The lines between the artistic disciplines have become increasingly blurred in the world of visual effects and 3D animation. Photography is 150 years old, but its importance to the world of virtual production has never been greater, and the techniques have dramatically transcended that of a mere picture plane. Photography was incorporated into some of the earliest applications for 3D, and since then, their fusion has been a vital part of film, games, and the explosion of other media that uses 3D assets. At the simplest level, a photograph can serve as a blueprint for creating a model by hand in 3D, as a source for material textures, and as a source of reference. In recent years, incorporation of more sophisticated photography techniques has served as a vital tool for bringing realism to 3D. HDR panos can transcend a mere background plate for 3D animation, as shown in their other moniker: Image Based Lighting (IBL). The purpose of this production spotlight is to demonstrate a scaffolded approach to one of photography’s best tools for 3D: High Dynamic Range Panoramas. Over this document, we will first examine simpler processes for HDR and panoramas separately, establishing the basic skills behind IBLs, which can produce exciting environmental photography as their own medium. These skills will then be combined to produce fully realized HDRIs, with examples of using them in 3D. Lastly, we’ll take a look at some cool tricks you can do with your finished photos, such as Little Planets and Paper Planets.

Equipment

Most DSLRs are capable of making HDR panoramas, but these are my suggestions.

1. Canon 6D: This killer feature that makes this camera ideal for panoramas is that it is full frame. Full frame cameras are built with less housing for lens attachments, and thus it can only use EF lenses. The benefit of this streamlined housing is that no image cropping will occur from the lens to the image sensor. On a camera like a Canon T6i, which has a crop factor of 1.61, that means a 24mm lens actually has a zoom of 38.64. It’s recommended you look up your camera’s crop factor, also called its focal length multiplier. This document will outline the HDR workflows of Canon cameras, but the principles apply to other cameras as well.
2. Canon EF 24-70 mm lens: This lens’ 24 mm wide angle is adequate to capture a cylindrical panorama in 12 angles, or a spherical panorama in 36 angles. When choosing your panorama lenses, lower MM length will result in far less work.
3. Sigma 8 mm fisheye lens: This lens was specifically purchased for panoramas. It has a 180 degree field of view, and can create a panorama in as little as 3 angles.
4. Tripod: HDR images are made by combining multiple shots at different exposures. Thus, a tripod is required, so that multiple exposures will be in the exact same direction. A sturdy, expensive tripod is ideal, but I have a fondness for $6 Goodwill tripods.
5. Remote Trigger: By using a remote trigger, you can decrease the threat of camera shake that comes with pushing the shutter, which is vital to make multiple brackets line up.
6. DSLR Remote: This Android app drastically expands the camera functions of a DSLR, and also functions as an external monitor for a camera.
7. USB C to Mini USB cable: This cable connects the android phone to the DSLR. The combination is preferred to a remote trigger.
8. Panosaurus tripod head: This specialized tripod head allows for the camera to be positioned vertically with the nodal point of the tripod in the direct center, reducing parallax that can cause stitching errors for panoramas.
9. Neutral Density Filter, 1.2 Film: Neutral density film darkens an exposure by a specific quantity of exposure values without compromising a photo’s hue. ND 1.2 is the equivalent of 4 f-stops darker. Putting these in the fisheye’s gelatin holder can accomplish exposures darker than the camera’s native darkest exposure.
10. Adobe Lightroom Classic: For organizing photos.
11. Adobe Photoshop: For editing photos.
12. Hugin: For more advanced panorama stitching.
13. Affinity Photo: This alternative to Photoshop handles HDR merging and 32 bit color differently, and arguably better.
14. Meshroom: Normally used for Photogrammetry, Meshroom’s fisheye panorama tools pack a surprising punch.
15. Exiftool and exiftoolGUI: used to manually alter the EXIF data in photos for ND filter exposures.
16. EXR-IO: this plugin for Photoshop allows saving files as the .EXR format, which correctly stores robust lighting data.
17. Flexify: This plugin for Photoshop greatly expands panorama remapping options.

General Advice

The locations, time of day, and subjects for these projects were chosen for specific benefits. Panoramas tend to work best in a wide open space. If objects crowd the foreground or trees tower overhead, a panorama can be harder to stitch. Isolation is also ideal, as moving components (cars, people, birds, etc) will cause differences between exposures, compromising the bracket merging. Wind and trees can also cause this problem. HDR is best done on scenes with an extreme range of values, like sunny days. As a general rule, if cast shadows are soft or nonexistent, you might be in a naturally low dynamic range setting. Always use a tripod. Try to memorize the math for exposure values. Shoot in RAW.