Landscape Stitching & Lens Choice

I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made
me wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great outdoors?

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas

"Tony Belding" wrote in message
news:2006120820182316807-zobeid@techiecom...
I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made me
wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
outdoors?

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas


I use a tripod with a modest pano head. Lock the exposure and color balance.
I use about a 28mm setting.

I prefer PTGui, I also use Autopano. I never use Photoshop Photomerge for
panos.

Look for Panosaurus. There is some good tutorial advice there.

Great fun.

Tony Belding wrote:
I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made
me wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great outdoors?


Yup, I mostly use a 50mm f/1.8 lens. I mostly use it at f/11 to
balance DOF and resolution.

I will use a longer lens sometimes but the need is fairly rare and the
loss of DOF is a killer for me.

Scott

Tony Belding wrote:
: I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
: pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made
: me wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
: landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
: lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
: lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

: Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
: outdoors?

Yes kinda.

I frequently was frustrated that impressive scenes or massive structures
(buildings, mountains, waterfalls, etc) either were too large for any sane
use of a wide angle lens (even a huge building looks like a miniature if
you use too wide a lens), or I would have to shoot a whole roll of film
and hope that a week later when I got the photos back I could piece the
image back together without any gaps.

But now that I have digital and a couple different stitching programs I
can get huge images that look just as impressive as the original. Using
digital I am not upset if I take 50 or 60 images with huge amounts of
overlap to ensure that every inch is captured. And I agree that the
current stitching software is amazingly good at geting it all together. My
current favorite is still Autostitch, but I do have a few other programs
incase of the rare problem.

So yes I am much more likely to see an impressive piece of scenery and
begin snapping off as many images as it takes.

Now if I could afford the ink to print these massive images at a size that
they deserve without taking out a bank loan.

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

Tony Belding wrote:

I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made me
wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
outdoors?

Change from what? :-)

The choice of focal length depends on the subject. I took a stitched
pano of the Rockies at sunset using a 135mm prime, because it was what
was needed compositionally. A pano of Mt. St. Helens needed 6 shots at
80mm.

These figures can be misleading, though, because typically (and
ironically) I'll shoot in 'portrait' orientation, rather than
'landscape' for a single-row pano.

You have to develop a technique for visualizing the result. I tend to
guess, mount the lens, and swing the rig back and forth to get an idea.

Some results he
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mile23/sets/72157594411909356/

Hi Tony,

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
outdoors?

I've only shot a few panoramas with stitching (I used the software that came
with my Canon RebelXT for it). They came out very nicely. I am _far_ from
being an expert, but from what I have read, experienced and seen, there are
a few things you need to be aware of when shooting images for panorama
stitching.

Polarizing filters can mess things up if you are moving across the sky at
around the 90 degrees from the sun. I'd advise not to use polarizing
filters at all when doing panoramas or you will get color problems -
fixable, but best not to get them in the first place

Make sure that white balance, exposure and aperture are fixed, i.e. use
manual mode. Otherwise the camera may change any or all of these settings
making it more difficult to match the colors, brightness etc. of each of the
images. Depending on the software you use, the brightness and colors may be
less of an issue than with other software, so experiment with it and see
what you can do and can't do.

I would suggest small aperture (high f stop) and manual focus (not
autofocus) particularly if there are objects close to you in the foreground.
The photo at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html would
be a good example as it might develop focus problems with big aperture and
autofocus when the images of the foreground are taken. If the brightness of
your individual images varies a lot (see that example photo, where the parts
of the image would be darker than others and one very bright - the sun
photo I would change the shutter speed and leave the aperture alone.

Hope this helps

--
Arnor Baldvinsson
San Antonio, Texas

On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 20:18:23 -0600, Tony Belding
wrote:

I'm finding some of the inexpensive stitching software available now is
pretty good -- even astonishingly good, from where I sit. And it made
me wonder. . . Would this affect one's choice of lens for shooting
landscapes? It seems to me that one would previously need a wide-angle
lens to capture a landscape, but now a normal lens or even a short tele
lens could give results at least as good, maybe better.

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great outdoors?

