How to take panoramic pictures?

[victor_ng2]

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I have a Canon 5D w/ a wide angle lens. I'd like to take some panaramic pictures but don't know how. I've heard I've to take series of pictures and use software to stich them together.<br>

My questions are:<br>

1) What's the technique, what do I have to do when taking those pictures so that when I line up those pitures, they look "continously"?<br>

2) What's the software that I can use to stich those pictures?<br>

3) What web-site would be best to have them print panoramic pictures?</p>

<p>Thannks.</p>

[Ray House]

<p>Goggle "Microsoft ICE". This is a free stiching software that works well and includes a forum that will answer many of your questions.</p>

[colin carron]

<p>You can either take a panoramic picture with one shot with a wide angle lens or you can stitch a sequence of photos together. They come out looking a bit different as the perspective of a wide angle lens is a bit different from the stitched sequence. The wide angle tends to exaggerate the size of close objects while a stitched photo tends not to.</p>

<p>If you are going to stitch photos together you need a standard lens or short telephoto, not a wide angle lens. This is because the wide angle perspective mentioned above makes stitching diffcult. So the usual stitching teqhnique is to use a 50 mm up to 80mm lens for full frame camera such as your Canon 5D. You don't need any special tripods for most purposes. Make an assessment of the best exposure for the whole of the panorama then set that exposure manually. Just hold the camera in the vertical (portrait) orientation, then starting at say the left hand end, take a shot, note something in the right hand corner of the viewfinder frame and move the camera so that the object now appears in the left corner and take another shot. Allow a reasonable amount of overlap. Continue taking shots from left to right until the panorama is completed.</p>

<p>Once they are uploaded to your computer open the shots in stitching software such as Canon Photostitch and combine them following the instructions which are fairly straightforward.</p>

[JosvanEekelen]

<p>see <a href="http://help.adobe.com/archive/en_US/photoshop/cs4/photoshop_cs4_help.pdf">http://help.adobe.com/archive/en_US/photoshop/cs4/photoshop_cs4_help.pdf</a>, page 247. Adobe gives some hints how to take panoramic pictures. The rest is Photoshop, nog surprisingly.<br>

If you have Canon software installed you can use Photostitch: <a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/eos_slr_camera_systems/eos_digital_slr_cameras/eos_5d#DriversAndSoftware">http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/eos_slr_camera_systems/eos_digital_slr_cameras/eos_5d#DriversAndSoftware</a> <br>

Other programs are available for most operating systems, paid an freeware. Hugin is also a nice one with lots of options, and it's free. But Photoshop, both CS and Elements do a nice job with regard to stitching.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>recent thread on similar topic at http://www.photo.net/travel-photography-forum/00aMk9</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Hi Victor, I would go with Ray's suggestion to start. You can take a couple of overlapping photos and experiment with simple software immediately to get a taste of what's involved and what to expect. AutoStitch is another option:<br>

<a href="http://www.photo-freeware.net/autostitch.php">http://www.photo-freeware.net/autostitch.php</a></p>

<p>Serious panoramic photography can get very involved with automated mounts, software, and can become computer-taxing if you start stitching large number of photos. Once you do a little experimenting, there are many resources on beginner to advanced panoramic photography on the web including videos:<br>

[<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=panoramic+photogrpahy#hl=en&sa=X&ei=fiutT9XeCouJ0QGopcG5DA&ved=0CIUBEL8FKAE&q=panoramic+photography&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=1770c6232f6a2377&biw=1440&bih=770">Link</a>] </p>

[johne37179]

<p>I have been playing with panoramas for some time and after trying a number of the stitching programs use AutoPano Pro. If you are going to use stitching software, you will need some computing horsepower and lots of RAM. <br>

Unlike a comment above, I most frequently use a super wide lens (10mm) with about 2/3rds of a frame overlap. This works just fine and gives the software more points to match while stitching. I have used normal and even long telephoto lenses (300mm) and have stitched several dozen images together. It all works, but not without a learning curve.<br>

Panoramas are fun and truly enables by the powerful software and CPUs now available. I use a full house iMac with 16GB of RAM. Some of the resulting images can also be very large.<br>

Enjoy your time with it. I believe most of the stitching software will let you download a free trial. Try them out before you buy. There are two aspects to the software that I found important. First, is the ability to stitch the images together. The second is the ease of use. Both are important.</p>

