Forums: Photography:

I don't think I have ever posted in this forum before! I feel waaay out of my depth!

Just thught this was the best place for this afternoon's daftness. I have been messing around with some very, very basic kit and created 2 panoramas. Extremely basic and laughable, but I thought you might like to see a newbie's efforts.

Camera = Sony T2
Software = Photoshop Elements 6

Yes really - very basic. Just threw off some snaps with our basic happy-snappy cam and tried stitching them together. I officially have the bug!

By the way - that's my house on the left :


Part of our front room :


Ok so now for the tips - what's the best way of making sure that the stitching always has enough area so that the final cropped version retains as much of the scene as possible? As you can see from the room one, it's much narrower because I had to crop loads off the top and the bottom due to raggy edges.

Is this how the photography bug starts?

P~

Originally posted by: Phantom
Ok so now for the tips - what's the best way of making sure that the stitching always has enough area so that the final cropped version retains as much of the scene as possible? As you can see from the room one, it's much narrower because I had to crop loads off the top and the bottom due to raggy edges.

Is this how the photography bug starts?

P~

Nice start!

Yes - it's one way that the bug begins. Welcome the dark side.

As for tips - the biggest ones are to shoot with the camera vertically and usually not on the widest zoom. This will minimize distortion, even though it does take more shots for the same area (but you have more play room on the top and bottom to begin with).

Using a tripod does help (but is not necessary). The less wobble off of 90 degrees you have, the better off you are (fewer jaggie edges). Also - if you have a clear horizon line, try to keep it pretty well centered - otherwise you will get a curving horizon and lose lots of either the top or bottom, depending on which way you erred.

I usually try to have about 1/3 of the image overlap - also helps minimize jaggies.

Manual exposure helps too - so you don't have the camera re-metering as you suddenly turn away from the sun or whatever.

Have fun mate.

Nice looking neighborhood you're in.

Originally posted by: rogue_designer
Nice start!

Thank you very much! What you are seeing there really is my first and second attempt.

Originally posted by: rogue_designer
As for tips - the biggest ones are to shoot with the camera vertically and usually not on the widest zoom. This will minimize distortion, even though it does take more shots for the same area (but you have more play room on the top and bottom to begin with).

Not on the widest zoom - do you mean zoom in ever so slightly?

Originally posted by: rogue_designer
Using a tripod does help (but is not necessary). The less wobble off of 90 degrees you have, the better off you are (fewer jaggie edges). Also - if you have a clear horizon line, try to keep it pretty well centered - otherwise you will get a curving horizon and lose lots of either the top or bottom, depending on which way you erred.

Cool tip, thanks - I suppose you can utilise the same theory by identifying a swage line through your scene when shooting - imaginary line that you keep centre, yes?

Originally posted by: rogue_designer
I usually try to have about 1/3 of the image overlap - also helps minimize jaggies.

Manual exposure helps too - so you don't have the camera re-metering as you suddenly turn away from the sun or whatever.

I did notice the exposure changing a lot when taking the interior one - especially as I got close to the lamps or white surfaces like the door on the right. I did not realise the fact that the light had obviously changed on the exterior either, since if you look at the house next door to mine, the roof looks 2-tone!

I notice you say about overlapping by 1/3rd - I think I actually took too many shots, but I cannot decide if that is what makes it easier to get a smart result. Those 2 pans are made up of about 8-10 shots each, which seems a lot based on your comments above. I guess I need to experiment.

Originally posted by: rogue_designer
Nice looking neighborhood you're in.

Thank you - typical modern English estate, if I was honest. What you are seeing there is our little cul-de-sac. No through roads or anything, so it can be very quiet there. although that makes any noise even more obvious and irritating!

P~

I wrote a reply by the internet ate it.

In brief, I've never really done panos, but those look good. You'd better post in this forum more!

I think I will being the camera to work tomorrow and grab some shots from the office, since there is a good 'scene' available from both sides of the building. Will give me a bit more than just the front room and my cul-de-sac!

I can see where this is going to end up - proper animated panos. Christ, I remember creating things like that in Flash way back at the start of the 2000's. Funny how the world turns.



Will post the results here, although I have no intention of trying to match your talents, K.

P~

For an outdoors scene - yes, I would zoom in just a bit. Typically on the widest end you end up with alot of internal image distortion - which can be problematic when trying to match up a seamless pano.

Indoors - you'll probably want to stay wide.

Shooting vertically will help offset anything you might lose by not being zoomed out all the way.

On the Swage line - yup. I know some togs who put a line of tape across their LCD as a guide.

Kirra's right too. Post here more.

Very nice panos, especially for a first go!
I've never much enjoyed the results I got from pano - good tips r_d. I'll have to give that another go.
And yes, more posting.

I found I got the best balance of no distortion and least pain in the ass to stitch together with a 50mm.

nice work P and yes, more posting.

Don't you get barrelling on a 50 mm? Or is it just on a combo lens that you get that?

A straight prime 50 should show almost 0 barrel or pincushion distortion. Especially on a digital.

ssshhhh, you'll scare off the n00b

The cars in your driveway are a bit blurry and the light is flat (good ol' england), but other than that I think the outdoor one is great.

I've done nothing with pano stitching but have wanted to mess with it as well. Thanks for the inspiration P! I will be watching this thread with interest.

I never had you pegged for a Fool's and Horses fan though!

here's a vertical pano I made last year of a chapel in a cliff face in Spain:


it's not a good shot I don't think, the light's horrible, but what can you do when you're only there for one day and it's cloudy? A pano was the only way I could see of showing that chapel in its proper context - on a rock ledge in a big hole in a cliff face above a spring pool.

I spent a lot of time in photoshop making the 3 photos match up, including manually warping the photos to adjust for the perspective bending.


// edit - and good job on yours phantom, they work pretty well

Oooo, I like the vertical one! Never thought of doing that....until now!


EWF - in my defence, I believe the blur to the cars (they are mine, btw! ) is not that obvious in the full-res version. It was pissing down with rain when I took the shots, so the focus probably tripped out a little. This has been accentuated when scaling the pic down.

My pet hate is the roof of the house next to mine - it's 2-tone nature. I find blending the images reasonably easy and fun. I guess I have a head start because I am used to farking with the color channels and brightness/contrast of things anyway. It's the lining up that is the hard part.

P~

EWF - Fools is instilled in the psyche of anyone of my generation and older. I am English - it's like football and fish-and-chips.

Originally posted by: Phantom
It's the lining up that is the hard part.

Well, you've done it perfectly, I can't see anything wrong with it all. It looks like it was taken as a single photo. (Which I guess is precisely the point).

Thank you - again making it seem simple, if you notice the two shots about have very obvious 'vertical lines' in the subject matter. I was able to line up using the edges of houses, fireplaces, lamps...in fact, if you look directly up from the left lamp in the interior 'rama, you will see a 'seam' in the wall (tiny dimple effect halfway up). That's not there in real life. Its the join using the lamp-stand as a guide.

P~

you'd get rid of that 'seam' with manual exposure and white balance - keeping it the same for all shots, like r_d said before. The place on your interior pano where the join is most obvious (to me anyway) is the window at the top - the lines up there don't quite match. I guess this is hardest to avoid when shooting indoors where the walls are that much closer to the camera making the diff in perspective that much more pronounced as you move around.
You could probably get rid of that with some warping in PS though.

Those look awesome, definitely post more! And r-d's tips are all great.

If you want an example of everything you shouldn't do, you can click here .

my canon shows the last 3rd of the previous image so that you can overlap it with the next pic to take. A stand would def be better because it's so easy to change the angle of the camera in any of the 3 axles

/edit it's easy to accidentally change the angle of the camera(in any or all of the 3 dimensions) when you're holding it freehanded