Forum

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

On my 3 year old Epic Pro the battery charges fine, but the Gigapan unit reports insufficient charge upon immediately plugging it in to the unit. However, if I put a blank charging plug into the Gigapan unit, it thinks it is operating under external power and has no problem doing a full days Gigapanning. When the plug is inserted, the Gigapan unit no longer checks for voltage level and just works with what it has. I have checked the voltage on the battery, it is 7v when charged, so it seems it is the firmware or some internal of the Gigapan that has the issue. These blank charging plugs come with many external charger kits where you can change the tip, I would suggest trying one of these and seeing if you get satisfactory miles.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Exposure AND Focus Bracketing ....

Thanks. Right now, I can do the hyperfocal thing with my 24mm (on a full frame) and get from 5’ to Infinity in one shot when focused just shy of infinity. But what I’d like to do is to use a 50mm lens which will take the number of shots per panorama from 35 up to 90 and I’ll get higher resolution in the process. Unfortunately, if I use a 50mm lens, I’ll need two shots to capture the same focal range.

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

I am also having serious problems with my battery on my Epic Pro. I will finish a GigaPan, and the Battery Status function will say I have 100% battery life. I’ll try to do a GigaPan a few days later, and it will say I have insufficient battery before I can even start.

Last night I put my battery in my Epic Pro and checked the battery level, and it said 100%. I removed the battery, and went out today to make a GigaPan. I put the battery in, and the Epic Pro refused to make a GigaPan because the battery was too low.

I’ve missed out on several opportunities to make a GigaPan because of these battery issues. Can I also get a replacement battery?

Topic: General Gigapanning / Professional Photographers

Hi all,

For those out there that make their living as a photographer, I have created a group on the Gigapan website for us to communicate on and share ideas and business strategies with integrating gigapan in to your photography business.

Please follow this link to join the group;

http://gigapan.com/groups/107

Colin.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Exposure AND Focus Bracketing ....

Hi Art,

This may come across as a dumb suggestion but seeing as you haven’t mentioned what you are photographing I will suggest it.

Have you tried increasing your aperture on your camera to increase the hyperfocal distance, thus maximising the subject in focus.

There are many apps out there that will work out your most efficient hyperfocal distance depending on your lens, your aperture and your desired focus distance.

Hope this helps.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Gigapan Epic Pro - in moderate winds

Hi Jagsiva, welcome to the forums.

The gigapan staff do not visit these forums regulary unfortunately. There seems to be a bit of play in the video as you mentioned, I have tested it with my gigapan too and it does do the same. Luckily I tend to always shoot with high shutter speeds and if in high winds I make the overlap of each image slightly higher to counter for mis fires for intended shot. This tends to minimise problems in windy conditions.

I hope these tips help you out in some way.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Spherical Gigapan iPad App

Interesting concept, just dont know how practical that is really. Bit more of a gimmick more than anything

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Remotely control the gigapan unit

As promised, here is a short video of my remote control unit in action…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_kE3MMGW8o

More to come.

Topic: Embedding / Embedding Sample Code -- fullscreen, snapshots, large views

Just a quick note to thank Joe. His code is working fine for me now. I was having some problems and my host told me “The function json_decode() requires at least PHP 5.2.0” My server had 5.1.6. I’ve migrated to a different server with 5.3 and everything works great. Greg

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

Lucavason,

For the Epic/Epic 100 models, we recommend high-quality Ni-MH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) rechargeable AA batteries such as such as Sanyo Eneloop, or single-use Li-ion (Lithium Ion) AA’s.

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Printing

GigaPan is very serious about supporting and protecting your copyrights to your images. Please read our Purchase Terms for more information: http://gigapan.com/cms/about/purchase-terms. Your gigapans are only printable by others if you check the button “Allow others to print this gigapan?”. You can always print your own gigapans (which is why a print button appears next to it when you are logged in). When you are logged in, you will see the print button available for your prints. Your prints will only be available to others to print if you go to the detail page and select “Allow others to print this gigapan?”.

To double check – log out, then look at your images to make sure the print button is no longer showing up next to gigapans that you have not allowed others to print.

In the near future, we will add a revenue share feature that will allow you to earn revenue for each of your images.

GigaPan is also looking to add large format prints and include such mediums as wallpaper, canvas, acrylic, custom, etc. We will be sure to update our members when these new features become available.

We are creating a FAQ on affordable ways to mount gigapan prints, especially large format. One idea we would like to offer is to nail in magnetic roofing nailsinto your wall and then place magnetic strips on the back of the image to hang tight and straight . The magnets come in many different styles so you can be creative.

Thank you and let us know if you have any questions!

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

So they are the less-problematic batteries out there. But keep in mind every battery suffers if it is exposed to high temperature differences.
I was tempted to use li-po batteries in epic 100, but I don’t know and do not suppose it has low-charge protection cut off. Furthermore li-po has its own quirks and I’d not advice anyone who is not a battery-operated-RC model expert to use them.. ;-)

Topic: Embedding / Embedding Sample Code -- fullscreen, snapshots, large views

Hi Greg — it’s hard to tell from your post what the problem is. I’ll respond to your private message to try to work through the problems and then post what we’ve found so that others can learn from it.