[MathewDH]

<p>This is the second recent posting about shooting panoramic images. There are lots of tutorials on the basics of the overlapping techniques.</p>

<p>Regarding the use of wide angle lenses. If you shoot wide open, then plan on at least a 50 to 60% overlap over the image series. The wide angle can have tilt issues that make proper stitching difficult to impossible. I ran into this in the beginning with shooting the third Tacoma Narrows bridge during its construction. If I shot the photos stacked vertically, the tilt would spread the hanging wires for the road deck. This means the wire ends in each photo would not match up and it forced me to fix each wire manually, sometimes with three to four segments needing linked together. Also consider shooting the sequence in portrait view, not the normal landscape view. Boy do I wish for a square only digital camera.</p>

<p>I use <strong>PTgui</strong> for stitching. Most of my photo sequences were shot hand held, not on a tripod. And it does a fantastic job. Recently I figured out how to work with noisy infrared files to improve the quality of their output for printing.</p>

<p>For printing, the image should be created as close as possible to the print size. I do a lot of large format printing and images are created at the size they are printing at. In other words, do not create an 8x10 size at 300 dpi and then resize that file to 20x30. Create the stitched image near the 20x30 size. The image quality will be a lot better.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that a large format stitched image will cost a fortune to have properly framed. You could get around this by custom printing the images to fit manufactured frames sold by stores such as Michaels. I have some 12x36 frames I bought there. Then about all you need is to get a mat cut to fit the image. One of the limiters for me is a single mat comes in a 60" length. Factoring in at least a minimum of a 2 inch wide mat means the image cannot exceed 56 inches. Going longer than 60 inches means the mat is two pieces and has to be butt fitted. Keep in mind that the larger you go the weight is increasing.</p>

<p>If you print on archival rag papers for longevity consider the use of UV protective glass or plexiglass. The plastic version is cheaper and either offers a better display of the image as well as protection.</p>

<p>CHEERS...Mathew</p>

[randrew1]

<p>I like to use a wide angle lens and hold the camera in a vertical format. This means my horizontal perspective is normal, but I have lots of vertical space to play with. It is best to shoot with a tripod, but there are situations that demand working faster than a tripod allows. It is easy to learn how to shoot panoramas hand held. Keep the camera level and allow plenty of overlap between frames. </p>

<p>I meter the center of the image and set the exposure manually. </p>

<p>Watch out with polarizing filters. They can enhance the sky and water, but the effect will shift from one side of the panorama to the other. </p>

<p>The panorama function in Photoshop CS-5 works great. I'm sure there are cheaper options, but I've not seen a better option. </p>

<p>There are times when you meter consistently and you use a software program that blends frames together and you still have noticeable transitions in the sky. One option is to replace the sky with a blue gradient. This was shot on film a number of years ago:</p>

<p><img src="http://photos.randrews4.com/photos/653538101_FkDNT-M.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="132" /><br>

The transitions in the sky are noticeable even though I re-assembled the panorama recently using CS-5.</p>

<p>I like the clouds, but this version eliminates the transitions:</p>

<p><img src="http://photos.randrews4.com/photos/653540799_mq4eg-M.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="132" /></p>

<p>There is no way I could have shot this with a tripod. With the freezing spray, I needed to work fast.</p>

<p><img src="http://photos.randrews4.com/photos/1227857236_RtmeJ-M-3.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="271" /></p>

[jcuknz]

<p>Firstly you do not use the wide angle lens to shoot stitched panos becuase of the distortion a WA introduces and makes it harder to stitch. Secondly if you stitch in a good editing programme you can cope with different sky tones by adjusting the density of each frame untilo they match. Thirdly you do not need a tripod and I never use one for dozens of panos, but you do need to try and hand hold as if you are a tripod. I rarely use a stitch programme as years ago I read an obviously experienced pano maker who said stitch programmes were for speed and rough and ready results. Last pano I shot was some dozen frames or more at around 90mm Angle of View. The wide-angle lens usually wastes pixels on unneccessary foreground and sky.<br>

I have the $60 PSPx4 these days and previously earlier versions of PSP :-)</p><div></div>

[Ray House]

<p>I used a wide angle (12-24) for this, but I do try to keep the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion as much as possible. I also use manual mode to keep exposure, DOF and focus consistant. Experiment with panos & stitching, have fun!</p><div></div>