Panoramas

[Paddy]

I knew i had posted these before:

Louvre

Pont Neuf

Tour Eiffel

Caerphilly Castle

All of them are works in progress...

[GNEP]

Very nice. I especially like Caerphilly Castle These cameras certainly do like the sun to be shining eh?

BTW: so far I have only really been successful with panoramas when I keep the horizon absolutely dead centre vertically (and level of course...) - so where there is a lot of boring clear sky I then lop the top of the resulting panorama later. Has anyone managed to find a way to avoid the "lumpy horizon" distortion when you didn't have it in the centre of the pictures taken?

G

[az]

Either have panorama software that de-distorts your pictures (I don't know if there is any easy to use software that is good at that), or shoot at exactly the zoom position that has no distortions, I guess. Where that would be, I don't know.

AZ

[GNEP]

Well the barrel distortions etc seem to be treated well enough by panorama factory - it's just when the horizon comes out lumpy that it is so obvious...

[Paddy]

all my shots were taken without a tripod... I just had to try and minimise movement as best as possible. So there are inevitably distortions as the shots are taken with different perspectives.

[spadnos]

The only (easy) way to eliminate the lumpy horizon is just what you're doing - make the horizon be in the middle of the frame.

The reason is that panoramas only work well when you spin the camera in a plane. If you're pointing up a bit, then the camera is in a tilted plane, so you would have to point downward on the edge shots to remain in the same plane.

What you're doing by putting the horizon in the center is basically just levelling the camera. If you level the camera with a bubble level, then you're doing the same thing.

- Steve

[Nappe1]

GNEP & FRED H & Paddy: very nice panoramic shots.

(which reminds me, I have an idea of different sort of panorama technique... I need to test it tomorrow, if weather is good. )

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by az
Either have panorama software that de-distorts your pictures (I don't know if there is any easy to use software that is good at that), or shoot at exactly the zoom position that has no distortions, I guess. Where that would be, I don't know.

AZ

as long as there's no curved CCD panels, you just can't take picture that would not have distorion on the edges. (just think of it: you cannot map curved view to planar without some sort of distortion. )

[az]

Of course - spadnos explained it quite well Sorry for me being dumb

That's me and my loud mouth...

AZ

[spadnos]

You can use either a RoundShot or a Noblex panoramic camera.

The Noblex (and I believe the RoundShot) has a curved film plane. Basically, it rotates the camera body on a spindle, and moves the film at the proper rate so that a small vertical slit is exposed at any given moment. There is no barrel distortion with these cameras.

Here's a small gallery of photos from a Noblex.

- Steve

[iKwak]

The image looks flawless. I should give a shot on this quick project and try out the software that came along with the camera.

[Fred H]

I’ve read somewhere that you can make panoramas with Adobe Photoshop 7 or 8.
I didn’t try, but I wonder if someone did? Opinions?

Fred

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by Fred H
I’ve read somewhere that you can make panoramas with Adobe Photoshop 7 or 8.
I didn’t try, but I wonder if someone did? Opinions?

Fred

basically yes, you can make panoramas with any photo editing software that supports layers.

however, there isn't ready tool for that in PS 7 or 8. Still layering part images by hand in PS gives you sometimes better results than any automatic tools. There's some 3rd party plugins that help fixing lens distortion, but I haven't tested them yet.

In my panorama gallery, there's several hand stitched images. (Ice Road, Sun Set at Lake Kuolimo and Kaunispää Hill newer version for instance.)

[Kruzin]

OK....my first crack at a partial panorama I'm working on for my desktop. Still needs more work on the right side.
Took the pictures last weekend in the Colorado rockies. We where four-wheelin' on Mount Lincoln, and stopped here, just above tree-line on our way back down from 14,000'.

View from Mount Lincoln

[Fred H]

Wow.
Nice panorama, Kruzin. I like it.
The sky colours/clouds are fantastic.

More details, please. Which camera; panorama program?

Fred