Questions, thoughts and features  

Hi Alex,

Thank you for sharing your experience. We are glad you are happy with the setup!

• Limitations in 360 Mode:
  We developed this mode for use with mostly wide angle lenses below 20mm focal length. For those lenses, up to 5 rows and 9 columns should be sufficient. We also did this to keep the UI of this mode fairly simple (or to not make it more complex as it now is). We have been thinking about how to resolve this and most likely, there will be an update at some time.

  Solution:
  Use the Giga-Pixel Mode to go crazy with 360 Panos. Just set the upper left corner when the camera points to the sky, then move the Pan axis by 360 degrees and the Tilt axis by 180 degrees (camera pointing to the ground), then set the lower right corner keyframe. In this mode there are no limitations, you only might get more images than you actually need (large overlap at beginning and ending).

• Bracketing:
  Usually you set the bracketing sequence on your camera. Within the PINE app, you then need to set the Camera Exposure time long enough. Let's say 3 seconds. Within this time, your camera should take all bracketing images. So a long exposure time in the PINE app acts like a long-pressing of the physical camera trigger button - no need for 3 separate actuations of the trigger button. This definitely works for Canon and Sony cameras. Not sure about Nikon but it should work the same way there.
• Motors Stop at End of Pano (360 Mode):
  Good idea. Will think about a solution for this. So far, we make the camera return to the start position as this would make the workflow for taking multiple panos faster.
• Stop/Continue Feature (360 Mode):
  Good point as well. We will try to include the ability to pause after each image in a future update.
• Camera Times
  When you set the Exposure Time to zero, yes the camera does not trigger at all. This should be self-explanatory. Exposure time acts like pressing the physical camera trigger button. Focus Time acts like a half-press of the trigger button. 
  You mentioned an "Exposure Delay". There is only an "Exposure" Time and a "Delay" Time. The delay time is the pause beginning right after the Exposure time until the motors start moving. 
  I agree, an additional Delay time AFTER the motor movement (before the new camera trigger) would be helpful!

By the way, are you using the Android or iOS version of the app? Please always mention this as the UI of the apps slightly differs. Thanks!

All the best,

Patrick

Thank you for taking the time to go through my multiple topic post. I know it's not the best thing to put that many topics in one post.

I am using  Nikon D810 and the iOS app.

• Limitations 360 Mode
  I am determined to get a 20 mm f1.8 lens. So this will be a non issue in the near future. And using the Giga-Pixel mode is a good idea.
• Bracketing
  I will have to figure that out. So far I always pressed the button for each exposure of the bracket. I now consulted the manual (RTFM) and saw how to set up multiple exposures. I find it pretty cumbersome, especially if the exposure goes beyond 30 seconds. Apparently I also need to setup an exposure delay somewhere in the menu. But I need to read up on that. Unfortunately the skipped the U1 and U2 (user modes) on the dial, so one has to go through the menu... Long story short, if PINE would handle that, being able to shoot multiple exposures, we'd have it all in one place. One less thing to forget setting up in the heat of the action.

Thank you for considering the next two features on my list. That would be awesome! And the camera times are now crystal clear to me.

Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex - I know it's been a long time since you posted, but I just saw this today. I shoot with a Nikon D750 and Tamrom 15-30mm lens. And I do just like Patrick suggested and set the Camera Exposure time to be long enough for the number of shots in the bracket. I'm currently able to use 1.5 seconds, which is faster than Patrick mentioned.

But, it's very important for you to change the shooting mode to be Continuous High - that way the shooting burst will be as fast as possible. I also turn OFF Live View and also turn OFF Image Preview to allow the camera to shoot as fast as possible.

We shoot architectural 360s for luxury villas and hotels in Bali Indonesia. And, we often shoot exterior panos. In that situation we want to have the entire pano sequence shot as fast as possible so that the lighting conditions are as similar as possible, and also moving things like palm tree leaves and clouds move as little as possible between the individual shots.

BRACKETING BENEFITS
We don't generally use the bracketed shots for making HDR images - as I find the dynamic range of the D750 generally lets me get away with cranking down on the highlights for the shots with a lot of sky, and then cranking up on the shadows for the shots with interior views.

The main benefit we get from bracketing is that we're able to select the most uniformly exposed set of images from each of the 5-shot scenes. (When shooting a manual 360, I would always have to shoot and then move the pano head—and then check the exposure settings—and then shoot again... for each of the required images.) With the PINE Motion Controller and my Stage R pan and tilt heads, I just start the sequence and wait for it to finish. Yes, I end up importing a lot of extra images into Lightroom, but once I have my "normalized" set of images, I can delete all the rest.

Hi Rick, I am terribly sorry for taking such a long time to thank you for your input.

Especially appreciate the part about turning off Image preview!

I try to avoid bracketing as well since firstly I can recover about 3 stops on the D810, and secondly this is creating a lot of data and I do have a hard time deleting originals as I might have to go back to that level... Yes, I was burned in the past by this, I admit. Off course I delete them once I am confident that all errors have been eliminated.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

Hi Alex - no worries