Pannos

[will king]

I'll be using a 5D as my body. What focal length should I be using? I was

thinking of using my 50mm f/1.4 lens. Should I go longer or will this be okay?

Can I or should I use a circular polarizer? I should mention that the pannos

will be multi rows. Probably 2 rows. Thanks.

[obakesan]

Hi

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I've been using PTGui ... it is fantastic at fixing up and stitching together the most problematic images. Download the trial, its fully functional but leaves a watermark.

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I was so happy I bought it. This is stitched from 5 images taken with a 20D and the 17-55

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http://www.photo.net/photo/6459573

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[will king]

Chris, thanks for the tip, what still not answering my questions regarding focal length and circ polarizer filter.

[sattler123]

I would not use a CP - you will have problems with variations in light and dark areas and the pano won't look good. With my 5D I have used lenses as wide as 17mm to make panos. The trick really is to avoid parallax and to have the camera rotate evenly. I just bought a cheap pano head (the Panosaurus) and it makes all the difference in the world.

[Ed_Ingold]

Will,

 

Choose a lens that gives you the vertical composition you want. Then takes as many shots as necessary to achieve the horizontal composition. In your case, more rows are another consideration in composition.

 

In the majority of natural settings, I use 50mm with a D2x. That would be 70mm (approximately) on a 5d. Over the years I find that a medium telephoto lens gives the depth and proportions I like to mountains and broad vistas. There are exceptions. I've used a 17mm lens in the vertical orientation for tight situations, such as the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I would not recommend a multi-row pano except for special effects. In that case, you would use a longer lens than for a single-row pano.

 

You don't need to be "regular" in the angle between shots to be stitched. All you need is a 25% overlap, which is easy to estimate using gridlines or focusing marks in the viewfinder. You do need to avoid parallax if any prominent object is closer than 75' or so.

 

Use a polarizer with care. The sky is polarized in a relatively narrow band 90 degrees from the sun. This can leave a diagonal streak of darker sky. If you use a polarizer in panos, use it to control reflections and to increase saturation in rocks, water and foliage.

[will king]

Thanks Juergen. Thanks Edward. Vaulable info!

[axel-cordes]

Hello Will,

 

have a look here: http://db.manfrotto.com/303SPH/

On the left side there 'how to...'s which perfectly show how to do.

Nodal Point etc - something to learn, but you can also have good results without all that using the right SW which I would recommend: PanaVue (http://www.panavue.com/) which is not expensive and works great!

If you do both using the PanoHead etc and using PanaVue then all comes together best.

 

Regards Axel

[studor13]

Will, I think just about every focal length - with or without a CPL - is possible. You are just going to have to experiment and find out what works and what doesn't.

 

Below is a shot that is made up of 8 images, but only a single row. And it was shot with a CPL to reduce some reflections.

 

I've only tried a 7x2 once and although it worked fine in CS3 Photomerge, I find that a single row just makes my life easier.

 

A good composition is far more important than the size of the image.

 

BTW, I don't have a panoramic head but am finding that with some practice a standard head can still get the job done. It's even possible hand held!<div></div>

[obakesan]

Will

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pardon me for not addressing the lens focal length question, but when I read it, it seemed to me to be asking something like "what focal length is best for XXX" and that of course is a creative decision.

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If you're concerned with Panos, well its up to how much work you want to do, and how big a final result your after. Clearly dozens of shots in a matrix of multiple rows stiched together with a 100mm lens will yeild a better result for detail and distortion. (I've seen stuff like that btw)

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Polarizers will also depend on your width, just like using a 14mm lens on a 35mm camera you'll get sky saturation effects. I can't see it would have any physical reason to behave differently with stiching.

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It all comes down to what you're willing to spend time in on post processing. I make my exposures with my camera in 'portrait' and stitch together getting the 'length' as my height. I typically use 5 exposures to get me the 'wide' look of (say) a half sheet of 4x5 (that's 2x5 inches) film with a 90mm lens.

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HTH

[will king]

Thanks guys.

[emre]

You can not use a polarizer. The longer the focal length the easier it is on the software (to perform lens correction). 50mm will be just fine.

[will king]

"You can not use a polarizer."

 

Can you explain why?

[images_in_light_north_west]

I use a CP and a GND and as long as you dont shoot real wide you will be fine, also try Panorama Maker Pro, very easy to use, they have a 30 day trial and it does a very good blending job, I almost never have any clean up to do. I have shot panos from 17mm to 300mm.

[SCL]

The issue with the polarizer (assuming you're after sky, not removing reflections), is that the polarized sky occupies only a relatively small angle relative to the entire picture width, so you would end up with widely varying densities which not only wouldn't blend well together, but would look horrible at juncture lines. That is the same reason why using a polarizer on a wide angle lens is often an exercise in futility.

[obakesan]

Will

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re polairsers:

What is your widest lens? Now, instead of thinking "oh its a 17mm" think of that from the perspective of angle of view (like looking left and right, is it 20? or 180?? (you haven't talked about the width of angle you wish to photograph here)

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Have you used a polariser that and photographed the sky? If wide is your goal in Pano then like Stephen has suggested it looks bad often enough.

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A quick google around has failed to give me some good example image, but if you have a wide lens, try it. There is no difference between a 'fisheye' perspective of a single photograph and what you can do with stiching, only the resolution improves.

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HTH

[yinkamd]

Will

 

If you use a polarizer, you are likely to find unevenness in the polarized effects since the plane of light will change. This may totally ruin an otherwise excellent panorama or take tons of PS work to correct. I would suggest not using a lens shorter than 50 mm if you can. Finally try to avoid any close object in your panorama. Hope this helps

 

Yinka

[joey_grob]

rather than discuss the CP for a full week, and the resulting pages of text...why not TRY IT ? it would be a hell of a lot quicker and you can tell us with authority whether or not it works and why....