Panoramic shots

jdg · 01-03-2009, 06:06 AM

How do you shoot panoramic shots using a k100d?

Mike Cash · 01-03-2009, 06:08 AM

Real wide angle and crop off the top/bottom. Or several shots and stitch them together with software.

*Tom S.* · 01-03-2009, 06:14 AM

If you plan on taking several shots and stitching them together, it also helps to use a tripod, and try not to shoot under changing light conditions.

Mike Cash · 01-03-2009, 07:25 AM

Originally Posted by Tom S.

If you plan on taking several shots and stitching them together, it also helps to use a tripod, and try not to shoot under changing light conditions.

And keep the aperture the same so you don't have different depths of field in the shots. Use Av or M mode.

navcom · 01-03-2009, 07:57 AM

If you are going to take several shots and stitch them together, I would strongly recommend picking up a pano head for your tripod. This will allow you to pan your camera from the center of the lens versus the center of the camera. It will make your stitching much neater and more realistic.

The first one I bought was a Panasaurus (The Panosaurus Panoramic Tripod Head Home Page)

As for stitching software, there are tons out there. I know some versions of PS will do it as well as some popular ones like Autopano (AutoPano Pro - Panorama stitching software - Panoramic photo software - image stitching)...I use this one myself.

MrApollinax · 01-03-2009, 08:25 AM

Originally Posted by navcom

As for stitching software, there are tons out there. I know some versions of PS will do it as well as some popular ones like Autopano (AutoPano Pro - Panorama stitching software - Panoramic photo software - image stitching)...I use this one myself.

Another vote for AutoPano Pro. I also use this software:

Vikings Stadium pregame:

View of the Dead Sea from the cliff top Fortress of Masada:

*Wheatfield* · 01-03-2009, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by Mike Cash

And keep the aperture the same so you don't have different depths of field in the shots. Use Av or M mode.

Actually, set the camera to manual and leave the exposure alone.
At least thats whats worked best for me.

pentkon52 · 01-03-2009, 09:01 AM

Mark Roberts has a tutorial on panos.

Multi-Image Panoramas

Dave

BPT · 01-03-2009, 01:30 PM

I do a fair number of panos with my K100D with fairly reasonable success. I am not as good as most the people here so take it for what it is worth

What I do is find the place most difficult lighting or the most important place and set my exposure there on manual mode. I like to use a fairly small aperture setting so the foreground and the background can be in focus.

When taking the pictures I go for a fairly large overlap making sure each picture has some feature I can pick out in the overlap. This will help with joining later. If you have something like people that may be moving around I would try and make sure they are completely in one picture since you may end up with some ghosting.

For software I use the free software hugin which uses the autopano algorythm for joining.

*xs400* · 01-03-2009, 02:01 PM

An excellent freeware program from pano's is AutoStitch I've used it with shots from my K100 and gotten excellent results

jdg · 01-03-2009, 09:05 PM

Originally Posted by Tom S.

If you plan on taking several shots and stitching them together, it also helps to use a tripod, and try not to shoot under changing light conditions.

Yes this is what i meant taking several shots to make the panorama. how about focusing do i manual focus or auto? do i need to use the exposure lock feature of the camera? thanks for the inputs!

flyer · 01-04-2009, 05:43 AM

Go for manual focus and (optional) put a piece of tape on the focus ring to make sure it doesn't move by accident when you touch the camera. Use a level tripod. Don't use automatic white balance, as the white balance can change from one position to the other. Try to make sure the clouds (if there are any) won't hide/uncover the sun during the sequence of exposures. Use manual exposure set for the brightest part of the sequence. Use small aperture to maximize depth of field. If there are peoplef going by all the time, you can take a few shots of the same scene, stack them in Photoshop and erase the part you don't want or use Photoshop Elements 7 auto feature to remove them. DON'T use camera mounted flash for a pano, it doesn't illuminate evenly. Give your scenes at least 30% (50% is even better) of overlap.

*rpriedhorsky* · 01-04-2009, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by navcom

If you are going to take several shots and stitch them together, I would strongly recommend picking up a pano head for your tripod. This will allow you to pan your camera from the center of the lens versus the center of the camera. It will make your stitching much neater and more realistic.

If your subjects aren't close, you don't need a tripod or a pano head, though it helps to try to manually rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens rather than the center of your head. I've gotten good results with parts of the panorama down to 10 or 15 feet away, handheld, even with fairly severe parallax error between frames (e.g., http://reidster.net/trips/2008-phant...ned.jpg.medium).

I second the recommendation for hugin. I've been suffering through manual selection of matching points, with excellent results, but I'm going to give the automated point selection another go the next time I assemble panoramas.

Lastly - depending on your lens, you may want to shoot the frames in portrait for greater coverage.

BPT · 01-04-2009, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by rpriedhorsky

I second the recommendation for hugin. I've been suffering through manual selection of matching points, with excellent results, but I'm going to give the automated point selection another go the next time I assemble panoramas.

I use the automated matching to get the bulk of the points then fine tune manually.

navcom · 01-04-2009, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by rpriedhorsky

If your subjects aren't close, you don't need a tripod or a pano head, though it helps to try to manually rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens rather than the center of your head. I've gotten good results with parts of the panorama down to 10 or 15 feet away, handheld, even with fairly severe parallax error between frames (e.g., http://reidster.net/trips/2008-phant...ned.jpg.medium).

I second the recommendation for hugin. I've been suffering through manual selection of matching points, with excellent results, but I'm going to give the automated point selection another go the next time I assemble panoramas.

Lastly - depending on your lens, you may want to shoot the frames in portrait for greater coverage.

Great scott! We have a lot of Minnesotans on this forum! We are taking over!