panoramic landscape photography?

[ntebe_mahabane]

<p>i have two questions regarding lenses for shooting panoramic landscape photography then stitching them together:<br>

1. what type of lenses would i need and<br>

2. are wide angle lenses suitable for landscape panoramic photography?</p>

[sattler123]

<p>You can use any lens you want - I have used anything from 17mm to 110mm on a FF camera.</p>

[peter_daalder]

 

<p>Indeed, as Juergen mentioned, you can use any lens you want.<br>

<em>Traditionally </em>it was custom to recommend the use of a standard lens with 35mm film - i.e.: 50mm, as a good starting point. The camera ought to be absolutely level and mounted on a tripod. Better still, if you were using a special 'panoramic head' on your tripod.<br>

Using a wide angle lens will deliver more edge distortion, but that can be dealt with (to a degree) in post processing software these days.<br>

<a href="http://www.panoguide.com/howto/" target="blank">These pages</a> will give you a wealth of information on this subject.</p>

 

 

[swilson]

<p>I have two lenses that I use most of the time, a 50mm and a 28mm, both used on a 1.6x crop factor camera. In my case I use a panoramic head and take three rows and anywhere from 5 to 12 columns, all with a lot of over lap. My typical shot with the 28 mm lens is pointing up 30 degrees for the top row, level for the middle row and down 30 degrees for the bottom row, the camera is rotated 20 degrees between shots, the camera is in portrait orientation for these shots. With the 50mm lens I shot a row at 15 degrees up on level and one down 15 degrees, if I need more sky I will shoot a forth row at 30 degrees up. With the 50mm I rotate the camera 10 degrees between shots. I will then crop the final image to get a better esthetic, most often removing a bit off the bottom of the image.</p>

<p>The 50mm lens is very sharp and I end up with super high resolution images, much higher then I really need and it has a someone limited DOF. The 28mm lens has good resolution and very good DOF so for most cases it is my lens of choice when I am going to be stitching. </p>

<p>If for some reason I am limiting myself to one row then I mostly will use my 18-55 zoom set to 18mm.</p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>Seems to me the stitching software would have more troubles stitching wide angle lens shots, but not sure. Some other precautions:</p>

<p>1. Manually set exposure.</p>

<p>2. If using a zoom, be very careful to not nudge the zoom barrel, maybe tape it.</p>

<p>3. Use a tripod.</p>

<p>4. Get a bubble level, the kind that clip into the flash bracket. There are special "pano" brackets, but I think the level is a good first step.</p>

<p>The following is a recent <em>handheld</em> panoramic I did, using a Canon 70-200, I believe somewhere around 140mm. Very informal, no tripod, breaking most of the rules, just praying that I did not rotate the zoom barrel. Stitched with Photoshop CS4's function. I at least locked exposure, but I'm now looking into items 3 and 4 ;)</p><div></div>

[duncan_rawlinson]

<p>I use a 50mm for these types of shots. I find them to have less distortion.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I find that the super wide panos cover too much width. There's no height. It's interesting technically, but not aesthetically, at least to me. Wouldn't 2 or 3 shots be a better compositional limit?</p>