Better Panoramas?

[allan_schoening]

Hello Everyone,

 

I've been doing some panoramas and was wondering if i could get some tips on how to improve

from an input perceptive. I'm using a 35mm Canon SLR (digital). I've been doing some research

on nodel point but it seems a bit confusing on how to find it in a lens and the equipment necessary

to do it. If anyone could point me in the right direction or drop a tip or two it would be much

appreciated. Thanks so much

[JDMvW]

You say "35mm digital"-- what model do you mean? It does make a difference. Only the 5D is "full-frame" (i.e., 36x24mm).

 

If you have a full-frame camera one way to do a panorama is to take pictures with a shift lens (Canon TS-E) all the way over one way (11mm or so) and then leaving the camera on the tripod and not moving it, flip the TS-E lens over to the other side. Unlike two shots moving the camera, this produces two pictures that will properly overlap to make the panorama. This can be done a crop-body camera like the XT, but obviously the crop effect means less wide angle coverage.

 

Photoshop and many other dedicated programs allow sticking together of photos, even if they are not perfectly lined up, into a single picture. It's best to start with pictures on a tripod, but this can be done even with hand-held shots.<div></div>

[SCL]

I have no relationship with the below company but have found their jig very accurate in panoramas, having successfully used it for several years. There's a variety of techniques to determine the appropriate nodal point of a lens, and it is much easier with a prime lens than with a zoom. The easiest technique for me involves using 4 sticks/wire rods and a flat surface. Sorry I don't have the reference to the article, but if you email me I'll send you a copy of my file for this easy technique.

 

http://www.stereoscopy.com/jasper/panorama.html

[arie_vandervelden1]

Set up a tripod and level it with the bubble. If you want to include close foreground you'll need a panoramic head for your tripod such that you can spin around the nodal point of your lens so as to avoid parallax errors. If you don't have a pano head, no problem, just don't include close foreground.

 

Use any lens you like. Mount the camera on the tripod. For horizontal panos consider shooting portrait orientation.

 

Set the camera to M, point it at part of the pano with average lighting. Pick a small f-stop (e/g/ f/11) to minimize vignetting. Meter and set the shutterspeed. The idea behind using M is that you want each frame to have the same exposure - this reduces blotchiness in the sky after stitching.

 

Start on one side of the pano and pan around. Shoot frames with at least 50% overlap. A good rule-of-thumb is to take note of the subject on the rightmost AF point, and then place it on the leftmost AF point for the next frame (or vice versa, depeding on panning direction). Work quickly because lighting changes fast and clouds move faster than you might think.

 

Upload to computer and stitch. My favorite stitching software is PTGui.

[photo_dark]

It's doable in photoshop, but not overly fun. Photostitch (comes with any Canon Camera) seems to work ok, but get's fooled sometimes and doesn't work properly. The key is to keep your tripod level and maintain enough overlap to give the software something to reference. Also, don't change white balance, shutterspeed or aperture between shots.. it's a pain to correct post-process (unless you intend to do something like a panoramic HDR shot, then have fun)

<br/><br/>

<center>Three vertical shots manually merged in photoshop shot with 40D + 17-40L<br/>

<img src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3050/2540808998_1e637773ae.jpg></center>

[buck_rogers1]

If you have the processing power (RAM) I find it is best to use a longer, minimal distortion lens. You'll have a lot more files to work with but also much more resolution and other advantages. The 85 f/1.8 and 50 f/2.5 both have a really flat field as well as plenty of other desirable optical characteristics that tend to be traded off for view angle in wider lenses. If you don't mind having a dozen images or so for a wide panorama you can get great files to start with that have little to no vignetting, wide angle distortion or flaring. CS3 also has a great automate feature called photomerge that does almost all of the photoshopping for you.<div></div>

[Jim_Dockery_Photos]

I was using a Nodal Ninja Pano head for a while - pretty nice little unit with good instructions on setting the nodal point. Since the latest version of Photoshop came out (much improved stitching) I am doing mostly hand held to save weight and set-up time. I do have to crop off the top and bottom of long/many shot panos, but it is worth it.

