Experience
We've been taking 360° interactive virtual tours in Utah, and across the country, for a long, long time. Since 1997, to be exact! Our photography staff is very good at determining what shots will display well as 360° views, and what shots will not.
We are able to offer lower prices because we offer a you the choice of having us stitch process your photos using iPIX or a program that does not require per-image license fees.
Technique
Our panoramic images are shot using a high-end Nikon digital camera with a fisheye lens. The fisheye lens allows us to take a 183° spherical images. The lens captures 183° in every direction (up/down, left/right, corner/corner).
Most panoramic photographers use an outdated 2-shot photography technique. That is, they take one shot, then rotate the tripod head 180° and take the second shot. The problem with this method is that two 183° images only produce a 6% overlap. This small of overlap makes it very difficult for stitching software to create a clean seam in the image. In the illustration below, each rectangular box represents a shot taken with the camera. Notice how the overlap is barely visible:
We use a more modern shooting technique that allows us to take 3 fisheye shots at equal 33.33% intervals. Again, imagining each rectangular box below as a shot taken with the camera, notice how much overlap we're able to get. This allows us to produce image seams that are much cleaner than their 2-shot counterparts:
