Table of Contents
panorama
- see also:
- methods to display panorama images on the web:
introduction
- panoramic photos can be achieved by either:
- “stitching” a sequence of photos together which is what is discussed below and is the less expensive approach
- using a super wide angle lens - but ideally one needs a medium or large format film or a digital sensor with lots of pixels to capture sufficient detail.
- using a dedicated panorama format camera:
- panorama format on 35mm film
- Hasselblad XPan
- Mamiya 7 with panorama adapter kit to allow use of 35mm film to give 24x65mm images but cumbersome and issues with film flatness - better to just use 120 film.
- medium format film such as 6cmx9cm formats see here
- large format film such as 4“x5” and 8“x10” - although not panoramic format, these have the greatest ability to capture detail in one shot.
- panoramic digital cameras:
- Seitz 6×17 digital (2007):
- scanning sensor gives 160mpixel image over 1sec; ~29,000Euro excl. lens; takes large format lenses;
- Seitz Roundshot D3 (2007):
- 360deg image with 80mm lens giving 470mpixels from a scanning sensor over 2 seconds;
- ~30,000 Euro excl. lens;
- some interesting information can be found on the Panasaurus web site http://www.tawbaware.com/panosaurus_review.htm and at http://www.panoramicweb.com/
- Your photo stitching and photo editing software can correct many (but not all) mistakes made during shooting.
- Always keep in mind that the more carefully you shoot the less work you will have later on.
- For maximum resolution in the vertical direction (height of your panorama), turn your camera by 90° to the portrait orientation and slowly pan from one end of the scene to the other end to get an impression what eventually will be on your images. When panning, keep your camera exactly levelled at the horizon, do not tilt it up or down vertically from the horizon line - most stitching programs cannot satisfactory handle this kind of tilt. If you use a stitcher with vertical tilt correction (e.g. ImageAssembler), you do not have to bother much about this issue. In this case, tilt your camera vertically, if necessary, to catch exactly the scene you want. Just make sure to keep the tilt angle constant for all individual shots.
- zoom in (using only optical zoom, of course) deep enough that all objects of interest are covered along the whole horizontal scene, but leave a small safety margin at the top and the bottom as cropping reserve after stitching.
- After selecting the right zoom, pan several times from one end of your scene to the other end and correct the zoom slightly, if necessary
- Unfortunately, the bigger the zoom the bigger distortion and vignetting (gradual darkening of the image towards the outer edges), depending on the quality of the lens. This might cause difficulties later when the images are stitched together. If you want only small prints of your panoramic image or if you intent to put it merely on the internet, the maximum resolution is usually not necessary. In this case, you could use only a small zoom or no zoom at all and cut the stitched image later generously.
- you must try to keep the vertical edge of your images as close as possible to the exact vertical line and the elevation angle of your camera (vertical tilt) exactly the same (at the horizon line for stitchers with no vertical tilt correction) for all shots of the row.
- use a tripod if possible & it should have at least a levelling bubble for adjustment of the exact horizontal orientation.
- activate exposure lock (AE lock) or set the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed manually to the corresponding values to ensure using the same exposure for all shots as this ensures that there will be no significant brightness and coloration discrepancies between them.
- Start at the left end of the scene and take the first shot. Spot an object in the image that marks the overlapping edge. Most stitching programs require an image-to-image overlapping between a quarter and a half the image extension.
- If you have clouds or other slow-moving objects in your scene, try to shoot the whole scene as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the stitching software might get into trouble.
- Be aware that - even when using a tripod - the impact when pushing the shutter button can still cause the image to get blurred, particularly for long exposure times. If necessary, use the timer to shoot the image.
problems with panoramic stitching
- exposure and WB:
- it is important that each image has the same exposure and white balance so that stitched images do not look like separate images.
- consider using manual exposure and preset white balance so these are constant for all images in a set.
- vignetting:
- vignetting in each frame is a big problem as it is difficult to correct exactly so that images stitched together have a smooth exposure transition
- choose a lens/camera/aperture combination that minimises vignetting effects and watch out for the lens shades.
- flare:
- avoid sunlight hitting the front lens as this may cause different flare patterns on each image.
- polariser filter:
- in general, using a polariser filter tends to exaggerate unevenness in sky brightness across a panorama so consider using a ND gradient filter instead.
