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PanoramasTechniques lenses and software...

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Posted by Robert: Sat Oct 3rd, 2015 03:28

1^st Post

Due to a stroke of good fortune, I have been granted permission to access a local view point. Living on the edge of the scenic western Lake District and on the coast I am fortunate to have some wonderful photo opportunities but sometimes they get a little 'sameish'.

My new vantage point is 190 Metres, about 600 ft elevation with views which include Morecambe, the Fylde coast, North Wales, the Isle of Man, the Duddon estuary and of course the western Lake District. According to Google, the IoM is 53 miles to the central mountain area.

I read a comment recently, probably on this forum, that the Lightroom pano stitching feature is better than the equivalent feature found in the Photoshop 'Automate' section. According to my recent experience using the latest CC 2015, software, neither are infallible.

So far I have spent two evenings at my new vantage point, collected over 500 images most of which are sequences, intended to be used to create stitched panoramas. My first attempts were with my 300mm f2.8 MF lens on my D200, but at this stage I found that needed too many images to create a worthwhile panorama. I also used the D3100 with the 18-105 @ 105, but in low light the sensor noise rules the D3100 out, the 'noise' is horrendous, far worse than the D200 even.

I have good (very heavy!) tripod and a nice solid video head which can be levelled, I am using the D200 viewfinder grid to help me maintain about a 25% overlap at each side of every image, so each image 'throws away' at least 50% of it's content. I read somewhere that I should be throwing away 60%...?

I have found the Nikkor 50mm f1.4 is pretty good in very low light, the coverage is about right but it seems to suffer from vignetting which is showing up badly in the Photoshop stitched pano's, I have had to resort to manually correcting the uneven patches of darker sky. I plan to try the Nikkor 55mm f2.8 Micro lens next, if this wonderful weather holds long enough.

One sequence of about 5 images I took with the D1x and the Nikkor 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8, of the Isle of Man over 20 Minutes after sunset, i.e. quite low light, I can clearly see two of the radio masts on top of Snaefell. Stopped down a little in daylight would be an interesting comparison. Maybe on a clear winters day?

I am finding both Lightroom and Photoshop pano stitching features hard work, I have found another dedicated stitcher,

http://www.boltnev.com/panoramastitcher/

But although it isn't very expensive I have a feeling it may be a bit simplistic? Lightroom simply give up with a message that there isn't enough information in the images to stitch them??? Photoshop seems to be working then produces an image with some of the exposures stitched but several below on the same canvas unused, which I then have to extend the canvas, then layer the unused exposures into position by increasing the transparency of the upper image then slide the next exposure under the pano to align it, then use the auto align and blend controls to finish the job. Repeated for each unused exposure...

So far my widest stitched panorama is about 30,500 pixels wide, by about 2000 high. It's extremely interesting and very enjoyable. So far the challenges have been getting the camera level and steady, vignetting, ensuring a consistent overlap and getting the software to play nicely, although I am getting more familiar with manual stitching techniques!

This is the D1X / Nikkor 300mm f2.8, @ f2.8 1/10 Sec, Pano which Lightroom refused to do, Photoshop did it, all bar the last two exposures which I had to add manually.

The full image is 11,500 pixels wide by 1,900 high so I can't post that here!!!

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Ralph G Speer: Sat Oct 3rd, 2015 06:17

2^nd Post

Rober,

I just have to say -- this is great - and I really enjoy doing Pano's. Have you tried hand holding the camera? I made panos when it was imposible to get a tripod to the location. Photoshop really does a good job. The last version even does "auto Fill". I haven't used LR in the last few years.

Ralph

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Ralph G Speer

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RGSpeer

Posted by jk: Sat Oct 3rd, 2015 08:59

3^rd Post

Nice work Robert.
Looks good on my 27" screen.

____________________
Still learning after all these years!
https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none

Posted by Eric: Sat Oct 3rd, 2015 11:49

4^th Post

Nice job Robert. I use PTGui for all my panoramas. I would also commend you to do some IR panos.
:thumbsup:

This one is from 5 stitched HANDHELD shots taken by the Forgensee in Bavaria. PTGUI is very good at finding reference points and morphing the image edges to fit.

