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Dual Fisheye Plug-in v2.12.0 - free

By hirota41d

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Single or bracketed dual-fisheye images. Merge DNG images into super HDR

Thank you to Toyo Fujita, IKOMA360, for providing key information and updates included in this article.

The DualFisheye Plug-in allows you to take a single or bracketed / burst dual-fisheye 360 degree images more quickly, delaying the merging/stitching for batch processing at a later time, saving you time.

The plug-in supports HDR-DNG mode, which allows you to capture a super high dynamic range RAW image with one click.

Ichi's DualFisheye Plug-in merges up to +/-4 EV RAW images into single DNG file.

This technique reduces or eliminates saturated highlight & noisy shadows.

1) In single shot mode, 1 shot takes about 1 second, which can save significant time if you are taking hundreds or thousands of pictures for tasks such as building documentation.

2) Bracketing mode can take 3/5/7/9 shots at 1EV step with only 1 click of the shutter button. The process takes approximately 3/5/7/9 seconds.

3) Burst mode can take 3/5/7/9/17 shots with only 1 click of the shutter button. The process takes approximately 3/5/7/9/17 seconds.

How to use

"Mode" button: toggles shooting mode
"Wifi" button: toggles number of shots
"Wifi" button (long press): toggles 10 sec timer on/off
"Fn" button (Z1 only): toggles JPG/DNG* mode

*DNG takes more time: ~2.5sec/shot

To speed up the process, the DualFisheye Plug-in keeps the two 180 degree fisheye images unstitched. Afterward, you can send them over to the processing devices (e.g. computer or Android device) for batch processing. A merging/stitching application is required.

Active community discussion and hands-on reviews are here.

Additional information:

1) The RICOH THETA Stitcher app (ver 2.20.0 / Jun 11, 2020) officially supports HDR-DNG (DFE) images (16 bit float .dng image). There is no longer any need for the complicated workaround.

2) Motion Detection feature released on DFE ver 2.9.0 (Jun 15, 2020). This was an experimental release. We always needed to make sure "turn off MD" before shooting to avoid the Pink Zone issue (Motion blur, see below).

DFE Remote app and shooting. Motion Detection is set to ON.

Example of the Pink Zone issue. (The developer says "It's pink noise error.")

3) Final version of DFE(?) ver 2.12.0 (Mar 17, 2021)
The release notes says "reduced pink noise error in HDR-DNG mode" as the new feature.

Conclusion

"Pink Zone" error sometimes occurs near windows. By setting MD to ON, you can get rid of this annoying issue. It's great! As needed, you can can turn off MD for taking pictures of static scenes. However, please note that unexpected movement might sabotage your images. Since this can happen frequently, we highly recommend you not to turn off MD.

HDR-DNG +/-4 shot HDR-DNG sample image

This image was captured at Isuzu-Chaya Honten (五十鈴茶屋本店）in August 2020. Photographed by Toyo Fujita, IKOMA360.

Stitch Dual-fisheye on Android

Stitch on Desktop with Lightroom

Review by Jolly TVFX

This Plugin is awesome!

I work in Film VFX on set, so have been looking into a way to use the Theta Z1 to replace my full frame camera and 8mm for taking bracketed HDRI images.

I had previously been testing Authydra, which is an excellent app but doesn’t yet have the DNG support. This one does!

Here are my thoughts when testing:

Captures DNG and jpg - Excellent!
Brackets up to 9 images - Just what I needed!
Takes both 180º photos at the same time - and this is a fast process. All said and done, capturing all the images I needed took less than a minute.
No HDR processing, just the raw images and saves so much time without this.
Easy to set up. Doesn’t require connecting with an iPhone/iPad. All set up and capture done on camera.
Each sequence of photos is saved in a new folder and easily transfers to a computer with Theta File transfer app.
You can set a 10 second delay. so press the button and step back.
It retains previous plugin settings.
much faster capture than any of the other plugins I’ve tried!

Attached are some quick tests I did. One inside, one outside.
Inside