HDRI Community

Hey gang;

I've been recently reading about shooting HDRI's again and I have some questions that I could use help with. I am interested in shooting HDRI for 3D image based lighting.

I had previously shot a series of HDRI using a chrome gazing ball and they turned out fairly well. Like many, I did notice the imperfections on the gazing ball and also had to do a lot of work painting out my reflection. Plus the setup time wasn't great: setting up the tripod and so forth.

I have been reading more lately about the other way to shoot HDRI's using a wide angle fisheye lens. I have a Canon 5D Mark II and I have read that a good, reasonably priced lens for this, is the Sigma 8mm.

My questions are the following:

Does this lens make use of the 5D Mark II's full frame sensor?

When I saw images shot with this lens, they do not seem as spherically warped as an image shot on a chrome gazing ball. It also seems that the closer I get to a subject, the more spherically warped it will be which is also different than using a chrome gazing ball.

I have seen some tutorials in which people shoot up at the sky and then unwrap to a panoramic format? The HDRI's I shot I kept in spherical format.

I understand there is some chromatic aberration with fisheye lenses but it seems like a small trade off compared to the ease of use of using a lens instead of a tripod and chrome ball.

My understanding is that by using this lens, there should be no stitching of multiple angles together - just unwrapping to panoramic format.

Anything else I've missed?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Richard