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11-15-2014, 05:26 PM   #1
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Ultra wide angle (10mm) or something longer and learn stitching for night landscapes?

I just returned my Samyang 10 2.8 because something was wrong with the transmission of aperture values to the cameras. Initially I wanted to get an immediate replacement but now I am starting to wonder if I should get something longer and learn stitching panoramas. There are several lenses I could think of:
- The 14 2.8 is cheaper and full frame ready (if the mythical FF ever comes).
- Or even get a Rokinon 24 1.4. It's much faster (huge advantage at night) and also full frame ready

One drawback I could think of is that the 10mm would also be suitable for indoor architecture pictures and other landscape pictures. I wonder if my Pentax 12-24 would cover this despite being slower. The other is that I pretty much always would have to create panoramas which is more work.

What do other people think? Is panorama stitching difficult to learn? Or can the 10mm not be replaced?

11-15-2014, 05:35 PM   #2
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How about the SIgma 8-16mm ? Outstanding lens from what I've heard. You do have the 12-24, but the Sigma would be 4mm wider.
11-15-2014, 06:19 PM   #3
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The Sigma 8-16 is outstanding. Also, even though it isn't fast it still is wonderful indoors because it is sharp wide open, just slightly overexpose and pull it back in post for darker indoor shots.
11-15-2014, 06:22 PM   #4
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8-16mm lens

I use both methods
The 8-16 mm lens is a specialty lens and whilst very good for outdoor wide angle shots adds curvature issues and doesn't give me the same "I could just step into this photo scene" feel as stitching.
The best free software for autostitching I have found is Microsofts Research Lab's Image Composite Editor at
Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE)
It is not supported and isn't perfect, but it's very easy to use.
There are several rules to stitching that you should be aware of
Overlap the images by around 30%, keep the Fstop, ISO and Exposure times the same (IE do it in manual)
And double check the focus points before you shoot.

At night it can be hard as the exposure times almost always mean the scene can change - ie clouds and stars move, and foreground objects - cars and people etc also move so you can experience blurring. But you get that with a single lens too.
It comes down to practice practice practice

11-15-2014, 06:28 PM   #5
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Stitching is not hard at all. Just set the camera so it doesn't do anything "auto" between shots and overlap. Software generally handles everything else by itself. Sometimes I have a better result if I set up a preset in Lightroom that sets all the shots to exactly the same WB numbers and runs lens corrections. I use Photoshop CS5 which gives you a choice of projections. Sometimes that is useful. It has only refused to create one panorama, which Microsoft ICE did. I have heard that the Samyang 14mm has an unusual mustache distortion, so a profile might be needed for best alignment. Vignetting is also a problem; choose a lens with low vignetting or a correction profile.
11-15-2014, 07:56 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by Hattifnatt Quote
How about the SIgma 8-16mm ? Outstanding lens from what I've heard. You do have the 12-24, but the Sigma would be 4mm wider.
The Sigma 8-16 interests me a lot but I think it's too slow for nightscapes. I think 2.8 or even faster is very desirable for shots of the Milky Way.

---------- Post added 11-15-14 at 06:59 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by shuttles12000 Quote
I use both methods
The 8-16 mm lens is a specialty lens and whilst very good for outdoor wide angle shots adds curvature issues and doesn't give me the same "I could just step into this photo scene" feel as stitching.
The best free software for autostitching I have found is Microsofts Research Lab's Image Composite Editor at
Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE)
It is not supported and isn't perfect, but it's very easy to use.
There are several rules to stitching that you should be aware of
Overlap the images by around 30%, keep the Fstop, ISO and Exposure times the same (IE do it in manual)
And double check the focus points before you shoot.

At night it can be hard as the exposure times almost always mean the scene can change - ie clouds and stars move, and foreground objects - cars and people etc also move so you can experience blurring. But you get that with a single lens too.
It comes down to practice practice practice
I have noticed that the Milky Way moves quite a bit between successive 30 seconds exposures. You probably have to keep the foreground and the sky separate. I am sure that's possible with Photoshop although I don't know much about it.

---------- Post added 11-15-14 at 07:00 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by VoiceOfReason Quote
The Sigma 8-16 is outstanding. Also, even though it isn't fast it still is wonderful indoors because it is sharp wide open, just slightly overexpose and pull it back in post for darker indoor shots.
It's a very tempting lens. Last year I was in Rome and I think it would have been the perfect lens there.

---------- Post added 11-15-14 at 07:07 PM ----------

I'd like to add that the Tokina 11-16 would solve a lot of the issues if it was available for Pentax. That's the one lens I envy my Nikon friends for.
11-15-2014, 08:21 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by maxxxx Quote
I just returned my Samyang 10 2.8 because something was wrong with the transmission of aperture values to the cameras. Initially I wanted to get an immediate replacement but now I am starting to wonder if I should get something longer and learn stitching panoramas. There are several lenses I could think of:
- The 14 2.8 is cheaper and full frame ready (if the mythical FF ever comes).
- Or even get a Rokinon 24 1.4. It's much faster (huge advantage at night) and also full frame ready

One drawback I could think of is that the 10mm would also be suitable for indoor architecture pictures and other landscape pictures. I wonder if my Pentax 12-24 would cover this despite being slower. The other is that I pretty much always would have to create panoramas which is more work.

What do other people think? Is panorama stitching difficult to learn? Or can the 10mm not be replaced?
You can stitch quite nicely with images from the 12-24. Use it in portrait orientation, and overlap 1/3 or 30% as mentioned above. One auto thing not mentioned is white balance.

You must do everything on manual. The exposure must be the same both shutter speed and aperture; the focal length must be the same; the white balance must be the same. If any of them change between images, the seam will be obvious.

Hugin works well, and is a perfect price: free. Download it from sourceforge, and untick all the add ons so you only install Hugin.

11-15-2014, 08:24 PM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by Canada_Rockies Quote
overlap 1/3 or 30%
One thing I don't quite get it, why overlap so much? I never did any stitching but I'm planning to try it on the future.
11-15-2014, 08:40 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by Hattifnatt Quote
One thing I don't quite get it, why overlap so much? I never did any stitching but I'm planning to try it on the future.
I would think it gives the software enough information to fit adjacent images.

---------- Post added 11-15-14 at 07:41 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by Canada_Rockies Quote
You can stitch quite nicely with images from the 12-24. Use it in portrait orientation, and overlap 1/3 or 30% as mentioned above. One auto thing not mentioned is white balance.

You must do everything on manual. The exposure must be the same both shutter speed and aperture; the focal length must be the same; the white balance must be the same. If any of them change between images, the seam will be obvious.

Hugin works well, and is a perfect price: free. Download it from sourceforge, and untick all the add ons so you only install Hugin.
Good point about white balance. I guess that can be fixed in Lightroom thankfully.
11-15-2014, 08:47 PM   #10
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The overlap is to allow the software enough points to work with. No matter how good the lens, there is some distortion that the software must match up between the two images. I have a couple that were only overlapped by 20% and the match up was not as good.
11-16-2014, 02:17 PM   #11
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I'm afraid the software could get confused when most of the image is the night sky... a) there's movement between shots and b) there's not much reference area. So I'd overlap even more than 30%, maybe 50-60%? Just a feeling.

Why not raise the ISO a bit to counter the not as open aperture? Don't you need a bit of DoF anyway?

White balance doesn't matter if you shoot raw, and if not, why not?

I love PTGui for panoramas, but it might be a bit overkill and isn't the easiest to use. But for the most control, flexibility and quality I think that's it.
11-16-2014, 03:28 PM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by kadajawi Quote
I'm afraid the software could get confused when most of the image is the night sky... a) there's movement between shots and b) there's not much reference area. So I'd overlap even more than 30%, maybe 50-60%? Just a feeling.

Why not raise the ISO a bit to counter the not as open aperture? Don't you need a bit of DoF anyway?

White balance doesn't matter if you shoot raw, and if not, why not?

I love PTGui for panoramas, but it might be a bit overkill and isn't the easiest to use. But for the most control, flexibility and quality I think that's it.
With a Milky Way shot you will typically be at 2.8 or faster, 30 seconds and ISO 3200 or more. I guess next time I'm in a dark area I will give it a go. Since there are plenty of stars, the software should in theory have enough information to line up shots. The only problem will be that the sky moves, but the foreground doesn't. That makes me thing you have process them separately because it's not really possible to line them up.
11-16-2014, 05:37 PM   #13
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One of the problems I forsee with using the 10mm lens is that it's not autofocus and focusing such a wide-angle lens in the dark is going to be a challenge. If you have focus peaking on your camera (K-30 or K-3, for instance), then that helps a lot. I'm sure many will scream "Live view + magnification!" but this can easily fail for night photography. The monitor will automatically amplify the signal it receives, leading to two issues:
1) Noise on screen becomes incredibly large, obscuring the image so much that you can no longer tell what's in focus
2) The camera's attempts to overcome the blackness will make the lights so bright that you won't be able to tell if they're in focus. As a result, the only points you could use for focus become detail-less balls of light.

The ultra-wide nature of the lens does help with focus (as hyperfocus is achieved rather quickly) but you're pretty much shooting blind, as what you see will be rather small. Cranking to infinity can work, except some lenses do focus "past infinity." I have that issue with the DA*300 and the moon; simply cranking it all the way results in blurry, out of focus images. The correct focus point is just a smidgen short of the farthest setting.
11-16-2014, 05:51 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by MadMathMind Quote
Cranking to infinity can work, except some lenses do focus "past infinity." I have that issue with the DA*300 and the moon; simply cranking it all the way results in blurry, out of focus images. The correct focus point is just a smidgen short of the farthest setting.
If I know the subject ahead of time (The moon, aurora) I simply pre-focus at infinity and tape the focus ring down with gaffer's tape. That's been successful with both the DA*300mm (moon) and 12-24mm (stars, aurora, moonlit scenes).
11-16-2014, 06:36 PM   #15
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Stitching programs have some intelligence about movement, because it happens often enough. You may have to try alternate programs to get the right assembly.

Photoshop CS5 did well with this one. I took 17 shots with the DA 50-200 as the ship sailed by. This is one series which needed a lens correction preset to stitch correctly. I was just seeing if it would work.

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