or building all senget lar...

Where you put the horizon is up to you. I usually put the horizon on the lower third portion of the frame cause in panorama sure got show lots of sky or tall buildings mah.

Why I advise not to use wide angle focal length is because if trees or tiang become all senget then not nice lor the output. Also imagine you wanna stitch that time the first pic got tree near the corner of frame. Tree all senget ady because of barrel distortion. The second pic you move the frame and you must let some overlap mah so you can stitch, correct? So you overlap and then in the second pic the same tree now appears closer to the center of frame so barrel distortion is not so great. Tree become straighter in second pic. Now when you wanna stitch and put those two pics into the software app, for sure it will have difficulty trying to align the 2 pics.

To those of you who think that Pro equipment = pro photos, take a look at this site:

Link

How many of us can get half the photos this site owners gets using these gears?

Start from ISO 800 and work your way up to a number that you are comfortable with.

No need to wait. The 85mm f2.8 SAM is already in stores! Less than RM 1K and does not produce brightline bokeh, unlike some RM 7k++ lens that do.

eddybeh : It's a known fact that the 85mm f1.4 Zeiss is not especially fast focusing.

For you guys wondering if it's a good idea to get the 24mm f2 Zeiss, here's the verdict from www.photozone.de regarding this fine lens:

Verdict

The Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm f/2 SSM may not be as fast as its Canon and Nikon counterparts but it's capable of delivering a better image quality at comparable aperture settings. It avoids the glory but also the difficulties of an ultra-large f/1.4 aperture in favor of a much higher peak performance. There's still a bit of corner softness at f/2, but beyond it unleashes its full potential. The image quality is already very good at f/2.8 and excellent if not outstanding (within the full format scope) at medium apertures. The Zeiss lens produces a moderate amount of barrel distortion which is typical for a lens in this class. Unfortunately the Zeiss designers were not able to solve the common vignetting problems at large aperture setting - the light falloff can be very obvious here. The quality of the bokeh is very good for such a kind of lens (albeit average in absolute terms) and bokeh fringing (LoCAs) is also very well controlled. The build quality of the Zeiss lens is exceptionally high thanks to an all metal design and tight tolerances. Sony's SSM AF delivers a flawless performance offering both very fast and near silent AF operations.


As opposed to the Canon 24mm f1.4 USM L II

Verdict

The Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 USM L II gave us some mixed feelings during the tests. If you use it at its sweet settings - that's between f/4 and f/8 - the lens will be about as good as it gets for a lens in this class. It's extremely sharp here and there's no significant vignetting to speak of. Lateral CAs are also no serious problem and the distortions are well controlled. The question may be whether this is "good enough" though. At max. aperture (f/1.4) the technical image quality isn't all that great - an extreme vignetting and soft corners are obvious flaws here. This is usually forgivable for a tele lens where the center quality is paramount but it may be more of a question mark for an ultra-wide lens if you desire more than just shallow depth-of-field here. The quality of the bokeh could also be better although we haven't really seen a really good performance from a (moderate-) ultra-wide lens here so far anyway. Please note that we don't question the immense creative potential of such an ultra-large aperture lens - if you require the capabilities of an f/1.4 lens there's no substitution of course.
The build quality of the EF 24mm f/1.4 USM L II is simply superb and the new weather sealing is reassuring when shooting in very harsh conditions. The AF is very fast and near silent. All-in-all it's a very good lens if you're aware of its potential and limitations.


Price : The 24mm Zeiss = RM 45xx RRP
Price : The 24mm Canon L = RM 75xx RRP

You save RM 3k and get better performance!! Unlike a certain someone who keeps harping on why some brand is inferior, photozone at least does some research and tells it like it is.

Not at all. It's a great bargain. Although the alpha lenses are not advertised as weather sealed, people have used them under extreme conditions without any problems. Check out luminous landscape's site article on the expedition to the Antarctica and who can forget that user who shoots in the desert and never wipes his 24-70mm Zeiss on the A900.

I'm feeling a bit b****y today so I'm going to tell people to go to www.photozone.de and read the reviews for the following:

1. Alpha mount Zeiss 85mm f1.4
2. Alpha mount Zeiss 135mm f1.8
3. Canon mount 85mm f1.2 L
4. Canon mount 135mm f2 L

And see how the Zeiss beats the pants off both the Canon lens! Quite something for an 'inferior' brand, eh?

This post has been edited by shootkk: Dec 16 2010, 11:49 PM

kysham : I can't help it! They come out with something that good at that kind of price! I'm poisoned beyond help by it myself!!

SouthernAllStar : That's most probably a dust speck on your sensor. Have you tried with other lenses? Is the spot still there when you use another lens? If it is, then you need to clean your sensor.

Yes, you can. Just follow the video by sifu albnok on how to clean your sensor using a blower on the first page of this thread.

Lens hood is used to lessen the chances of getting flare in your pics. They serve to prevent light from hitting the lens at such an angle as to produce flare and/or ghosting.

They work most of the time for most lenses but if you know your lens very well, you could probably do just as good a job using your hands.

8tvt : No lar.. won't lessen the light source as telephoto lenses usually have a narrow angle of view. The hood will not block the view, else you will see vignette.

Hahaha! It's only been in the market for 2 months! I really dun think anyone will be selling it second hand.

Never mind lar... slow, slow save money. I accompany you lor... I also slow, slow safe money!

zicron : I save same amount like zstan lor! You think I very rich meh?

Yes. This time frame suits me. Count me in your 10-12 months project, k?

First tip : Go back home and read the manual from cover to cover.
Second tip : Take lots of pics.

4th tip : DON'T and I mean DON'T be a gearhead cum fanboy!

This post has been edited by shootkk: Dec 17 2010, 05:54 PM