Attachment: image.jpeg (Downloaded 33 times)

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Eric

Posted by Robert: Mon Oct 5th, 2015 05:55

5^th Post

Well, what an awful day, stair rod rain and cold winds! After several weeks of warm sunny weather we are back to 'normal'! I have been busy demolishing my chimney
and adding an en-suit to my bedroom, so I have been a bit busy.

My bedroom!

Anyway, back on topic! :offtopic:

Thanks for the comments guys, I am way too doddery to hand hold anything much under 1/1,000 Sec, and all my attempts at hand holding pano's have been
a complete wast of time.
These sunset panoramas need very slow shutter speeds, this one, which I think is my best to date was taken with the D200 with the Nikkor 50mm f1.4, @ f1.4-1/6 Sec, ISO 200
in Manual mode and locked WB, using 6 exposures stitched together in Photoshop CC15.

It is the Duddon Bar, the junction of the Duddon estuary and the Irish sea with the Isle of Man in the distance (52 Miles) taken 50 minutes after sunset.
(It really needs a screen 6 feet wide to do it justice)

Eric, I have had a look at PTGui, that looks really good although it's outside my budget atm, I will d/l the demo version to get a feel of it. From my experiences
so far I feel I would need the full version to deal with the lens vignetting and balance between the adjoining images, which I find the biggest challenge in
stitching panoramas, getting rid of the dark areas in the vicinity of the joints, it is really hard to get a totally even graduation across the entire image because the
images are all different due to natural conditions.

The spherical stitched panoramas are stunning, although they seem to call for a fish eye for simplicity. I can think of several places where I could make good use
of a spherical image.

Yes, I would love to extend this to IR, again I can think of several excellent subjects not too far from here.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by jk: Mon Oct 5th, 2015 10:06

6^th Post

Ahem, Robert. I think the central part of your image shows a naval dockyard if I remember my maps correctly. Where the two blue lights are and to the right another rows of blue lights.

Nice shot.
Better colours than the first which is quite monochromatic.

____________________
Still learning after all these years!
https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none

Posted by Robert: Mon Oct 5th, 2015 10:41

7^th Post

Geography almost right JK, The naval dockyard is about 6 miles south of the lights and just out of shot. To the right of the two bright blue lights and in front of the row of lights is one of HM's overcrowded holiday camps, HMP, Haverigg sited on the old WWII airfield which during and a little after the was was kept supplied by my father with vitals and expendables from the RASC at Preston Barracks. I understood that the airfield was used as a short term refugee camp towards the end of the war, and gradually morphed into a prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Haverigg

The lagoon in front of the two bright blue lights was an Iron ore mine, which in it's day produced some of the best hematite ore in the world, I am told tunnels from that pit went up to 6 miles out under the sea but the cost of pumping outweighed the returns on the ore, so despite there being a vast reserve to good ore under there they switched off the pumps and we probably now import the iron.

http://www.millomrockpark.org.uk/html/millom__mining___money.html

The lagoon is now a nature reserve.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Robert: Tue Mar 8th, 2016 04:16

8^th Post

It *seems* Adobe have been working on their panorama stitching module.

I had pretty well given up on it and reverted to manual, I have considered buying the PTGui software and may do so eventually but the stitching I need is so simple I don't see it is justified to buy additional software to do something which Lightroom and Photoshop should take in their stride. Last night and this morning I have been making some panoramas from some of the photographs I took on Sunday morning using the Adobe stitching module in Lightroom.

The recently added 'dehaze' function in Lr is really good at ...dehazing distance images like this, it really cuts through the haze and produces a well saturated image that no other adjustment seems able to do.

Kiss of death here but none of this batch of stacks failed to be stitched, I haven't revisited the previous failed stacks as yet but the ones I have just done are pretty good.

D300s, 80-200 f2.8 Nikkor @ 80mm f11, 1/640sec, ISO500 (AutoISO) stitched from 5 exposures with ~50% frame overlap (25% each side)

1:1 Crop:

The two people stood with their dogs are about 1,250 Yards from where I made the exposures. If the image were printed at full size 1:1 as on my monitor it would be 106 inches wide (2,700mm).

____________________
Robert.

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