Panoramas

[mbird]

Have you a Landscape panoramic one for the header ?

I've not played with Panoramas until this weekend, when I tried my first one at Cockshoot Broad. The camera was hand held and set to manual to ensure the same exposure. I used the Canon Photostitch software that came with the camera, but I am not completely happy with the result as you can see some tonal variation at one of the joins. The piccy itself is fairly uninspiring as it was just an experiment whilst sitting in the hide at the end of the boardwalk.

Any suggestions as to how to achieve better joins guys?

[Guest]

I'm not sure what you did Mark, and you may well have covered some or all of these off, but the procedure to get a good pan is as follows:

1. Only use manual exposure - otherwise it will be different for each segment. Take a reading from an average part of the scene, switch to manual and use those settings for all segments.

2. Use manual focus, for the same reasons.

3. Shoot the segments vertically rather than horizontally - you're more likely to get the geometry right (it's to do with nodal points)

4. On the RAW conversion stage, make sure the same adjustment is applied to each segment - e.g if one segment is + 0.5 stops exposure and that works, use the same for each segment (in Lightroom you can copy and paste the settings). If you allow the RAW converter to choose settings, each part will be different. The aim is to get the same exposure across all sections so that there is no change in the assembled pan.

5. Photoshop CS3 or CS4 does a brilliant job of auto creating the pan with no joins (you can right click on the segments in Lightroom and select the menu option for creating a pan in Photoshop). I don't know about other programmes.

6. Load the finished pan into Photoshop (or your preferred software) and deal with cropping, setting the black and white points and sharpening, as usual. As a guide, a good aspect ratio for a panoramic image is 6x17.

Hope that makes some sort of sense ...

I've just realised this is in "pictures of the Broads" rather than "Advanced Photography" where this sort of post should be, and I'll get into trouble for being too complicated again Especially that bit about nodal points - and aspect ratios .. rats. Rats, rats, rats

Please feel free to move it. Thanks.

[Happy Jax 3]

I've not played with Panoramas until this weekend, when I tried my first one at Cockshoot Broad. The camera was hand held and set to manual to ensure the same exposure. I used the Canon Photostitch software that came with the camera, but I am not completely happy with the result as you can see some tonal variation at one of the joins. The piccy itself is fairly uninspiring as it was just an experiment whilst sitting in the hide at the end of the boardwalk.

Any suggestions as to how to achieve better joins guys?

[attachment=0]Cockshoot Panorama.jpg[/attachment]

Just step back further and use a wider angle lense

[Guest]

Please feel free to move it. Thanks.

Didn't think it was a big problem but moved it anyway as it seemed to be something of a topic all by itself. The original thread is still in the Pictures of the Broads forum.

[Guest]

Just step back further and use a wider angle lense :

Yes, that works - but you end up with a small image. A stiched pan contains a huge amount of detail. I shot one on the Malvern Hills last weekend made up of 5 images, each of them 21.5 megapixels. You can see every detail in every field across the whole panoramic, and I could make a print many feet wide. Trust me, it is nothing like a crop from a single wide angle frame!

[Pete]

Get your hands on a gigapan device

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php? ... width=1265

[Guest]

I have done some pano's in the past.

I did buy a cheap "egg" type lens to have a go at 360 panos.

Was very disapointed with the results but I should have known better for buying a cheap one.

These type of lens will give a full 360 view, ideal for virtual reality. Something I have been interested for some time.

The trouble with the cheaper lens ( reflector ) is the material. It certainly wasn't silver and not very good optically either.

The way as Bruce said is ideal, the overlap needs to be very large to help with the stitching.

If you have a look here you will see " one I did earlier" as they say.

http://www.ncsl.co.uk//webcam/womack.mov

Quicktime is required to view it.

[Guest]

As Paul says, use a big overlap - I suggest aiming for one third of each frame overlapping the next. It helps the software to get a "fix" on how to blend them together.

[newf]

My sig . is a 360 as those on the Norwich walk know. It is a shot of the cloisters with me in the middle of the green with tripod (borrowed from Mark ) and I took 12 shots with plenty of overlap, used auto stitch and cropped and resized to suit forum parameters. Only thing bit of an idiot as didn't pay attention to spire, this could have been added if I had

[mbird]

Thanks for moving this to the right area etc Simon, I should have thought of that!

Bruce, it seems I got partway there in that I did indeed have the exposure set to manual to maintain the same levels throughout. However, I did not use manual focus, nor indeed take the shots in portrait aspect.

The three pictures making up this panorama had a lot of overlap, and the obvious joins are where pictures 2 and 3 are overlapped. I think the focus issue may have something to do with this.

When I imported the raw files into LR2, I exported them straight to jpg with no adjustments at all. Does that mean LR2 would have used it's own initiative to render the jpegs, and hence the slight tonal variation. If so, would using a neutral preset on all three pictures, or indeed developing the first and then use "sync settings" on the other two have got over this do you think?

More practice required!

[Guest]

I have yet to try this function out on my P80

Jonny

[mbird]

Right, now I've got panorama issues

I took this sequence of 7 shots at Salhouse, with the camera in portrait orientation, AF set to manual, exposure set to manual etc, all in RAW mode. However, when I've used Canon's photostitcher programme, the banding between joints is awful, almost like the righthand side is being exposed differently to the left. I did have a grad filter on, which I am sure was level. Any ideas on what the problem is??

[Guest]

Mark,

That is a very hard job to get a good panoramic without the banding.

The problem is due to the left and right sides of each picture "seeing" a different exposure level.

Take any one picture and see the sky exposure to see what I mean.

With PSP you can smooth the "join" so to speak.

That is one advantage of a 360 degree lens as it takes just one picture and gives you a full panoramic view, either as a circle or you can "flatten" it as a true panoramic.

Good fun !

[newf]

Mark I may be over simplyfying things but try http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

[Guest]

Thought I would bump this up a bit as now is a good time to try these effects.

This is a 2 joined picture of Salhouse Broad.

[newf]

My ones longer than your one Paul

[Guest]

But mines thicker !

[Guest]

I think I've seen the stitching point Paul, but I had to look closely at it took some time before I did. I must have a go at one of these myself.

[Pete]

Here's some of mine, of varying quality. I've included the rubbish ones aswell so people can learn how to avoid making the same mistakes

The one of Barton Broad was made in DoubleTake (Mac only), can't remember what I used for the others.