Panoramic Photography
It’s almost impossible not to be impressed when viewing a well-shot panoramic photo. This format brings to the viewer a version of reality that cannot be revealed with the human eye, and this is part of the fascination. Creating panoramic photos has become easier with today’s software and, in some cases, with the cameras themselves.
As I shot from the balcony of a fr iend’s apar tment in Par is, the only way I could do justice to this amazing
panor ama was to shoot a number of images, stitch them together, and wor k on the final file in Photoshop to
br ighten up the dar k foreground and br ing down the value of the sky. I even like the rough edges, caused by my not shooting a perfect circuit of images. 12–60mm lens at 24mm, 1/60 second at f5.6, 100 ISO on each fr ame
Your first attempt at a panoramic may result in an image only a mother could love—the component
images do not “stitch” together well, a bit of wide-angle distortion may create a slightly warped look, and the sky may have some unusual dark areas. But you will be so elated with the final product, that these issues can be overlooked—that is, until you pull off a really good one.
Here are some tips that should be helpful for any photographer, from an informal shooter who just wants to put together a panoramic view of a vacation site, to the very serious photographer who wants the image’s construction to be transparent and flawless.
■ Use a tripod. This can help keep the camera on a true horizontal axis, allowing greater accuracy of the stitching. This also allows the camera to swing on a tighter axis. A bubble level or a self-leveling tripod can be of immense help to keep the line of the horizon so that the image doesn’t “drop” down, which is caused by the camera not being level.
■ Don’t shoot wide angle. This is one of the most common errors photographers make. The distortion of the wide-angle lens makes for an uneven and distorted horizon line. Use a minimal lens length of 35 to 50mm.
■ Think about shooting vertical. This provides more depth to the image, and it lets you shoot just a few more frames to complete the breadth of that panoramic image.
■ As you move the camera across the scene, be sure to allow a 15 to 25 percent overlap of each image. This provides a “fudge factor” that allows the software to combine the images without encountering gaps where the images are not quite wide enough.
■ To help the stitching process, and to make sure that each image is perfect in terms of joining its neighbor,
learn about the nodal point of your particular lens. This is not a necessity, but it makes things a ton easier when you’re putting the images together. The nodal point is the area within the lens where the light rays cross before striking the chip. If you have the camera mounted to a tripod and tripod “pan head” that allows adjustment for the nodal point, each frame will intersect more perfectly with the preceding and following frames.
Each lens is different, as is the nodal point on varying lengths on a zoom lens. Here’s a fairly easy way to determine the nodal point:
Step 1
Mount the camera on a tripod that has been leveled.
Step 2
Looking through the camera, find something ver tical in the frame that is close to the tripod (within 4 to 15 feet). Also, find a second ver tical component in
the background, at a greater distance than the up-
front reference point. These two ver ticals (telephone poles, fence poles, or buildings) should be almost
lined up, with very little space between.
Step 3
As you rotate the camera, watch how the perspec- tive on these two ver tical poles changes. It will
star t out pretty close, and as you swing the camera around, the distance between them will change.
Step 4
Using a nodal point head, move the camera back
and forth on the rig while looking at that scene, until those two ver tical poles maintain their perspective
throughout the arc of movement.
Step 5
Lock down the rail, and you have established the
nodal point for that particular lens perspective. You can then star t photographing the different images
that will make up this panoramic image, knowing that the overlap of images will be smoother and more
consistent.
Putting the Images Together
After the shoot comes the part that seems magical— putting those separate photos together to create a sweeping panoramic landscape. Olympus has actually integrated the technology of the xD capture card with the Olympus Master software, which walks the photographer through this process from capture, by providing site “guides” in the camera, so that when it’s switched to the panoramic mode, the software is told to stitch the images together.
Here’s how to do it in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements:
Step 1
After capturing and downloading the images, use the Bridge or some other photo editing software to select the images you want to stitch together.
Step 2
59
Open Photoshop and choose File > Automate > Photomerge.
Step 3
In the Photomerge window, you will see several options. On the left side of the window, under Layout, you’ll see five choices: Auto, Perspective, Cylindrical, Reposition
Only, and Interactive Layout. Choose Auto to make the final image look both pleasing and natural.
Step 4
Under Source Files, choose Browse, which will allow
you to find the files you want to open. Select all the files you want to use.
Step 5
These files will then appear in a dialog box in the center of the Photomerge window.
Click OK in the upper-right corner, and the magic will begin