Photography.80 - Panoramics--Let's get W-I-D-E

You are in Guest mode. If you want to post, you'll need to register (we promise it's painless).
Registered users should log in now. (Forgot your password?)

This forum allows unregistered guests access to read. You must register to post in this forum.

Photography.80
Panoramics--Let's get W-I-D-E

{Photography.80.1}: Rich Mason {richpix} Fri, 25 Feb 2005 22:05:40 EST (HTML)

I'm starting this topic because panoramics require a little more width when displayed, and folks can come to this topic expecting the need to resize their window.

Here's my first contribution:

The view from Astoria, Oregon, across the Columbia River to Washington State--as seen from a window of the place I'm staying. This is only my second attempt at a stitched panorama, and I still have much to learn. To wit: It's very important to have the tripod head perfectly level when putting 19 pictures together. I ended up doing a bit of cropping and rotating to level the horizon--enough that the 150 MB file went down to 130 MB (reduced to less than 60 Kb here)--and I thought I had it fairly level when I started tripping the shutter.

It's important to use the same shutter and aperture settings for all the pictures to be used in stitching. Fortunately I knew and remembered this. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take the camera off auto white balance the first time and had to repeat the set, thereby missing the perfect light which inspired me in the first place.

{Photography.80.2}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 00:06:38 EST (HTML)

4 photos stitched with Panavue.

Attachment: yosempano1.jpg (80K)

{Photography.80.3}: {tj2} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:43:02 EST (0 lines)
{erased by tj2 Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:54:32 EDT}

{Photography.80.4}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 11:15:41 EST (5 lines)

So what stitching techniques or programs are being used for creating
the panos being posted.  How many photos (if you can remember) are
being used?  I get my panos printed on custom paper at a reasonable
price at ezprints.com.  Most of my panos are simply two images
stitched together in Panaview using manually controlled flags.

{Photography.80.5}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 11:27:18 EST (HTML)

Two images stitched together using Panavue.

Attachment: teton_pano3.jpg (81K)

{Photography.80.6}: David Burke {tualatin} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:39:55 EST (15 lines)

Some really gorgeous shots, guys!

The peak in teton_pano3 looks like a monster emerging from the
clouds.

A Polish artist friend of mine, Robert Alda, is currently part of a
group show - Grenseløs (Boundless) at Stenersenmuseet in Oslo -
www.riksutstillinger.no/ksys/print.shtml?pid=1113&ppid=0&rtyp=10 -
featuring a series of wacky short videos of himself naked, many with
various known landmarks in background. I swear he uses exactly the
same Yosemite viewpoint as your's Paddrick in one of them. You
didn't see a naked man there did you?

Rich, you got some view from your place in Astoria. How goes the
search for a permanent pad?

{Photography.80.7}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 13:40:04 EST (10 lines)

That's a popular viewpoint of the Tetons David.  On a clear, still
day the reflection in the lake is magnificent.  Your friend Robert
was not there during my visit, but there are a lot of big lens
photographers around me during this shoot.

The clouds were showering fresh snow on the mountains at higher
elevations and it was cold.  I have a snowless film shot of this same
view taken about 25 years ago with a Nikon F4 with full reflection in
the lake.  The clouds presented some unique views from those on an
ordinary cloudless day.

{Photography.80.8}: Jenny Reiswig {jreiswig} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:34:36 EST (HTML)

This was two pictures, but no tripod. From my not-quite-a-megapixel Epson in 2000. Kluged together as best I could at the time. I think I messed up part of the right-side building when I selected the sky to blur out the line between the two pictures... oh well.

{Photography.80.9}: Jak King {jakking} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:00:02 EST (HTML)

This is the Fraser River Bridge taken from the Sea Island Bridge. A four-frame stitch.

{Photography.80.10}: Will Page {willpage} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:57:55 EST (2 lines)

Jenny, the only thing wrong I could detect turned out to be a smudge
on my monitor.  I see no flaws at all!  Good job.

{Photography.80.11}: can't sow, but I can crop {willpage} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 17:08:00 EST (HTML)

Whenever I take photos with the intent to stitch them together, I always forget that I did that by the time I download them on my pc. I probably get home and think what lousy shots and erase them, but I am going to look for some shots I know I took on my last photojourney. Seeing this topic was the catalyst to remembering that I actually took them with that intention.

I have never done the stitching together bit, is this something that you can do with PS Elements?

The other wide shots I take are at a distance, ones I know will be 'horizontally cropped it they are any good at all. Here's one that was ok, a little too much shadow on the right:

{Photography.80.12}: Gary Minniss {gminniss} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 18:36:45 EST (1 line)

Wow! These are really neat! Any tips from the experts on doing this?

