First stitched panorama

[Per-Gunnar Ostby]

I've never really tried this before but whilst down in White Sands, NM took a number of shots of an extraordinary sunset.

I do have a question for those who stitch with Canon. What lenses do you use. My 17-40L is nowhere up to the job. far to much distortion so I had to do a lot of work to stitch them together.

Per-Gunnar

[Robert Amoruso]

Per-Gunnar,

Welcome to the Pano forum. If you are experiencing distortions here are a few things to do.

1) Overlap more. 25% is the recommended overlap but I will go to 33% or 50% if I do not have the camera leveled true to the horizon (No. 2 below).
2) Level the camera true to the horizon. Not just left to right level but drawing a line through the lens axis, that line should be level. Bubble level on the camera, be sure that both all axises are level.
3) When you do No. 2 above you will many times find that the framing is clipping top or bottom parts of the scene that you wish to include. If using a zoom, zoom out.
4) Going vertical will include more top and bottom that can be cropped later when leveling the camera per No. 2. Going vertical creates more images to stitch but increases overall level of detail so cropping is not a problem.
5) Get around No. 2 problem by using a Tilt-Shift lens. I use all three of Canon's TS lens. Once I level the camera, I use the shift to move the lens up or down to get the framing I want, then I make the images.

In your image above, I like the transition from light to dark but might suggest opening up the darker clouds shadows some. In the sand I would do a selection and brighten them up some too. I also feel that including more sand would have helped here. With Panos, the long width has a tendency to diminish skies or in this case ground that is cropped to shallow. However, many times in print, these images look grand so my comment leans more towards the JPG presentation.

I use a Canon 17-40 for panos and following the above, works great. I also use a 70-200 F/4 L IS, 28-105mm L IS, and the three Canon Tilt-Shift lenses (24mm, 45mm, and 90mm).

[David Kennedy]

Robert really covered the bases well. The only thing I have to add to that is that I use a rail from Really Right Stuff to cantilever the camera from the ball head such that the lens is centered over its "entrance pupil" (some refer to it as the nodal point). Note that my exception to this is with lenses with tripod collars--if it has a collar, I don't worry too much and figure that the parallax introduced will be minimal at worst.

Attached is an illustration I made a few years ago to demonstrate the difference between standard panning (left) and panning with a rail (right). The lens moves far less with the rail.

I made a chart for myself that I have to update every time I get a new camera body or lens I think I'd like to use for panoramic work. I mount the body and lens on the rail, and make measurements for how far backwards to slide the rail for a given lens and focal length to ensure that parallax is eliminated.

Really Right Stuff actually has a whole page about that, so rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll point you there:
http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/03.html

[Robert Amoruso]

Thanks David. I was thinking Nodal Point - Rail - Etc. but totally forgot it buy the time I got to No. 5. :eek:

I like that graphic. I will have to do one of those David.

[David Kennedy]

Per-Gunnar, I just realized that I didn't actually give you my impressions about your posted image.

I am impressed that you handled the transition from light to dark (left to right) so well, but I do wish that you had more detail in that bright spot on the left. It's a bit distracting to my eye.

Also, I think that an even taller view would have included more of the "tips" of the clouds; as presented, it appears odd to have so much of them included, but then end abruptly at the top. Alternatively, you could use a telephoto lens for panoramas (which is also fun!) and go for a view that is more about the transition from sand to mountain to cloud, whereas in this presentation we have sand to mountain to cloud to sky, but it's the transition to sky where the image falls a little short.

For your first panoramic image, I would say you did very, very well. My criticism is more about the vertical dimension of the composition than the horizontal, as you did a good job of identifying good "end points" for the left and right edges, which is all-important for stitched images.

I look forwad to seeing more from you in the future!

[Per-Gunnar Ostby]

Robert, David,

many many thanks for all of your great tips. I will definitely utilize them in my next pano.

I agree on nearly all your crits, for example I realized quickly I should have done another shot of the left end (the sun) at a faster shutter speed (to bring out more detail) and included it in PS but that is for next time. I also thought about shooting vertically and though that would have brought in more great clouds I would not have hit the tips as they extended nearly across the whole sky!

I think the parallax issue was big for me so I will definitely look into the RSS rails. Need to get a macro one anyway :)

Again, many thanks for the tip and I will try to post soon.

Per-Gunnar