Take Great Panoramic Pictures With Any Camera

@Bob Brown: what do you mean by the big curve?

I use Windows Live Photo Gallery's panarama option mostly.

I have been looking for software to take the big curve out of the panoramic images.

I have found some, but it is difficult to use, slow, unstable, and unreliable.

self promotion to follow: [www.flickr.com]

all of these were done from a moving boat with no tripod and automatic exposure with a cheapo kodak. i'm pretty happy with the results, i used auto stitch, it did take a few tries to narrow down which photos to actually use tho.

some ghosting and other artifacts were narrowed out by working in a low output resolution until i got the image i wanted. i actually like some of the results that have the unusual borders, gives them a sense of character i think.

still haven't tried the photoshop plugin yet

@ArmoredCavalry: i use a z8612, im not sure if thats a different model, or a typo on your behalf. I have had a fiddle with it and the bit where it displays the section of the previous photos is quite good, but IIRC its limited to 3 photos. that may be alright for some people, but i tend to push for a few more, one of my recent images was over 1000 images to produce an 8 gigapixel image.

@dreamlayers W.R.T the locking of exposure etc, if you are just doing a few photos, it wont usually make much different, especially since software can easily account for sometime quite large differences, and if you are taking more photos than the in camera panorama stitcher can handle, you probably know how to flick onto manual mode.

You both make good points, and the in camera panorama is no doubt a good way to play around with panoramas, but with all the extra power, aswell as the extra options, customisability etc that you get in software instead of in-camera, if you start to get into it, it's really worth taking the step up to the computer

@mnerd: Good recommendation. In a panorama, especially with wide angle lenses, edges of individual photos don't correspond to straight lines in the panorama. As a result, the edges of the panorama are not straight lines. If you want to make them straight, you need to crop the image. Another reason to crop is worse stitching near corners due to higher levels of distortion there.

I usually save the whole panorama, with the weird edges. Then if I need a rectangular image (eg. for uploading to a website) I use Jpegcrop.

These are great tips. I have a simple point and shoot and this summer we're taking a trip along the East coast. I want LOTS of quality pictures and this particular post couldn't have come at a better time.

magnoliasouth

MS ICE -FTW!

@[panotools.sourceforge.net] .

Oh, and speaking of Microsoft, there's also Photosynth. No, it's not exactly panorama creation, but it is similar, and it can work in some cases where panorama creation tools can't.

@wjh31: If panorama mode means the camera stitches images itself, then PC software can definitely do a better job. However, if panorama mode just locks exposure, colour balance and focus and provides guidance, then by all means, use it.

I used panorama mode a lot on my Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom camera. It's quite convenient; locking settings manually would be more work. The only downsides are a limit of 10 photos and having to use Olympus xD cards (ie. evil, like DRM).

if have one with you then i wwould definitely recommend a tripod, else just try your best.

in regards to overlapping, I dont see a rule, but just overlap enough where YOU feel comfident about it, as well as pay attention to what you're seeing through the lens.

to stitch your pictures together a freeware app called autostitch works wonders! I was able to beautifully stitch some pictures that I've had sitting in my HD or timesquare, alaska, italy and downtown miami.

ceez

@Bruno Miller:
Please don't bring that into this post. Please.

Penguins-R-Us frequents the site OMG Ponies! Frequents- I can has preview? I'm a PC and I run Windows

Don't forget about automatic colour balance. If the colour balance setting changes between photos, that can be visible. If your camera doesn't have a panorama mode, consider using a colour balance preset.

@wjh31:

I've actually had very good results with the Kodak z812is Panoramic mode. It is great, because it takes a small section of your previous photo and displays it so you can align the next shot perfectly.

@S. Patrick Kaine: Very nice work! I also use Autostitch and have been for years. Here's my favorite one:

[www.flickr.com]

lamintak

@S. Patrick Kaine: I like the subject- but you definitely need to work on stitching manually or holding your camera level while you take panos. To the left and right of the scene, there is a lot of ghosting and misalignment. Any shots with moving people are also blurred. Good try though!

Scott Wild

@wewillchange: 7500x1000 is only 7.5Megapixels... i managed 40+Megapixel images ok with autostitch, it was only when i got into tripple figures that it started to break and i migrated to autopano pro. The trial version is actually pretty comprehensive...

@wewillchange: Make sure you set the scale to 100% in the Options menu - it's default to resize down to 10% of the original resolution.

PSUMarkDC

My recommendation is to get a little further back, and do a little more to the left and right than your subject. When making a stitched panorama, parts of the bottom, top, and sides generally need to get cropped once all is said and done.

mnerd

@S. