Photo Sphere tips

[ThatAdamGuy]

Happy to see an Android Photography forum, and especially delighted that there's a Photo Sphere section.

Since I work on this product at Google, I figured I'd offer a few unsolicited tips for making even better photo spheres

• Hold the phone vertically
• Keep it very close to your body (personally, I hold it around face level). If you want to be super-meticulous, rotate around the phone (pretending it's on a tripod)
• When doing the upper and lower rings, try tilting rather than substantially moving the phone

Yes, we're working on creating better documentation ;-)

In the meantime, hope you're enjoying Photo Sphere! Our official support channel is this forum for now, but I can try to tackle questions here in this thread until I head off for the July 4th holiday .

P.S. -- I can't officially offer troubleshooting advice re:, ahem, handy sideloaded apks and the like, but other stuff is likely fair game.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Thanks a lot!

 

[srkmagnus]

I always held the phone horizontal thinking that would make a better photoshere image. I just took a picture as suggested and the results were far better. Thanks for the tips!

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mobius360]

I've always done them horizontally as well. Great tips ThatAdamGuy.

 

[frettfreak]

Now thats just cool! Getting some love from one of the geniuses that actually made this thing!! how cool is that! Thanks!!

 

[zkSharks]

This is great, thanks for posting the tips. Definitely keep us updated as Photosphere evolves as a product. Since it seems this forum will have plenty of activity, let's keep this up top and easily noticeable. Pinned.

 

[skinneejay]

I was just about to post the question " How do you hold your phone when shooting? Vertical or Horizontal.
Many thanks!

 

[skinneejay]

One more question for everyone. When doing a photosphere do you work right to left or from the center out? I've noticed I have always worked from the center out but maybe that isn't the best option?
Maybe I should be working right to left?

 

[Ricky Babalu]

Has anyone sideloaded apk on an S3?

 

[fldude99]

This may sound dumb, but how does one view a photosphere on a PC? When I look at the ones I've taken, it just looks like a long panorama. Shouldn't it be able to rotate so it looks continuous?

 

[jengobengo]

Is image resolution capped when taking Photo Sphere images? Since the app is out there for non-Nexus phones to use, I wonder if some with differing camera specs might lend themselves as better Photo Sphere cameras than others. And as new phones come out (not necessarily new Nexus devices), could we see Photo Sphere imaging improve without necessarily an app update?

 

[srkmagnus]

This may sound dumb, but how does one view a photosphere on a PC? When I look at the ones I've taken, it just looks like a long panorama. Shouldn't it be able to rotate so it looks continuous?

Are you refering to photospheres posted on this forum on photospheres viewed on your PC through an image viewer of some sort? If you are talking about this forum, then you should be able to click the image and see it rotate or manually rotate it yourself. Be sure to upload with the appropriate

 

[fldude99]

Are you refering to photospheres posted on this forum on photospheres viewed on your PC through an image viewer of some sort? If you are talking about this forum, then you should be able to click the image and see it rotate or manually rotate it yourself. Be sure to upload with the appropriate

 

[srkmagnus]

I'm referring to a photosphere that I take on my phone...transfer it to my PC. From there it looks like a flat panorama photo-a waste of space actually. It appears that a lot of exercise and technical savvy is needed to allow a photosphere photo to be seen in a 360? What does it mean "uplead with the appropriate (pano) tag"? How do you specify a tag when uploading a photo..furthermore..what is a tag? This kind of "extra" know how is pretty much excluding 99% of the population IMO

I thought you were referring to uploading photos from the phone to the forums.

You can't transfer a photosphere and view the file on a pc as you would on the phone. It'll show up as a panorama as you've already experienced. You can upload to Google Plus, forums and Maps (not too sure about maps) from your phone and see the photosphere from your pc and be able to rotate the image. Hopefully an offline solution to view these files will be made available very soon.

If anyone knows of a solution please chime in.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hey again,

Sorry... I thought I'd receive notifications on replies, but didn't! Just noticed the default was not set to daily-notify. Oops!

- re: Photo Sphere viewers: To my knowledge, currently just in Google+, on Panoramio, and -- for photos published there -- in Google Maps.
- note that anyone / any org can make their own viewer, however See this developers page for details.
- re: resolution limits: none currently. But you uploading from your phone might time-out due to a number of factors beyond our control :\.
- re: creation techniques: I've seen success in many ways. Personally, I do a complete ring, then reverse direction and do another ring, and so on.

 

[Phil Nickinson]

- re: creation techniques: I've seen success in many ways. Personally, I do a complete ring, then reverse direction and do another ring, and so on.

Agree on working in a ring. Just feels like it's got a better flow to it. (And it has the added bonus of making me look a little crazy. )

 

[James Falconer]

I've been doing it wrong.

 

[trickedoutdavid]

Any chance your team will release a photosphere update that has support for devices without a gyroscope. Maybe it could use the accelerometer on devices. Mentioning this because my current phone doesn't have a gyroscope and i really want to be able to take photospheres.

 

[ThatAdamGuy]

a little crazy

Yes, I can sympathize! Imagine how I felt trying to slyly test this out before the app was public

doing it wrong

HA! I tell ya, I think my team and I (and all of you!) will have made it if we ever see Homer creating photo spheres on The Simpsons!

devices without a gyroscope

Trickedoutdavid, technology gets better all the time, but I don't see a time in which we'd be able to support phones without gyroscopes; the data is just too important for the stitching, sorry :\

 

[ppero196]

Hi.

Are you guys planning to improve photosphere stitching inside. Cause when I take photosphere outside its all good, but on inside it gets poorly stitched.

Thanks!