Panorama advice sought

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

I am looking for any suggestions on what to try and not try when doing panos. So far i cannot seem to find the elusive nodal point on any of my lenses and have read several suggestions on shooting in vertical orientation. I really want to make an effort to be better at pano shooting, but right now i am spinning my wheels. I can pull off panos without any rail setup,but it takes work to fix the seams and i am hoping the nodal issue will fix that. I am currently using a macro rail and continue to struggle. here is a test i did were i thought i had the right point, but it obviously is screwed up. I still struggle trying to understand how a shot like this can work if the beams look totally different when the lens is turned. does the nodal point fix all that?

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=19aO7vTtVyNbpOQutbSlnrV8rF4v0>

[L...@adobeforums.com]

I see your focal length was 25mm. Someone told me that to get good panos you should shoot with a longer lens to avoid distortion, and just take more pictures to stitch. I'm trying to remember if it was 100mm. I'm sure someone here must know.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Thats the type of info i need to find out. but then how does one shoot a scene like i was testing? you would need about 4 rows of shots,and quite frankly thats too involved i think.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Camera back kept truly vertical; normal to long-focal length lens; and plenty of overlap between shots.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

As Ann says, the camera must be absolutely level - both side to side and fore to aft. Wide angle can be used, but the wider you go from normal, the more compressed in a horizontal plane will be the end result (which is the complete opposite to what you'd expect).

You will not get a truly matching overlap unless you use a longer focal length, but most stitching programs will bend the straight lines in wide-angle shots to match up. The Panorama Factory has camera and lens specific settings to take this into account and usually does a very neat auto-stitch with minimal double-imaging.

You are close, but still not quite on the nodal. The juxtaposition between the pillar in front and the building behind would be exactly the same in the two shots if you were right on the nodal point.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1VG4z90UpjTa0lAp2FpSg7RWZC0k>

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

but then how does one shoot a scene like i was testing? you would need
about 4 rows of shots,and quite frankly thats too involved i think.

You are not going to like this but this is best done with a large format 5x4 Camera an a 72MM
or 65 MM lens which is the equivalent of a 15-20 mm on a 35 mm format camera there you can orient the camera to be level and the displace the image relative to the film plane and field of view.

That way your verticals would be the way you want and you will be much happier with the result then even a pano.

And if it proves to have enough range and I would think it would the new Canon 17mm shift tilt lens would be the way to go but in your case you have to hope that Nikon releases a 17MM shift lens as well. $2,500.00 is a lot but once you have it then you will think it is worth it.

BTW you can pick up used 5x4 equipment at a relatively inexpensive price I can get a Sinar P2 for under $1400.00 in very good condition. And they are the most expensive 5x4 when new so you could probably get a good Toyo for under $600.

And some 5x4 field cameras will take a 65mm as well. The 5x4 had died about a year and a half ago but the amateur market has revived it.

Some of the field cameras are as handy as a dslr and weight about the same or less then my D3 they can easily be back packed.

I am thinking of purchasing the Sinar.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I hand hold shot and get excellent stitching. If it's not level (roll) all that will happen is the elements will stairstep down. Crop using that angle to level the final image. So far as pitch, I have no problems there either. In fact, there is no way of producing a grid array without pointing the camera up or down. Well, a PC lens could help here.

Check out Pano Tools for a better stitching program.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

However, if you tilt up or down with a wide or ultra-wide angle lens, the distortion at the edges will make stitching difficult, if not impossible. Using a normal to tele lens is the only practical way to go if fore/aft tilt is involved, and if you're trying to emulate high resolution large format camera's results then that's OK, but if you're trying for coverage (as in "panorama"), then a longer lens means more stitching in one or more rows to gain the breadth and height necessary.

Pano Tools is an excellent stitcher, but it is time consuming requiring manual marking of registration points. Again, if using standard or tele lenses this is not a problem, but with wide or ultra-wide lenses it becomes very labour intensive, often requiring dozens of registration points to reduce double imaging. There are better auto stitchers that output in layers and masks which allow final brush work to get rid of any mismatch quickly.

I mentioned The Panorama Factory as it has specific algorithms for specific camera/lens combinations, which is not important for normal or tele lenses but is almost mandatory with wides, particularly those which have non-symetrical distortion characteristics. Edge-matching such images becomes way more difficult than simply tagging three or four registration points on each side.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I was under the impression pano tools did also. At least, the only problem I ever had was with a WA that also had extreme near/far. I repaired that manually.

I haven't had to resort to aligning registration points fred, but then< i don't do what you do.

sometime I'll check out Pano factory, but for now, even the CS3 tool works well.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks so far for the tips. I wonder how one tries to do multiple rows with the light changing constantly? i will try to get my nodal point found on at least one lens. from what i gather, once that is found,things should overlap exactly, or does lens distortion at wider angles through that idea out the window?

Wade, i was at an auction this week that had a toyo-view 4x5 with lens in perfect shape, but i only bid to 150 on it. It sold for 180, but i was bidding on it with the intention of somehow incorporating the rail to use with my digital stuff to mount on it for panoramas. I had no idea if it would work mounting my camera on it, so i did not go crazy on bidding. I have no desire to shoot film ever again, so 4x5 does not interest me, plus i have no experience with it.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

4x5 does not interest me, plus I have no experience with it.

Large format shooting is a totally different experience and requires real photographic skill.

Once you have mastered the techniques necessary to use the full capabilities of these cameras, you will suddenly realise what you have been missing; and will wonder why you never learnt to use one earlier on.

Shift-tilt PC lenses only offer you a faint taste of the difference.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

....requires real photographic skill

let's just say requires specialized photographic skills. :D

Donald, the bane of stitching is changing values or elements in the scene between exposures. However, I did a grid array at the beach with the wave action differences not interferring. What I did is watch approx where the first wave positioned itself then shot the other frames around that point. If you look at overlapped layers in PS, you can see the differences, but Panotools still stitched it and it's hard to see a real error.

Lucked out, I suppose!.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

let's just say requires specialized photographic skills.

<Ducking and running … >

Actually, I was trying to be tactful — what I wanted to say was: "requires properly trained professional photographic skills".

</Ducking and running … fastly>

8/

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Larry, That sounds interesting. Cant say i would have attempted a moving beach scene.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Nice of you to duck and run Ann! :D

I didn't even think about the sea action until I framed the second shot, then... whoops!

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

Actually, I was trying to be tactful — what I wanted to say was: "requires
properly trained professional photographic skills".

I never actually trained to be a photographer and only used a four by five once in high school which was already set up for me…oh wait not true I used once before a field camera which Mr.Adam's was working with and again he moved the camera and set it up for me.

So until I owned one myself I had not really used one I only said what I wanted and someone else arranged it for me and so I had never had any training using a large format camera and learnt all the ins and outs by using it and figuring it all out myself.

Donald it does open your eyes to things and it there is no real learning curve, if there is it is not a steep one. It becomes apparent what the camera movements are for and how to take advantage of them.

How as far as what you wanted to do it can be done with a large format camera and has been done many times with film do it digitally is even better.

But you do not attach the camera to the rail, instead you tack out the ground glass out fresnel from the back and replace that with a special back that the 35mm camera is attached to and since the back can be shifted left and right as well as up and down without
really moving the the 4x5 then you can then shift from the extreme left to the extreme right and take several or images you can also shift by using the rise and fall so you can
get probably three or four or perhaps even six rows and most important if you this done right you might be able to simply drop one image on top of the other and there you are no stitching required.

Did I mention you use a large format lens which is attached the 4x5's lens board and mount on the front standard.

I don't know why no one has thought of this before but Sinar and I think Toyo make such mounting backs for Nikon and canon cameras.

This would be a lot of fun and you end up with a very high definition file.

You see Donald your inspiration was brilliant. Bravo…bravo!

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Yawn....

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Why yawn in public when this medium allows you to carry out any bodily function in the privacy and anonymity of a keyboard and monitor?

Gee, if you just want to be offensive, use real insults like a grown-up man. :p

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Here is a good site i found with an excellent tutorial, but i still am confused on something i saw there. can anyone clarify something? his example shows the final correct series with nodal point found, and his circles show matching views between frames, but what about the the area on the upper right corner and the corresponding area in the middle right corner? they do not match, and my question is,should they, or am i missing something here?

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1y9yclysN1FbifvTQUs4bXVCj7T0N1>

<http://www.outline.be/quicktime/tuto/>

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

Sinar actually recommends a similar approach using the sinar back but this might be more practical as you do not have to tethered to a computer as you have the preview monitor on the camera.

Photographing a very tall building not really practical with a 35mm from a relatively close up position now becomes practical.

The implication is important if you do away with film holder and develop the view camera movements a new device can be created specially for this purpose with perhaps precision motor movements.

it is a great inspiration Donald had, and the inspiration is the most important ingredient, it doesn't have to be 100% correct, Donald was addressing a need and came up with a concept.

This is not a yawn! If Nikon has 24 mega pixel capture then Canon cannot be far behind withe a 32 Megapixel camera. That will probably be the end of medium format cameras if Nikon then a year or two later also comes out with a similar camera. Especially if they then follow what i have suggested to make the chip a little larger there is no reason the chip has to be that small 20% larger and 32 mega pixels and you probably never need more then that an the camera can be light then the D3 is as well.

Yawn in deed. I know but that will cost money.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Donald, you simply have to practice the adjustments until you get it right.

Are you using a good panorama head?

As I read then manual adjustment process in Pano Tools, Not all the points need absolute alignment, just enough. I avoid these problems by choosing subjects that are relatively narrow in the focal plane, that is, not much dof. But once in a while this does happen:

<http://imageshack.us>

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

I am basically using a macro focusing rail to slide the camera front or back. i just did a shot in my room,were i was sure i had he nodal point nailed,because the near and far lines stayed aligned, but the seam still does not match up,but i was using a 28mm in tight quarters.

I see the error at the lamp. on that shot of yours. I would have tried to make the overlap happen at the corner of the building. usually when i have a scene that has areas that i think i can finesse easily, then i try the pano idea. this farm had a wide tree i put at one seam and snow and sky at the other,so i could pull it off. i run into trouble when i have close foreground objects. the white lines are my seam areas.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1s8cBsNSujMf71NjyQY2yJJn7FyeG1>

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I used the PS3 Photomerge tool, Donald. I used the Reposition function. After I discovered the error, I switched to the interactive layout.

Strangely Pano tools couldn't handle it., at least without intervention manually. But if PS will do it, then I'll use it.

As to your image, are we looking at the final image or the individual frames? It seems to me you do not have sufficient overlap. I turn on the grid in the camera and use the left and right grid lines to establish the crossover point. so each image is only using about 2/3 of the frame as free space. That way I avoid indeterminacy between images.

Try Photomerge, and when it is finished, turn off the individual layers. You will see hoe PS handles the mapping of one image to another.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

That was the final, but i added the white lines to show frame merge point. maybe i need to do as you say and go less info on each shot.

[Allen...@adobeforums.com]

Are you using a good panorama head?

What defines a good pano head? Is there a reason with reasonable alignment that a ball head will not work?

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

Where you run into problems, in my experience, is if you have objects close to the camera as well as objects far away. If you're doing a pano of a landscape, you can probably get away with shooting hand-held (or regular tripod) and being careful to get plenty of overlap between shots. Of course, it's necessary to use manual everything, including WB.

Getting the nodal point right, though, will save you time in post, regardless.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Amen, Nick!

I have to get around to buying one. So far, only one series of images needed the head.

Allen, if you can position the nodal point over the pivot, you are home free. So far, the only "free Lunch" is the 80 mm on the Hasselblad. With the quick release plate on the Manfredo 410 head, the pivot point is directly below the iris.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Manfredo 410 head

Discovered a new brand, Lawrence? ;) Does that head sing, by any chance?

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

* &^(% spelling Nazi! :D

I wrote that just as I was heading for bed.

Bogen 410 head. :-)

The head doesn't sing, but I do when I have arrived at an image. :-)

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

Really Right Stuff makes some gear for this sort of thing:

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

Also, one thing I've found is be sure to take your polarizer off, else the sky changes color too much as you swing the camera around.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

The Panosaurus head is interesting and very affordable, especially for those just wanting to try doing panos:

This web site has all kids of info and links to a wide variety of pano heads:

<http://gregwired.com/pano/images/PanosaurusIcon.jpg>

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Thousands of strig player learn to ply with perfect intonation. It seems to me we can learn to make even grid arrays (tiling) by hand with near perfect alignment.

I spend far more time aligning the tripod to perfection than I do hand holding the scan. The only thing that drives me to the tripod is exposure time. Anything slower than 1/50 sec if it's really important i drag out the tripod.

$190 for a center post with a levling lead is extravagant!

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

I bought a Panosaurus pano head several years ago, and I must say that I do not recommend it. It might be sufficient to hold a point-and-shoot, but it's not nearly sturdy enough for serious use with a DSLR. At the time, I think I was shooting a D100, and it was wobbly as hell.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

$190 for a center post with a levling lead is extravagant!

How about $76 for this?

__

A lot more images of the Panosaurus here:

<http://gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm>

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

I guess I'm still plonked. <g>

The Panosaurus looks nice in the photos. The problem is it's made mostly of PVC plastic. And, the locking mechanisms don't lock things down securely. You get what you pay for.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Same conclusion.

In the meantime, hand hold is your friend!:-)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Not mine. :/ I don't hand hold anything anymore. :(

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

As Nick says, you get what you pay for.

I've had my Manfrotto 302 pro pano head for maybe 11 years now, during which time it has been used heavily, carried through some of the wildest country in a backpack or still attached to a tripod, been dropped, bumped, soaked, scorched in full summer sun and banged about in the trunk of the car and yet it still works smoothly and locks up tightly.

For example, this portrait taken last August of Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens Party, would have been impossible with the D3 without using a properly calibrated high quality pano head on a rock-steady mount:

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1nhcl3I4yXGgl0DKEIEsUrfrvbRU1>

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

Very nice, Fred. I salute Mr. Brown as well.

[-sh...@adobeforums.com]

That is a nice shot, Fred. Kinda' spooky with the people in black in the background.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

A very powerful picture, Fred — with the mysterious "wood sprites" in the background adding to its intensity.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I mainly posted it to demonstrate how getting level, steady and the nodal correct is vital for complex near/far subject inclusion (the moss at right was less than a foot from the lens, which was set at 35mm). 35 shots in all go to make this picture, final size 23"x60".

Mysterious and spooky - thanks! that was the intent. This piece of forest just missed being destroyed recently when they built the logging road, but will be logged soon. The 14 background "sprites" (plus one baby) are some of those who were involved in the ultimately failed attempts over two years to stop that happening. Senator Bob is "da man" to them :-) , even though he doesn't have the power to stop this - yet.

[mr...@adobeforums.com]

The 14 background "sprites" (plus one baby)

I've only found eight so far, going back for another look!!!!

[mr...@adobeforums.com]

Is there 14 including the baby? If not I'm one short, you sure make it hard Fred!!!!

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

Nope, 14 plus the baby! (They're a bit easier to find in the finished print..... ;-) ). I wasn't really trying to hide them this time, just make them less than overly obvious.

I wanted them to be recognizable as I doubt such a shot will happen again as Bob is now a very, very busy man. In two years he more than likely will hold the balance of power in the Federal government, and then maybe will be in a position to help bring an end to this old-growth forest destruction nonsense. So potentially it is an historic shot for all those involved.

[Silkr...@adobeforums.com]

Very cool photo. I found 13 of the 14. Kind of fun trying to find them. Well done.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Kinda reminds me of this:

<http://dirckhalstead.org/issue0312/an01.html>

[mr...@adobeforums.com]

I found him/her, bottom right, I feel much better now!!!!!

Great pic Fred.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Getting the Senator to hold still for so long is in itself quite a feat!

I wouldn't attempt anything like that without a tripod properly setup as well, but for even somewhat complex shots, it can be done hand held. With a bit of study and attention to detail, you can swing the camera by hand around the nodal point. But a series of 35 shots demands a firm support.

35 shots, so was that a series of 5x7 tiles?

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

7 vertical shots left to right, 5 different planes of focus overlaid. No way would I even contemplate that hand-held. Registration was critical, hence the necessity for a well made, sturdy rotator that is accurately repeatable by detent pass after pass in order that the various focus layers could be overlaid properly.

It certainly wasn't a spontaneous photograph! XD
1/8 sec @ f:11, 800 ISO. Two months in planning, an hour and a half to photograph, two weeks to assemble through several drafts to this final version.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Yeah, after I posted my question, I remembered you did multiple planes of focus, and I agree, that kind of critical work requires a tripod. Hand holding overlapping frames is one thing, registration in the same frame something else! However, I may give it a try! Nothing like stressing the system to find the breaking point.

Agggh! I'm doing too much software testing!

Fred, tell me again what software for registering the focus sets? I have CZM and it behaves strangely at the edges. Also, I thought having two or at the most, three different focus planes would work but not so. It's almost better to accept the limits of DOF rather than to fine intermediate points of sharp/unsharp. Theoretically, you should have an infinite set to achieve perfect critical focus. If your results are any indication, 5 seems to be the magic number.

I also find that the resulting useful image left requires considerable cropping, because shifting the focus point changes the image size. What's left is the size which results from the shot at the nearest focus point defines the image area.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I stitched all five separate focus layers as full panoramas and then combined them manually, Larry. That's why I chose this location as it gave four distinctly separate zones with minimal overlap; the masking was at pixel level and was extremely complex, as you'd imagine. The focus at the "macro" parts at right was the biggest hurdle as there was no real defining edge between the first and second layer of focus, the division of which ran right through the middle of the moss.

All the photos had to be done in situ at the one time in order that the out of focus areas behind bled the right colours into the edges of the sharp layer above, and allowing the sharp version of the under layer to be dropped in unobtrusively. Repeat x 5, which is why it took so long.

The senator himself took three frames of the pano of his layer, so not only did he have to sit still for each pass, but it was absolutely imperative to have the detents available in the 302 head to enable rapid transition to consecutive shots accurately.

I desaturated the background layer a bit to add to the "spooky" feel and separate the main subject a bit more, and to help disguise the colour/contrast shift that happened when the sun came out for the background sweep.

When I say 35 photographs, of course that was the end use - I took around 500 shots altogether, not counting the four trial sessions over the days prior to the final shoot. It was not something that could be repeated, so I had to go with what I could get on the day and that meant being as prepared as possible beforehand. The good senator alloted me two hours of his time, thankfully being a keen and accomplished photographer himself and so able to understand the difficulties of what I was doing, and the need for him to actually come out to the forest in person and not just be stripped in later.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I stitched all five separate focus layers as full panoramas and then combined them manually, Larry. That's why I chose this location as it gave four distinctly separate zones with minimal overlap; the masking was at pixel level and was extremely complex, as you'd imagine. The focus at the "macro" parts at right was the biggest hurdle as there was no real defining edge between the first and second layer of focus, the division of which ran right through the middle of the moss.

When I say 35 photographs, of course that was the end use - I took around 500 shots altogether, not counting the four trial sessions over the days prior to the final shoot. It was not something that could be repeated, so I had to go with what I could get on the day and that meant being as prepared as possible beforehand. The good senator alloted me two hours of his time, thankfully being a keen and accomplished photographer himself and so able to understand the difficulties of what I was doing, and the need for him to actually come out to the forest in person and not just be stripped in later.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

You certainly chose the most complicated path in doing the layers first as full panos, Fred. If you got just one layer out od sync....

Is there a difference in combining all the layers first, then doing the pano from flattened layers?

How do you deal with the slight motion of plant life at the near macro or macro level in such attempts? Particularly in the focus layers?

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I've found that combining first and then stitching leads to distortions between frames that the stitcher can't resolve with its algorithms, which I guess are based on a supposed input and could not take into account a stacked focus blend.

Doing the stitch first and then combining is more accurate as the 302 pano head stops in the same position at each frame via the detents, so each focus layer of the stitched pano is similar in registration. A bit of image scaling to match is sometimes necessary with the individual layers, but the match is usually close enough to avoid major dramas, just a resize for the shift in focus mainly being necessary.

I have also found, as you pointed out, that to get few artifacts with CZM or similar auto stackers you have to photograph many small shifts of focus over a limited range - go too far (as this photo would have needed) and you get out-of-focus auras appearing around sharp areas. Sometimes manual really is the only way.

Movement isn't such a problem in the macro side as it takes a fair breeze to get these small things moving - the biggest problem is the large fern fronds which move at the slightest whisper of air movement (as happened with the frond in middle-distance to the left of the photo). Given a choice I would not have photographed on that day - as soon as the sun came out the wind picked up. I wanted to do the shot in June, which is usually cold and still, but the Senator's parliamentary sessions didn't allow the time then.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I was thinking of the ferns.

I did a fern shot last December...with lots of snow on them. They didn't move. I could actually take a pair to stitch.

Using the grid on the screen of the Nikon as the intersection point results in a near perfect to perfect square for a double frame verticals, for which I am delighted. Figuring out the composition as such is a bit tricky, but sometimes the surprise resulting is better than if I had done it with the Hasselblad.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

When i look at that pano, it does not strike me as a shot that needed more than three frames to cover that view. why the necessity for such a huge number of shots if i might inquire?

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Look at the finished size as a first approximation, Donald. I've used five frames for less coverage than Fred did.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

It covers about 180 degrees horizontal, about 70 degrees vertical, using 7 vertically orientated shots. The camera was about 18" from the Senator's face.

Choose your subject carefully and the actual angle of view becomes very deceptive. The tree at left was in a line slightly behind my left shoulder, the moss at right just in front of my right hand when I was facing the tree fern behind the Senator's right shoulder. Overlap was about 20% at each frame edge.

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

And speaking of panos, don't forget the pano thread:

<http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.1de5f905.59b6ea93/52?14@@>

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks fred, that is surprising to hear that wide. What is the main reason for overlapping so much, and not getting just the edges to overlap?

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

Most stitching programs like to have at least 15% overlap. This becomes particularly important when you use wide-angle lenses as the stitcher warps the image at the edges to take account of the wide-angle edge distortion. The more overlap you give, the better the chance for a 100% registration at some part of the overlap.

I always seek to avoid as much as possible retouching double-image parts of a panorama as this can be incredibly time-consuming for no benefit other than to rectify something that was avoidable in the first place.

I was using only a moderately wide 35mm for this shot, mainly to keep the wide-angle perspective distortion on the Senator's face to a minimum, but had I been using a wider 24 or 22mm setting I would have allowed 30% overlap at least.

Again, this is another reason for using a good pano head as the Manfrotto 302 (303) has adjustable detents which keeps the overlap consistent from frame to frame and gives the stitcher a better chance of matching the whole thing a lot better.

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

Fred, how much time was there between the exposures that included the Senator's face? However much it was, he did a good job of holding still!

Also, Fred, I'd like to add that this is the kind of posting that I look forward to here. Good information, presented by an excellent photographer and teacher.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Nick.

I lined up the whole shot so that Bob's face filled the center of a frame, then shot the series. My main instruction to him was to not move his shoulders, as they were on the frames left and right of the face frame. The detents on the 302 head mean that you can swing from one to the next accurately in under half a second, which makes people panos practical, though with the slow exposure in this case I had to let the vibrations settle before tripping the shutter.

As mentioned, Bob is a keen and accomplished photographer himself (he's often said that had his environmental politics and activism not so consumed his life, he would have been a full-time photographer), so he grasped pretty well immediately what I was doing and why, which made the shooting a lot easier than it could have been! I'm going to an opening of his latest exhibition tonight as it happens, though how he gets time to take photographs these days is beyond me.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Fred. can i ask one more favor of you? in post 18, I displayed a set of three pictures demonstrating a test to find the nodal point, but even though the parts have corresponding sections that seem identical, if i slice the three shots and try to join them, it still does not give a seamless pano like i think it should. how would you explain that visual discrepancy?

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

That's because of the perspective distortion of a wide lens, or because of the different POV when swinging the camera with something close to the lens as well as something more distant in shot. The important thing is the relationship of the near and distant parts to each other at left and right of the different frames so that their vertical alignment is the same.

The stitching program will warp the hroizontal lines to fit left to right, which will end up in a horizontal line that extends across the whole image taking on an approaching/receding bend as would be seen with a rotating pano camera.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Also, a stitching progam like pano tools will endeavor to obtain the information about your lens, either manually or EXIF, if available, and compensate fo that lens, magnification etc.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

One other question Fred, and that is focus. Autofocus would be a joke so it has to be manual. Do you set the near/far points by eye then incrementally move the focus ring through that range? For WA lenses, it ain't very far!

I did a test recently to check the wisdom about manually setting the focus point and shoot all frames at that setting so as to not change the image size. So I set up a test with a row of trees on the diagonal with the farthest being 100' and the nearest 10', and each time I moved the camera I refocused. Stitching the set proved to be a cakewalk and the final presentation has great DOF from the left to the right.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I've shifted focus during the sequence in previous panos when required (Pixentral is down for me at the moment but I posted a pano of a wood-stave pipeline that was done like that a while back), but in the case of this layered focus pano I focused manually on the immediate foreground first, then shifted focus back a bit, then focused on the Senator, then the tree fern behind him, then the background, doing a complete 7-shot pass each time, and doing several passes of each layer for security as well.

Of course each layer then had much of its area out of focus, but by combining just the focused bits of each I got close to infinite depth of focus overall. In the final version the background at left is from a different pass to that at right.

Someone has nominated the term "constructed reality" for this sort of thing - it looks convincingly like a single image but although everything is shot during a short time period and at the same place, the actual scene never existed together as portrayed in its entirety, and in a way far beyond that of a normal stitched panorama. For instance the Senator was off photographing mosses and ferns for himself while I was doing the background passes.

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

As mentioned, Bob is a keen and accomplished photographer himself

Well, that's a combination (politician and accomplished photographer) that I haven't run across. Usually, in my experience, the politician part overrides everything else.

I can kind of see it in his face, though, from your photo. He seems to be not so interested in anything other than being himself. A tribute to both himself and you, the photographer.

[-sh...@adobeforums.com]

The 14 background "sprites" (plus one baby)...

Is there 14 including the baby? If not I'm one short, you sure make it
hard Fred!!!!

I found 13 of the 14.

Man...I can only find ten, including the one with the baby.
B(

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I did a grid array from an overlook on the Columbia Gorge with an Interstate highway bisecting it. My moves are much slower, so I saw that the same vehicle might possibly be in two places in the final image. I didn't do it but what actually happened is that a semi drove through the edge of one panel, resulting in the truck disappearing for part of it's length.

Another kind of constructed reality!

No, I didn't leave it that way. I took it out completely. But then, I had to reconstruct the guard rail and the vegetation hidden by the truck. The guard rail could have been cloned using perspective clone tool, but it was too fussy do I did it by hand.

The entire freeway is a construct.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1oDtAfKxtqr3oKkz3oWscceMroXz0>

FYI: 8 panels in two rows. The equivalent size is that of a film capture with a 20x24 camera scanned to 300 dpi.

[-ma...@adobeforums.com]

Lawrence, I really like that shot. Gorgeous!

Are there any good pano books available that you are aware of? This looks like something that I’d like to pursue at a future date.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

It took a bit of doing, Nick, I had to knock the politician's "photo op" out of him, which took a little while. I don't mean that to sound harsh - he was really an exemplary subject. Once I got him relaxed I could see that I would end up with something worthwhile.

Larry, I've tried grids in the forest, but things are too confined and a wide-angle is almost mandatory. That leads to big problems with vertical convergence when trying to match the vertical rows.

I did a tree root on the Hassy with the 150mm as a 3x4 array last year and that worked well. I intend to try an array in my next pano from the mountain as well - I've never been able to resolve the trees in the middle distance properly with a single row. What focal length were you using for that freeway shot?

shep, there is one who is all but hidden (part of his head showing only) just above the log at right to the left of the standing person in beanie, two more hidden (their choice) in the sun-dappled dead fern leaves at right, one standing by the big tree just above the guy with the hood, and one in the far distance on that same right side, behind the lass with the red hair. It's a snap to find them on the full-res print, of course.

I spread them out away from camera to give scale to the depth and openness of the old-growth forest.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I have to go find the originals Fred, and they are on an external not connected to the computer.

Probably 40 to mm on the d80. I've gone up to 70mm on some shots. This may be one of them. Let you know this weekend when I run the drive again.

[mr...@adobeforums.com]

Man...I can only find ten, including the one with the baby.

Keep looking Shep, I found it quite therapeutic.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Here's another example.

Hand held in an antiques store. 50mm 1.8 lens. Three panels stacked vertically.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1lZUlzZkXccaQGiSMA1qL1hEOwuPe1>

[Nick_...@adobeforums.com]

Beautiful pano of the Columbia Gorge, Lawrence.

[Donald...@adobeforums.com]

That is nice of the gorge.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Loved your Columbia photograph, Lawrence.

Oregon is a truly beautiful State with astonishingly varied topography.

[mr...@adobeforums.com]

Great panos Larry, love the gorge.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Thank you all for your comments.

The island in the river is called Rooster Rock, named for a rooster shaped rock outcropping.

Heading back up there momentarily for evening light.

[John_Co...@adobeforums.com]

Do people dress up at night there? I suspec that this is a cool time of the year there.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Rather cool John. One of my favorite places is Joseph (ok,ok, waaay past the Gorge!) where it was 7F this morning.

<http://www.josephoregonweather.com/>

Probably won't go below freezing tonight. I may stay out at a motel overnight.

Depends.

[John_Co...@adobeforums.com]

I was trying to allude to the sun crowd at Rooster Rock.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Ah! Missed it! :D

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

I just purchased a new tripod. Why? Because it's perfect for panoramas. The Manfrotto 755XB (those with extra bux might want to look into the carbon fiber version) It is a video tripod, and it's usefulness lies in the half sphere head on the center column. Uneven ground? No need to worry amount a level platform. The platform can now be leveled using the column adjustment. Easy peasy! Removed the big gumption factor in taking the time to set up the tripod... leveling with the damn legs.

I did a test, and simply leveling the platform with the built in level provided an almost perfect edge alignment. No more stair steps!

I wish it had even more precision in leveling but it's so close as to be far more useful than leveling with the legs.

[-sh...@adobeforums.com]

Thought this would fit in this thread moreso than any other. 300 one minute exposures.

<http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090314.html>

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Fascinating — including the descriptive text. Thank you so much for posting the Link.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

I'm curious as to why he tripped the shutter over 300 times for a minute at a time instead of just leaving the shutter open? I can't see how the end result would have been any different other than avoiding a stitching-from-hell exercise ;-) .

Seeing this, I reckon pointing a full-circle fisheye lens straight up at the south or north pole and exposing for 24 hours in mid-winter would get the ultimate star trail picture. All lines should be continuous circling around the center of frame with a band of "sunset" 360 degrees around the horizon.

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

Maybe he doesn't have a cable realease...

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

exposing for 24 hours in mid-winter

I can see at least two disadvantages to that idea: winter temperatures are about -70°F (or less); and Long-exposure digital Noise would be quite a factor also!

:(

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

That noise level would be less at -70, however, the camera would need some warming as -70 would also have a detrimental effect on the batteries.

I;m also not sure about the silicon at that temp. Nor anything mechanical

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

If they could put a man on the moon in 1969 (temperature fluctuations there can make the arctic look like Palm Springs and the Sahara look like winter in Siberia), I'm sure someone in 2009 could work out a simple way to keep a camera warm....

If digital noise is a problem, why not use film? (how soon we forget....)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Some times even well-known authors using telescopes and digital capture devices confuse how signal to noise increases with increased exposure and come to believe that 300 one-minute exposures equate to one 30 minute exposure (ten to one ratio).

Ouch! That's wrong.

Signal to noise increases in proportion to the square root of the exposure whether this is a single exposure or a stack of multiple exposures.

The single exposure is actually better, because it has a single read-out noise component, whereas the 100 one-minute ones will have 100 read-out noise components.

Of course, DSLRs are not cooled devices, so you don't want to leave the shutter open for hours. The sensor gets really, really hot.

I've been doing multiple night-time exposures of the night sky for a long, long time. When shooting deep sky (galaxies, nebulas and so on) digitally, I try keep each exposure to less than 240 seconds, occasionally even 30 seconds, usually on a motorized equatorial mount.

One thing to remember is to switch off auto noise reduction (dark-frame subtraction), if for no other reason than to save imaging time.

The image below was taken with a 300mm Pentax manual lens on a Pentax *istD, in Western Oregon a few years ago. Dozens of shots were stacked, I'd have to dig my notes to be sure, but I seem to remember it was in the order of 70 or 80 stacked exposures. I used a Canon cable release with an intervalometer, adapting it for Pentax contacts.

The sensor/chip in the *istD, which was also used by Nikon in their first DSLRs, just happen to be the one also used by the the Starlight Xpress dedicated cooled CCD camera, which sold for about $8,000 US Cy. at the time. In those days, Nikon had trouble with noise reduction that could not be switched off which deleted faint stars. Bad karma. ;) Canon was not in the running for those purposes yet.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Bsn1LuIuXj1XL8Tkc48qpwaskIBb0>

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

On keeping the camera from freezing during a long exposure.....

The sensor gets really, really hot.

Well, that was simple ;-)

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

Ouch, -70 is kind of chilly.

I took an hour exposure in 10º weather the January before last. But then I was lost and waiting for the moon to come up so I could find my way back to the trail so had nothing better to do.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

The single exposure is actually better, because it has a single read-out noise component, whereas the 300 one-minute ones will have 300 read-out noise components.

Not quite right. It depends on how you use the multiple exposures. If you combine them in a summing device, the s/n ratio goes up as a function of the number of images being summed. It is a log function, not a square root function in that case.

Of course, the closer you come to the exposure threshold, the lower the s/n until the noise swamps the signal.

CCDs have inherent noise characteristics that makes them the better candidate for sensors than CMOS. But CMOS is far cheaper to manufacture, as CMOS is so ubiquitous in silicon production, and it's cheaper to deal with the noise using software.

A Peltier cooler is indicated if the chip is indeed heating up to the degree you indicate, Ramon. In any case, thermal noise is only one of the sources for sensor noise.

Fred, the only films that can even come close to today's sensors is Tech Pan and Kodachrome, With K a distant second to Tech Pan.

IMO, of course. :-)
Nice shot of Andromeda Galaxy, Ramon.

[Fred_...@adobeforums.com]

Fred, the only films that can even come close to today's sensors is Tech
Pan and Kodachrome, With K a distant second to Tech Pan.

I know, Larry, but if the temperature is too low to allow a digital camera and its batteries to function, a Nikon FM2 (or any other fully mechanical camera) with an 8mm full circle fisheye attached would romp the project in (even if one had to open the shutter in a warm place first and control the actual exposure with a lenscap should the lubricants freeze and seize the shutter).

I wasn't suggesting that this should be what we regress to, merely responding to Ann's observation of noise occurring in very lengthy exposures in digital cameras. I haven't yet tried an exposure running to hours to confirm that this indeed will happen with a D3, only commenting on that supposition as put.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

Gotcha, Fred. :-)

Actually, I had that experience at only 15F. The Hasselblad worked, the 20D didn't. (Not mine, a friends)