what is optical center

mkapoor

Hi

I have recently joined this forum because I got excited to see some great stuff that you guys have posted.

I have doubt..........I was reading a document related to camera lens and i came across a term called "optical center", I tried finding out the meaning but could not understand the complete meaning.

Can anybody explain me what is Optical Center of a lens and what is it's significance????????????????

hgernhardtjr

When you are doing panoramas and stitching together the resulting photos, knowing your optical center is important as it helps eliminate parallax. In effect, the optical center is the spot in the lens where the light rays cross and where you want to set up your pivot point. Look here for a bit more information: http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/03.html

I personally use and extol the virtues of the Nodal Ninja ( http://www.nodalninja.com/ ), but the site above answers your question without having to dig.

ziggy53

mkapoor wrote:

Hi

I have recently joined this forum because I got excited to see some great stuff that you guys have posted.

I have doubt..........I was reading a document related to camera lens and i came across a term called "optical center", I tried finding out the meaning but could not understand the complete meaning.

Can anybody explain me what is Optical Center of a lens and what is it's significance????????????????

Mkapoor, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Henry is giving you great advice and links referencing your question.

If you have further questions about related equipment, the camera and lens questions are pertinant here, in the Camera forum, and panoramic accessories questions would go in the Accessories forum. Search the Technique forum for using the equipment and asking questions about panoramic photography and how you would find the optic center of the lens.

Panoramic photography is a very good way to increase angular coverage of a scene and, at the same time, increase the amount of detail in the image. It requires somewhat special techniques and "may" (conditionally) require specialized equipment, but sometimes just the technique and software to "stitch" the images into the final panoramic.