— Joe

Topic: General Gigapanning / Gigapan Epic Pro - in moderate winds

Anyone use this in any kind of moderate wind?

I tried it with a D800 on an ocean coast with 10-15 knot winds, everything tied down, bracket replaced with RRS and nodal, Gigapan on Gitzo 5 series, mounted directly. MUP, and 2 second delays between exposures as well as MUP. I also had the rigid setting “on”.

There is so much play up/down/fore aft between the rotating motorized base and the unit itself that even touching causes a few seconds of vibration. Emailed GP (no phone number), and they asked for a video. In the video, just for ease, I had an RRS plate mounted to the tripod directly and the Epic Pro with the RRS dovetail on the plate. This part is super solid, but they claim this is the issue. BTW, the reason I put this clamp on was that screwing and unscrewing the GP head directly on the tripod torques against the motor, which I would think is not such a bright idea. Regardless, I used the unit directly mounted on the tripod in the shoot in question.

The rig was relatively light – D800 + Coastal Optics 60mm (maybe 500-700g).
Exposure was in the 6-12s range for various series. Images were unusable. A complete waste of an evening’s worth of shooting. The motion blur is so bad that some images look like double exposures.

Has anyone used this in any sort of wind — not a typhoon, just normal ocean winds in the 10-15mph range with long exposures?

Here’s the video I sent as asked. At some point I show the play in the unit.

https://vimeo.com/62648871

Response from GP…or so I hate BS! You can see clearly where the play is in the video.

“I had our technician view your video and he said all your settings are correct, but to eliminate the Arca mount between the Pro and tripod. There could be more stability mounting unit directly on to tripod. He did not find anything faulty about this unit.Any further assistance we can provide, please let me know.”

I did have plans to use the DF/IQ180 and Arca/IQ180 (manual mode) on this, but I’m not sure this would even be possible outdoors. perhaps the Roundshot VR is the answer, should have gone with my first instinct.

Cheers…

Topic: Embedding / Embedding Sample Code -- fullscreen, snapshots, large views

I’m new to embedding this way. I’m getting these errors.
Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed opening ‘/vservers/gregyoungphoto/htdocs/gallery/setup/php_value_ok.php’ for inclusion (include_path=‘.:/opt/php/lib/php’) in Unknown on line 0

Any ideas? Thanks, Greg

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

Gary, we had found out last week that Ted Roller had a defective battery and we replaced under warranty. I’ll contact you for further troubleshooting to find out if you also might have a faulty battery.

Lucavascon, yes, the Epic Pro battery pack is Ni-Mh.

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Plug spec for elect. shutter release

Jason, that is interesting!!
Do you think that iphone triggertrap dongle could fire whatever camera, if connected with our Epic 100??
More…
Any suggestion?
http://www.lucavascon.net/blog/
thanx!
Luca.

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

hi, what kind of battery are they? Ni-Mh?
thanx.

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Remotely control the gigapan unit

Hi all!
I’m keeping a diary of my Epic hack here:
http://www.lucavascon.net/blog/
Mechanical part was a breeze.
All my respect to the one that made a tidy board. A tidy building and a simple and hackable thing.
Looking it there are some places that are like screaming to be an USB connection!!!
For the remote.
Look to the microswitch on the right… that is the one I will solder a cheapo chinese camera radio trigger to.
cwinhall, keep us informed! :-)
GigaPan Curator, that would be a DREAM feature! Along with possibilities like programming standard shooting configurations. It would open up Epic possibilities to the world of us “pro” pano shooters! Count me in for any kind of betatesting

Topic: General Gigapanning / Spherical Gigapan iPad App

I thought this crowd might be interested in this.

http://vimeo.com/xrez/yosemitespyglass

Topic: General Gigapanning / Exposure AND Focus Bracketing ....

Has anyone figured out a way to both focus bracket AND exposure bracket using the Gigapan (automatically)?

I’ve been shooting some 360s x 180s and have to use a 24mm lens. (Which takes 35 photos to capture.) I’d like to get more resolution so if I can shoot with a 50mm lens, it should take 90 shots so three times the resolution. Unfortunately, if I do that, I don’t have the depth of field that I get with the 24mm which leads me to focus stacking.

I’ve tried to find an external control that can do this but haven’t quite found what I’m looking for — yet. Some do focus shifting, some exposure bracketing rarely both. The one I found that does both won’t do Nikon (I’m shooting with a D800E.)

Thoughts?

-Art

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Remotely control the gigapan unit

Thanks for the reply.

I am taking the unit to a mechanical engineer today to produce a makeshift remote system for the unit for me. I will post details of it once completed and the cost for those out there that may wish to have a system now and like myself cannot wait till a gigapan system is developed.

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Embed And Facebook Taggin

Is there a script or service besides GigaPan’s Gigatag for using facebook to tag people?

Thanks!

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Pro Battery Life

I’m having the very same issue. No matter if I’m indoors (70 degs F) or outside (50 degs F) the battery in my Epic Pro only lasts for one gigapan (about 300 shots). When stored after charging the battery will only hold a charge for about 12 hours.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Fastest shooting-settings?

yes, they are in the fastest mode.