Re: Digital SLR for HDR work
My preferred setup for shooting spherical panoramas for HDRI reflection maps, environments etc is an Olympus C7070WZ with a Raynox DCR-CF185PRO (US$400) circular fisheye lens mounted on it. It's not a SLR, but gives you great flexibility as you can get everything from a circular fisheye to a FF fisheye from the same setup. Using this setup I can shoot 3-4 images for a full sphere x number of HDR exposures (usually 3-7). I could even point it straight up to get full hemispherical images with a single shot for each exposure.
For other (HDRI) images I use an Olympus E-330 SLR with a 7-14mm lens, which is not a fisheye, but a super rectilinear lens with very little distortion and 110 degrees of fov. Using this setup I need to shoot 6 images around to get a full circle/sphere in portrait mode. But I need 2 rows to get a full sphere. Shooting 12x7 shots vs 3x7 makes a huge difference.
I also use a sturdy tripod and a NodalNinja panorama head + PTguiPro.
Attached is a small LDR version of an HDRI (4exp) environment/reflection map I shot yesterday on a site. Took maybe 30min to shoot and process in PTgui. It has not been edited, so you can still see the tripod at the bottom, which doesn't really matter much for such use.
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