[images_in_light_north_west]

You dont really need to set up full pano equipment for panoramas, dont shoot to wide for one, use a tripod and get some decent software that will blend as well as stich, I use Arc Softs panorama maker Pro and it does well most of the time, try a free download. Here are some of my Panos. http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=658034

[sarah_fox]

How to find the nodal point:

 

Find or make a bracket that centers your lens over the axis of rotation of the tripod. Make certain the axis of the lens is perpendicular to and intersecting with the axis of rotation. The camera's position should be adjustable forwards and backwards, along the axis of the camera. Place two objects in front of the lens -- one near, and one far. Carefully arrange the objects so that they are perfectly in line with each other, as viewed through the viewfinder. Now rotate the camera left and right, while looking through the viewfinder. If the objects shift in relation to each other, you need to readjust the camera's position forward or backward along the lens axis. (If when rotating from left to right you see the nearest object shift to the left in relation to the farthest object, your camera is too far forward.) The nodal point of your lens will be centered over the axis of rotation when you can rotate the camera left or right and maintain all objects in the same relation with each other.

 

Final image check: Put together the panorama. If you're out of align, you'll have ghosting of near objects. If you're enough out of line, you'll greatly confuse the stitching software. ;-)

 

The suggestion to use a longer lens with lots of frames will give you the most trouble-free stitch. However, if you want the widest views vertically and are very careful about your alignment, rest assured I've used a Sigma 12-24 on a 10D, and everything lined up just fine. I've not yet tried this technique on my 5D, as I have to modify my bracket for the new body. The Sigma is nice because of its amazingly good control of distortion. However, many stitching programs will adjust out barreling for you anyway.

 

Have fun! :-)

[sarah_fox]

By the way, a pano head is great, but if you know exactly what body and lens you want to use, as well as the focal length at which you intend to use it, you can make a dedicated bracket out of ordinary materials. If you have a good table saw and good woodworking skills, you can do what I did. Mine is made of 3/4" plywood, dovetailed and epoxied together, weighing in at less than a pound. It's slotted specifically for the base of my 10D and lined with rubber. It's seriously about the toughest and most rigid piece of equipment I own. ;-)

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Finding the nodal point can be important in some critical situations, for example if you have near and far objects in

the shot.

 

<p>However, in many cases you can do quite well without worrying too much about this. I've done a series of night city

skylines w/o dealing with special pano heads and attachments and they have worked out quite well.

 

<p>In addition, if you have photoshop it provides some very effective stitching features. That's all I use.

 

<p>Here are links to a couple examples:

 

<p>Seattle skyline from West Seattle: <a href="http://www.gdanmitchell.com/wpg2-3?

g2_itemId=1485">http://www.gdanmitchell.com/wpg2-3?g2_itemId=1485</a>

 

<p>San Francisco skyline from Treasure Island: <a href="http://www.gdanmitchell.com/wpg2-3?

g2_itemId=697">http://www.gdanmitchell.com/wpg2-3?g2_itemId=697</a>

 

<p>Dan

[mark u]

I suggest you take a look at this site:

 

http://www.panoguide.com/howto/

 

There is advice about panoramic tripod heads, setting up for shooting, shooting technique, lens choices, stitching software and just about anything that affects panoramic shooting.

 

This cheat-sheet database may be handy if you are using equipment that is listed there (use it as a starting point, but check for yourself):

 

http://wiki.panotools.org/Entrance_Pupil_Database

 

There's also a useful guide at the RRS site (albeit naturally geared to their equipment):

 

http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/index.html

 

I think it is worth considering special software in addition to a panoramic tripod head. The PTGui front end for Panorama Tools would be a good choice.

 

An exotic technique using a large format camera and your DSLR:

 

http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_48/essay.html

 

How to use a TS-E lens for panoramas:

 

http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_58/essay.html