BenQ DC C740i times 10

Embarking on the next digital panoramic mission ! How you shot a 360 panorama of a crowded place without running into the problem of ghosts, half people/cars in the final picture because of shooting in segments, turning the camera and stitching the panorama afterwards ? You could use a Roundshot, but its film based or a digital panorama camera (Spherocam, Panoscan,..), but these cameras are too slow and not capable to scan moving objects correctly (due to the vertical scanner concept) even ignoring the hefty price tag.

Inspired by Chris Ramirez Event-Cam using 10 cameras on a rig and shooting 360 degree simultaneously I will build my own version of this. I hope Kaidan dont have a patent on assembling 10 cameras on a rig. But here the link to the original "camera".

Pre-Requirements (technical)
a) Manual Mode for aperture and shutter speed
b) Manual mode for color temperature
c) Remote Control

Pre-Requirements (my budget)
a) For this project spend less than 1500 U$.
(please fell free to mount 10 Canon 1Ds III with L 14mm together)

Challenges:
a) Mount the cameras on a plate on a tripod.
b) Trigger all at the same time remotely.
c) The parallax error that we create because the cameras are not virtually in the same spot (nodal point), but mounted in a small circle with the lens pointing outwards.

I am not sure how long this project will take, but I will publish all the steps as the projects progresses in their own chapters.

The Camera
I finally found the C740i recently launched by BenQ. This Korean brand is maybe not famous for cameras, but they sell this camera at a price spiced with features that you dont find (yet) in that low-budget range of consumer cameras.
Some of the key-features:
+ Manual mode (beside the usual full automatic "average joe" mode)
+ Manual color temperature setting (via sunny, cloudy,custom white balance)
+ 7 MP CCD sensor (1/2,5") creating max JPEG 3072 x 2304
+ Pentax lens starting somewhere around 38mm (in 35mm camera language)
+ Price (on Sales in Singapore: 169 S$, around 116 U$)
Problems:
- 38mm is not really wideangle like the 28mm in the original project but it reduces the parallax problem.
- No remote control.

To be continued..