I am not sure where we got the chrome ball, it came with a kit we had
that has the chrome ball, a matte gray ball, and a white ball, all about
10inch in diam. We used a stand typically used for holding spot lights,
we shot the ball in the parking lot of our studio. we shot it with 200mm
lense on a Nikon D1. In our findings in reference to taking HDR image,
we learned you want to photograph your chrome ball from as far away as
possible, to reduce the perspective, allowing for more information to be
in the center of the ball rather than the sides where heavy distortion
can occur. We had accumulated about 11 images stepping at about .5 EV at
f22. After which we assembled in HDRShop and converted them to both a
LatLong and a vertical cube cross for use as environment maps. This gave
us good results ranging from almost a black image to a white image.
As far as I remember, and you can correct me if I am wrong, but I
believe fish eye lenses can only aquire about 180 degrees viewing
radius. I've tried looking for a lense that could do more, but my search
rendered no results.
Yeah using a flat image won't give what your looking for, I think for
environment reflections, the chrome ball will probably get you what you
want. We got some good looking reflections from our tests.
Greg
On Mon, 2006-06-19 at 13:09 -0400, Chris Johnson wrote:
> One of the things I was curious about was shooting with a fisheye vs. a
> chrome ball. You can get a true 360 degrees with a fisheye as long as
> your digital camera has a true 35mm film back. Most digital cameras are
> a smaller film surface. meaning having to use a chrome ball where you
> run into the exact problems you'd mentioned. Poor surface, etc. The
> difference in price to get a true 35mm film back is about $3000 on
> average....that plus lense and tripod.....ouch.
>
> We've actually tried just shooting a flat image and then in HDR shop
> making it sperical proejection and gotten some not bad results....where
> that suffers is in the reflections...which is the most important element
> with cars.
>
> Greg, where did you guet your chrome ball? Do you have it on it's own
> stand infornt of the camera?
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