Panoram how to's

[carole wiley]

Can any of you panorama shooters point me in the direction of some "how to" links? I am just recently getting into this a bit and have no clue about settings, gear required, etc.

Thanks

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Carole Would look around in the pano gallery and will pick up some tips. Best way to learn is trial and error. Do try on of your own and post. The feedback will flatten the learning curve !!! There are no secrets just hard work !!!!

[Dan Brown]

Hi Carole. Google "photomerge" or "adobe photoshop photomerge" , this will get you some links. As for posting, I think you can simply crop a single image to fit the size restrictions (800 X 300, 200kb) or you can do photomerges (stitches) with software. It is recommended that when you shoot for a photomerge, you set your camera for manual exposure so that the set of images will match up better, overlap the images about 20% and try not to include too much in the way of moving subjects at first. Then, open the images in PS photomerge and play. Some don't work, but most do. The original photomerge files can be huge, so you will have to resize down to a postable size. Good Luck, it's fun!

Dan Brown,
Sacramento

[David Kennedy]

Carole,
A couple of years ago I put up a (very brief) explanation on my web site (http://www.david-kennedy.com/technique.html). I typically capture eight to ten vertical images to be stitched later either in AutoPano Pro or in Photoshop CS3's Photomerge. The Photomerge function of CS3 is remarkably improved over that introduced in CS2, but it still chokes at times, and it does't provide the ability to process in batches the way that AutoPano does, so I use both.
I would recommend either using a lens with a lens collar, and panning from the collar, or purchasing an MPR-CL II rail from Really Right Stuff that allows you to cantilever the camera off of the tripod, so that the lens pans over the optical center (in the past, many of us called that area the "nodal point," but that turned out to refer to a different part of the lens!).
Technical parts aside, the most critical thing about wide-format work is that you have to have a clearly defined "start" and "end" point in your head before you start panning. Otherwise, you won't know when to stop!
Cheers,
David

[Robert Amoruso]

Otherwise, you won't know when to stop!
Cheers,
David

I hope you would stop after you go around 360 degree.:D

[David Kennedy]

I would hope for the same thing......:p

[Dan Brown]

depends on your age;-) I guess. dan brown

[Lance Peters]

Hi Carole - Personally i use PTGUI - I find it much better than P.S. lots of tutorials on their website www.ptgui.com (http://www.ptgui.com), you can download a trial version as well.

As for tripod heads - I have used quite a few different ones over the years, they can be quite expensive, the one I am currently using is very very good - it is a NODAL NINJA (www.nodalninja.com (http://www.nodalninja.com)) it allows the camera to rotate over the nodal point of the setup thus reducing parralx errors.

With this setup - I can create a pano very easily and ptgui stitches it together with very little manual intervention required once you have everything setup correctly.

Hope that helps

Lance

[Dan Brown]

Carole, you have rustled up some great info with your question! I didn't know about these special "panoramic" tripod heads! Cool stuff. I would like to point out for you though, that you can produce some pretty neat panos without the special equip. Although, they aren't near the quality of the images produced by this accurate equip., you can do these panos handheld also. The posted image is a 3 image stitched in CS3 and it was done handheld with a 24-120mm zoom. I have also been having fun doing bird panos with 400mm to 600mm lenses using a tripod with a bogen ball head.

Dan Brown,
Sacramento

[carole wiley]

Thanks guys, for all your input. David, your site has some really good stuff on it, also the book link came in handy. RRS has some great info. I have to do a lot of ready now. One specific question....when you take the pictures do you manually set the exposure for each or do you use auto settings for all shots?

Thanks again.

[Alan Melle]

Normally you would manually set the exposure and use that exposure for all images in the sequence. I wouldn't recommend use of auto settings for this type of photography at all.

[David Kennedy]

Carole,
Alan is right-on: you want to set your exposure once and use it for the entire image. I meter for the brightest part of the panorama-to-be and let the rest of the images fall into place. Sometimes, the edges turn out to be quite dark, but it is what it is. Now, AutoPano's documentation claims that it does really well with images set to auto-exposure, but the thought of multiple shutter speed--or worse yet, aperture--values coexisting in one final image just gives me the creeps. Seriously!

Keep in mind that when you convert the RAW images later to copy any changes made on one to the rest so they're consistent. And, possibly easiest to miss, you should set a manual white balance value and apply it to all of the images before stitching. That way there will be no color inconsistencies in the final result.

[Roger Clark]

I agree with David K. I also set the exposure best for the scene (e.g. not to blow highlights) and use the same exposure and aperture throughout. I come from a 4x5 and 8x10 view camera world where I am used to tilts, swings and offsets to control the image and depth of field. I made my own panorama head adapting a wimberly sidekick, some wimberly clamps and rails. Thus, I can shoot telephoto or panorama with my "tinker toy" setup changing configuration as needed. Here is a write-up that shows I can get good/better landscape results with a DSLR than I can with 4x5 and even get similar to 8x10:

Large Digital Mosaics as a Substitute for Large Format Film

http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/large_mosaics

What I do for depth of field is set an aperture that gets what is in one frame within my desired depth of focus, then I let the focus shift from frame to frame. This allows me to get things in the foreground in sharp focus as well as distant subjects. I keep the camera in horizontal frame orientation so that typical near to far depth of field is minimized (more common mosaics uses verticals).

Roger

[Steve Bein]

I have shot with a medium format rotating film panoramic camera and also stitched with digital cameras. I have shot successful digital pans hand held from a kayak, or with a leveled camera on a tripod, overlapping about 1/3. there is no mystical thing. Even the nodal centering is usually a non issue if you are shooting far out, as in landscapes and nonsense if shooting at infinity. For close the nodal is more important. the Eastern Sierras pan from the Alabama Hills is 6 images stitched in PTGUI. It is printed at 17" high and 80" long and hangs in my living room.
It was shot from a leveled tripod. You can always do some adjustments in the final pan for light balance. The advice to expose manually is right on. Adjusting for the highest highlights works very well, usually. Composition is usually done in thirds, but an interesting start and end of the pan helps. Sometimes it might be a good idea to overexpose a few highlights to balance the rest of the image. Experiment and learn. No one is absolutely right in this, use the best advice as a starting point to learn and see what works for you best. Also, the stop at 360 degrees is nonsense. You may want to stop at 45 degrees, or 500 degrees. I have done some interesting panoramic interiors overlapping the ends and getting about 440 degrees. The NBA hired me to shoot the 2000 Finals and I shot 760 degrees for some images. You can do more than 360 degrees so both ends of an interesting panoramic repeat. I remember doing over 360 degrees at the Windows in Arches NP. Have fun. My personal preference is a stitching program. There are a lot. I would suggest considering those which will allow you to stitch several rows one above the next.
the comments about Mosaic are interesting. i have never tried them and I think I should.