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I was inspired by the current issue of Outdoor Photographer to go out today specifically to shoot panoramas. I tried to shoot the same way described in the article I read... not just a series of left-to-right frames, rather, multiple rows of left-to-right frames; use a prime lens to maximize sharpness.

I learned a number of things that can get you in trouble :biggrin:

(1) It's important to make notes to remember, for sure, the exact left-side start point and the right-side end point. Otherwise, you will probably have holes in the composite image after the rows are stacked on top of each other. This is what I ended up with for the image I posted in February Eight:
Milwaukee Ave 6 frames.jpg
Milwaukee Ave 6 frames.jpg (104.46 KiB) Viewed 1833 times

I could have cropped to a more pleasing image if the three images on the bottom row had extended as far to the right as did the three images on the top row.

(2) leave plenty of blank space around the edges, especially if doing a vertical panorama that is likely to have vertical distortion needing correction. I was using a 50mm lens so there was very little distortion, even after tilting the camera to get the top part of the museum. But, I simply don't have enough to work with here. I couldn't zoom with my feet (back up) because I needed to avoid left and right side construction fences that would have been too distracting to include. The solution is to revisit this location next year when those fences are gone:
Milw Art Museum 3 frames.jpg
Milw Art Museum 3 frames.jpg (136.5 KiB) Viewed 1833 times


(3) If all you are going to do with the image is post it on the internet, all of this is probably more trouble than it's worth. The whole point of using a short prime lens and making many exposures is to produce a very sharp, detailed image. This is fine if you are going to print it but all of that sharpness and detail is lost as soon as a jpeg is resized for posting. This image is made of 18 frames, nine across the bottom and nine across the top:
Image

The full size composite is 94" x 15" (22,553 px X 3,687 px @240ppi) and would produce excellent detail if, for some reason, you wanted a print 7'10" long. The PSD file is 505MB in size. Here is a 100% crop of a piece way over on the left side:
100% Crop.jpg
100% Crop.jpg (94.64 KiB) Viewed 1833 times

The one posted in Pixentral is resized to 12" x 2" and most of the detail is lost except in large objects.

It was fun. As I said, I learned something. But, I will wait for spring or summer to play again ... just too darned cold to stand in one place and spend the time necessary to "do it right". If you want to read the article, it's here:
http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/how- ... ching.html

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
Rusty what great information. Love all of the panoramas. I like the milwakee art museum the best.
I never thought to stack rows of photos up to make a pano. I like your results, but 94" x 15" is crazy! :D I really like the colors in Milw Art Museum 3, all cool pale blues and white.

Courtney
Rusty, I can't imagine working with such a huge file.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge & experience. Very helpful graphics. :thanks:

Looking forward to your spring & summer pano's
Betty
Win 8.1, PS CC, Canon bridge P&S
Great looking pano,Rusty. Which stitching software did you use?
Chas
Chas's Gallery
f/16 on a sunny day.....:)
PSE 7, File > New > Photomerge
...worked like a champ. That's about a 160° view.

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
I didn't know you could do layers of photos in photomerge.
Chas
Chas's Gallery
f/16 on a sunny day.....:)
No doubt about it......I have to learn where all the buttons are on my Nikon D7000. I attempted a nine photo pano with the camera held vertically. Results were not that good. I failed to lock the focus. The camera auto-picked different focus spots for the various exposures. All part of getting familiarized with the new camera.
Chas
Chas's Gallery
f/16 on a sunny day.....:)
I didn't know you could do layers of photos in photomerge


I didn't know either, I gave it a try to see what would happen. It worked just fine on the downtown Milwaukee shot looking up Wisconsin Avenue. One row of three on the bottom and a second row of three on the top. It also handled the three vertical shots of the museum (only one row) very well. "Like a champ" was an exaggeration for the very big pano but I suspect that was a problem with how I shot it rather than the software.

It did just fine on the bottom tow of nine frames. It got completely confused on the top row of nine frames --- simply too much blank sky lacking features to match up. I had to position six of those nine frames manually.

But, it did prove to me that it could handle multiple layers. The only trick is to shoot it so that each of the individual frames contain enough feature detail to let it work.

I had everything locked in manual: focus, ISO, WB, shutter and f-stop. However, in that article I cited, this guy talked about changing focus for some of his shots when he wanted more DOF than his aperture setting would give him --- one focus point for the close-in foreground stuff and another for the rest.

Rusty
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
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