Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Nave of Eibingen Abbey

Nave of Eibingen Abbey
Voting period ends on 16 Jan 2015  at 11:29:49 (UTC)
 * Reason:High-resolution image of a notable German abbey church and a great example of the Beuron Art School
 * Articles in which this image appears:Eibingen Abbey
 * FP category for this image:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors
 * Creator:DXR


 * Support as nominator – DXR (talk) 11:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - Nice to know Diliff is an inspiration to everyone. Very well done. This is making me very, very, very impatient for the Swiss Arca plate to come in so I can use my new Nodal Ninja. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah he sure is :D. The wait is well worth it! --DXR (talk) 19:48, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's in. Fingers crossed that I'll be even half as good at it as y'all. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 18:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Support — Technically impressive. Sca (talk) 16:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Technically excellent as already mentioned. I didn't realise you had started using the same 35mm Sigma that I have. If you're going to use 75 frames, surely 50mm is a better focal length though? 75 frames for this angle of view and a 35mm lens means more overlap than is probably needed. Just a minor technical point though. :-) &#208;iliff    &#171;&#187;  (Talk)  18:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ha, you probably have a point here, but it isn't so much the overlap as the FOV. Currently, I'm doing -50°,-25°,0°, 25°, 50° on the horizontal and that is probably too much (gives me about 145°, which is of course unusable in practice). I guess doing four shots on that axis would be enough, but that is not giving me very convenient numbers with 25° steps (perhaps I will try it next time). What did you use when you still had the 35mm in use, 30°? I would of course prefer the 50mm, but the reality of most German churches is that the benches are so close that anything beyond 40mm becomes very tricky with DOF. Many churches are dark enough anyway (not this one, though) and I'm not keen on having unsharp parts even at f/16. Of course you have an advantage with those glorious cathedrals --DXR (talk) 19:48, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * is it just me or can anyone else not read the above two comments without thinking tweed jackets and thick rimmed spectacles, and thermos flasks in hand?! haha I wish I knew what you two were talking about! gaz hiley  11:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry Gaz, I guess for everyone else that simply appreciates the final product, it's not that interesting. But the technicals behind how they are created (interior panoramas) is a little complex. DXR, actually with the 35mm Sigma, I was usually only doing 3 columns by 2 rows (and 5 bracketed exposures) with 24° horizontal rotation, whereas when I got the 50mm, I 'upgraded' to 5 columns by 3 rows and 20° horizontal rotation. Four shots on the horizontal axis would be more than enough but it's a bit annoying when you want to start the panorama with a good centre point. I have my Nodal Ninja attached to an Arca Swiss Z1 DP ball head which has a panoramic rotator on it (as part of the Arca Swiss clamp, rather than at the bottom of the ball head where it attaches to the tripod). So what I do is, I lock the rotation of the Nodal Ninja, get the bubble level correct using the ball head adjustments, then rotate the ball head panoramic rotator using grid lines on the live preview of my camera to determine when the view is completely centred. The benefit of the Arca Swiss ball head rotator is that it rotates on a completely horizontal axis, whereas if you use the regular rotator on the bottom of the ball head and your tripod isn't perfectly vertical, you will not be rotating on the horizontal axis. Does that make any sense? It's a minor advantage, but it actually simplifies the overall process, and certainly makes stitching much easier because all the images are already properly aligned and straight. With 4 columns, it is not so easy to align in this way because you don't have a centre point to work with. Also, you should still be able to get a good DOF with a 50mm lens if you use the correct hyperfocal distance. For me with my 50mm lens, it means focusing on a point about 10 metres away from the camera, and gives you an 'in focus' distance of about 30cm to infinity (from memory) at f/13. I don't know if you do that already. It might be more of a disadvantage to go to f/13 or more on the D800 because diffraction would have more an effect on your camera than mine (because of the additional resolution). When I was using a 35mm and wasn't taking the panoramas as seriously, I used to be lazy and focus on the rear wall of the church but it didn't maximise the DOF. With the 50mm, using the hyperfocal distance is crucial. Anyway, hope that helps. &#208;iliff    &#171;&#187;  (Talk)  14:14, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks &#208;iliff  - no need to ever apologise though! I come here to learn more about photography... Just sometimes I get lost! That makes sense tho yes...  gaz hiley  15:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * &#208;iliff that approach sounds quite logical. I have just started to use a ballhead, even though I mainly use it for leveling at this moment. With regards to the DOF, I'm pretty sure that your maths is off somewhere here. Did you want to write 300 cm? Perhaps I am getting it badly wrong, but I am nearly certain that there is no way to get such a large DOF with a normal prime lens on a full format sensor. For example, this calculator suggests a hyperfocal distance of about 6.5m for 50mm f/13, leaving 0-3m (and therefore too much for many church benches) unsharp. --DXR (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're right, I meant to say 300cm. Different hyperfocal distance calculators seem to result in slightly different ranges, but on my 5d Mk III, you get acceptable 'in focus' sharpness from 150-200cm onwards from my experience. The thing is, with a small amount of downsampling and the fact that the loss of focus is progressive, it isn't really terribly out of focus until much closer than the theoretical minimum limit of focus. For example this image, where the nearest bench seats were probably about 50cm from the camera and the next row forward were about 150cm away. They aren't completely in focus but are acceptably sharp, I think. By the third row, they are most likely just at the minimum focus distance. As I said, it would be a more obvious effect on the D800 because of the resolution advantage. Having said that, I would rather have more resolution/detail in the majority of my image and a slight loss of focus on the really close foreground objects, than have a lower resolution and everything sharp. But I suppose 50 megapixels isn't too bad already. ;-) As for my ball head, I still mainly use it for levelling, and the panoramic rotator on the clamp is more just handy rather than essential. &#208;iliff    &#171;&#187;  (Talk)  23:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Support Great image, crystal clear, and verticles perfect... gaz hiley  11:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - Great picture.--Jobas (talk) 15:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - good one -  Bellus Delphina     talk   14:29, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

--Armbrust The Homunculus 11:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)