It depends.
On a (D)SLR, almost any but the widest lenses are pretty rectilinear.
No real problem with distortion. My 17-40L is a good example; for
landscapes, it does very well )it does have problems if there are,
say, utility poles close in; they get bent some).
On a P&S, though, this is different; the lenses aren't as good. Then,
I find shooting at 45mm (equivalent) to about 80mm (equilavent) works
best.
YMMV, as always.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

Arnor Baldvinsson wrote:
Hi Tony,

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
outdoors?

I've only shot a few panoramas with stitching (I used the software that came
with my Canon RebelXT for it). They came out very nicely. I am _far_ from
being an expert, but from what I have read, experienced and seen, there are
a few things you need to be aware of when shooting images for panorama
stitching.

Polarizing filters can mess things up if you are moving across the sky at
around the 90 degrees from the sun. I'd advise not to use polarizing
filters at all when doing panoramas or you will get color problems -
fixable, but best not to get them in the first place

Make sure that white balance, exposure and aperture are fixed, i.e. use
manual mode. Otherwise the camera may change any or all of these settings
making it more difficult to match the colors, brightness etc. of each of the
images. Depending on the software you use, the brightness and colors may be
less of an issue than with other software, so experiment with it and see
what you can do and can't do.

I would suggest small aperture (high f stop) and manual focus (not
autofocus) particularly if there are objects close to you in the foreground.
The photo at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html would
be a good example as it might develop focus problems with big aperture and
autofocus when the images of the foreground are taken. If the brightness of
your individual images varies a lot (see that example photo, where the parts
of the image would be darker than others and one very bright - the sun
photo I would change the shutter speed and leave the aperture alone.

Also: Keep the sun at your back, and a tripod if you can, and you're
good to go!

I am a bit suspect of the UBC software, if only because their careful
demo isn't honest. In the panel that shows the 57 images aligned but not
blended, there's a man standing sideways in the foreground. In the
"final" he is kneeling away from the camera. So, the final wasn't
derived strictly from the composite. It could easily be a single frame.

--
John McWilliams

John McWilliams wrote:
Arnor Baldvinsson wrote:

Hi Tony,

Has this led any of you to change your shooting habits in the great
outdoors?


I've only shot a few panoramas with stitching (I used the software
that came with my Canon RebelXT for it). They came out very nicely.
I am _far_ from being an expert, but from what I have read,
experienced and seen, there are a few things you need to be aware of
when shooting images for panorama stitching.

Polarizing filters can mess things up if you are moving across the sky
at around the 90 degrees from the sun. I'd advise not to use
polarizing filters at all when doing panoramas or you will get color
problems - fixable, but best not to get them in the first place

Make sure that white balance, exposure and aperture are fixed, i.e.
use manual mode. Otherwise the camera may change any or all of these
settings making it more difficult to match the colors, brightness etc.
of each of the images. Depending on the software you use, the
brightness and colors may be less of an issue than with other
software, so experiment with it and see what you can do and can't do.

I would suggest small aperture (high f stop) and manual focus (not
autofocus) particularly if there are objects close to you in the
foreground. The photo at
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html would be a
good example as it might develop focus problems with big aperture and
autofocus when the images of the foreground are taken. If the
brightness of your individual images varies a lot (see that example
photo, where the parts of the image would be darker than others and
one very bright - the sun photo I would change the shutter speed and
leave the aperture alone.


Also: Keep the sun at your back, and a tripod if you can, and you're
good to go!

I am a bit suspect of the UBC software, if only because their careful
demo isn't honest. In the panel that shows the 57 images aligned but not
blended, there's a man standing sideways in the foreground. In the
"final" he is kneeling away from the camera. So, the final wasn't
derived strictly from the composite. It could easily be a single frame.

This image:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/large_mosaics

was done with a polarizer and autofocus, varying the focus from
frame to frame. I disagree with the idea keep the sun at your back.
The scene, and it's lighting, along with your composition
are what is important. With the camera on manual and constant
aperture and exposure, doing a mosaic is no different than
doing a wider angle image with a single lens in terms of the
overall effect.

Roger

Hi Roger,

The scene, and it's lighting, along with your composition
are what is important.

That 59 frame image is just beautiful! I was under the impression that
constant focus was required so that the stitching software could find the
edges easier, but I guess I've been reading old stuff and that the stitching
software works just fine even if the focus changesg Thanks for posting
the link, I've leared a lot from your page already
--
Arnor Baldvinsson
San Antonio, Texas