- moving subjects
- stars are problematic as they will cause star trailing issues
- each of your star images should not include foreground, then you can align the stars in software, then add in foreground images
- perpective distortion:
- avoid converging lines which result from not having the camera parallel to the subject ie. avoid tilting camera up for tall objects.
- converging lines in each image make it hard work to fix and then stitch.
- consider avoid using very wide angle lenses and instead take more images to cover the field of view.
- nodal point issues:
- unless you rotate the camera about the lenses nodal point (usually where the lens diaphragm is), then you will get problems with closer objects in the image.
- for such situations you may need an expensive especially designed panoramic tripod head which can be adjusted for the nodal point of your camera/lens combination.
- the nodal point:
- in general, accurate stitching relies on the camera rotating about the lens nodal point which unfortunately is not usually the tripod socket and varies with focal length used on the lens.
- the main point for using a panoramic head is to reduce parallax error when shooting objects that are close to the camera.
- it is not as important for distant landscape shots.
- here are some links to info on nodal points:
- a good method for determining the optical center of a camera is at http://www.outline.be/quicktime/tuto/TheGrid.pdf
- see tripods for info on tripod heads designed to assist in single row and multi-row panoramas.
panorama stitching software
- Olympus Camedia Master - supplied with Olympus cameras but only images taken in panorama scene mode
- Canon Photostitch - supplied with Canon cameras but will stitch any jpeg, BMP, TIFF
- Adobe Photoshop Elements or C/S -
- Panorama Factory - good automated stitcher, 30 day shareware.
- PanaVue Image Assembler - not freeware, but provides very high stitching accuracy and manual stitch point correction. Allows for vertical stitching of photo rows. Stitches individual photos with extremely size differences. Handles camera tilt in the elevation angle (deviation from the horizontal direction) - a feature most other stitchers do not have.
- PhotoVista - 30 day test version.
- http://autostitch.net/ - free demo version - fully automatic but jpegs only & not always get good results
- Panorama Tools based software:
- freeware but you need to do a lot of manual work, thus there are several helper programs or interfaces to make it easier.
- can also download at http://panotools.sourceforge.net/
-
- preferred interface tool for Alfred Molon.
-
- VB6 Windows interface which supports plugins such as:
-
- blends images of different exposures (to create HDR images) or different focus (to create more depth of field)
- images should already have been stitched by another program such as PTAssembler before invoking TuFuse
- can use RAW files if DCRaw is installed.
-
- examples of workflows and capabilities: http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr_help_stack_example.htm
- registered users get $20 discount on purchase of Panosaurus tripod mount
- PTMac is a front end for creating panoramas using Panorama Tools. PTMac is available for Mac OS X and OS 8.6 to 9.x.
- ControlPoints is a Windows application that allows you to select control points.
- PanoPoints is an Open Source graphical front-end control point picker for Linux systems.
- PanoWizard is a freeware frontend for autopano and panorama-tools.
motorized panoramic camera mounts
Gigapan Epic series
- programmable horizontal and vertical actions with camera shutter triggering
- mounts on a tripod
- rechargeable battery pack
- sliding parallax adjustment for varied camera/lens combinations
- includes GigaPan Stitch Software
- Epic model:
- single camera mount arm for small cameras only up to 1.5lbs (0.68kg)
- $US340
- Epic Pro:
- dual camera mounting arms to allow heavier dSLR cameras up to 10lb (4.5kg) load
- LCD display
- 360 panoramic and -65/+90 tilt range of motion with precision incremental movement
- Multiple triggering option - Allows the EPIC Pro to take multiple pictures at each image location up to 20 times per position for exposure bracketing or multiple image enhancement
- Adjustable features include: time between exposures, pre trigger delay, focus assertion time ( shutter length ), motor speed, aspect ratio, and picture overlap.
- controlled exposure bracketing of 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9 levels for HDR images
- $US899
- Epic Pro V:
- similar to Epic Pro but adds video panning and motion time lapse modes
- 3.3kg
- $US999
horizontal panorama only actions
- Andoer MA2 motorized panoramic ball head
- 459g, so much lighter, cheaper than an Epic
- USB chargeable battery lasts 4hrs
- uses a Wifi hotshoe mounted receiver module to cable into the camera to trigger camera shutter
- Vidpro MH-300 Motorized Pan Head with Remote Control
- 2x AAA batteries which last 4hrs or 5V USB-DC input
- Continuous Rotation, 270° Side-to-Side and Time-Lapse
- up to 0.9kg load
- 130g and cheap