{Photography.80.13}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:59:10 EST (13 lines)

Gary,

There are software stitching programs that will do this.  I've read
articles about using Paint Shop Pro, Photo Shop and MGI Photo Suite v
4.0 to do this.

I use a program called Panavue.

Google "creating panoramic photos" and you will see a lot of
interesting links.  Individual digital cameras may have to have
certain settings involving focus lock and white balance to make a
panorama.  It also helps to use a camera with the tripod connection
centered directly in line with the lens.

{Photography.80.14}: Jenny Reiswig {jreiswig} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 22:08:25 EST (3 lines)

My Olympus camera has a panorama assist feature that shows you little
guides to line up each next picture.  It's special software that came
pre-loaded on Olympus-brand media cards.

{Photography.80.15}: Jak King {jakking} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:02:26 EST (3 lines)

I used to use a specialist pano software -- I can't even remember the
name now.  But these days, the panorama feature in PS CS is so good
that I only have a little touching up to do as a rule.

{Photography.80.16}: Tom Coleman {tomcoleman} Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:20:22 EST (HTML)

THese are revelations. OK, I've been deabting about spending money for a digital, and the digital was losing. Now I'm not so sure..

{Photography.80.17}: T.J. McGovern {tj2} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 00:14:47 EST (10 lines)

I usually use three or four shots for a pano, sometimes more.

I've tried Panavue and all the others and I always go back to
Photoshop. The Photomerge feature does a great job, especially if you
use the "Advanced Blending" thingy.

I don't know if that's in Elements or not, but I'd bet it is.

They always need a little touch-up, and occasionaly there's one that
just won't work, but the results are usually very good.

{Photography.80.18}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 01:03:24 EST (HTML)

I followed my own suggestion in my previous post to Gary, and Googled "creating panoramic photos." I discovered a free pano software program developed in Canada called AutoStitch. I downloaded it and ran it to great satisfaction. Here is the link: "http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/panorama/panorama.html"

Below is a pano of 4 images using AutoStitch. The blending mode is fantastic, and it is all automatic. The software is Windows based. The pano was created at 50% of the original images and then resized to 30%. Then it was compressed to be within the posting guidelines. The view is looking north from Petroleum Creek at Shi Shi Beach.

Attachment: shi_north_pano1.jpg (79K)

{Photography.80.19}: Rich Mason {richpix} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 05:42:20 EST (HTML)

I've so far only used Photo Stitch, which came as part of the Canon camera software package. One of these days I'll get around to updating to Photoshop CS--there's a lot there I would like to have.

I found one stitched picture that's not a panoramic, per se, but is absolutely huge in terms of resolution (2.5 gigapixels): http://www.tpd.tno.nl/smartsite966.html It's kind of fun to see how much resolution it has, even in a Web version.

Here's a screen shot of a detail from that picture (note that the little red square in the inset photo is what is shown in the larger picture):

It points out one of the advantages of making stitched photos, panoramic or otherwise, rather than using a wider angle lens and then cropping: more resolution. I could print the picture this topic started off with at 16 x79.252 inches @ 240 ppi, without resampling.

{Photography.80.20}: Gary Minniss {gminniss} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 07:32:26 EST (2 lines)

Thank you all for your help. I'll have to get out and see I can do
this. I like the looks of pano.

{Photography.80.21}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:36:35 EST (HTML)

I love panoramas!

I use PanoramaMaker (or something like that) that came with my Nikon. It's not bad. Not brilliant, but not bad.

Here's a challenge that most stitching programs would have trouble with -- dealing with straight lines on a 180-degree panorama. The one below was taken in the McGill Metro station in Montreal. (Hand-held.)

{Photography.80.22}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:43:19 EST (HTML)

This one was more successful. It was taken (again, hand-held) along the Minas Basin, in Nova Scotia, where some of the highest tides in the world occur. This, obviously, was low tide.

If you click the image, a larger version will open in a new browser window (1600x296, 380K).

{Photography.80.23}: Gary Minniss {gminniss} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 10:12:04 EST (2 lines)

I could not get the link to work. However, this looks very nice to
me. You must have a very steady hand to do this hand held.

{Photography.80.24}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:56:09 EST (1 line)

That sure looks like a sharp corner for a subway Ed :-)

{Photography.80.25}: Paddrick Mackin {paddrick} Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:00:37 EST (HTML)

I love panos. Here are 4 images stitched with AutoStitch of the Kalalock Rocks at sunset.

Attachment: kalaloch_rocks_pano1.jpg (80K)

This forum allows unregistered guests access to read. You must register to post in this forum.

You are in Guest mode. If you want to post, you'll need to register (we promise it's painless).
Registered users should log in now. (Forgot your password?)

The New Café