I’ve got an assignment to make models of some two story buildings (on a budget) and I’m trying to get a photography strategy together. A drone is not happening right now, so I’m trying to come up with smarter ways to get shots from different vantage points besides the ground. Results with just my iPhone have been really great with one story, but obviously it’s really not practical. But I’ve been encouraged by my results with a ‘consumer-y’ camera.
My current line of thinking is making a rig/pole with several smaller cameras mounted to it that I can fire all at once, then move to the side, another five, etc. I’m hoping to get five going, vertically, as high as is not wobbly and ruining shots.
To do this, I’m looking into older camera models with decent resolution that support CHDK, the hacked Canon firmware. These cam be rigged to all fire at once very easily. There are LOTS of these models, and decent ones can be 16MP (my iPhone is only 12), and the firmware allows RAW shooting too, which is great.
I like this idea because I’d also like to make a rig that captures five shots at a time even when vantage point isn’t an issue. One trigger, five shots…speedy.
My other route is just to basically buy a used Nikon D850 body that’s 36MP, slap my 28mm prime on it and do what I can.
Are the optics in most of these smaller cameras so bad that it’s not worth it? etc? Any other thoughts? Am I nuts? Am I just looking for a wacky project (quite possible)?
-What is the surface you need to cover, and what is the structure of the rooms (plenty of small rooms or a large open-space)?
-What is your budget? Are we talking about 500, 1000, 3000?
-How much time are you able to stay onsite? half a day? a full day? 2 days?
-What is the expected quality of the produced model? what usage? (VR, close inspection, point cloud inspection?)
-What is the amount of light you can have? is this bright or very dim?
From my experience, 28mm can be a bit long for indoor fast coverage, I would go shorter (like 16 to 20 mm eq full frame). But this can work if you have time. I would avoid too small sensors (anything under micro 4/3 will be noisy and not so sharp).
Sorry, I should have clarified that part - these are all exteriors. The coverage area is about 100 feet of older buildings…for starters. Think a downtown in a midwest town. Brick!
My budget is maybe $500 right now. I’m essentially putting together a proof-of-concept that I can use to get more funding from the ‘higher-ups’
I can stay onsite a half day, no problem, but can actually walk over there anytime the lighting is right. But the goal is to be able to be mobile.
My final output is a reasonably accurate game engine model. So I’ve be making medium resolution RC models, retopologizing them outside of RC, bringing them back in for texure projection, then back out to the 3D program to prep the materials for the game engine. iPhone test of a small area went wonderfully.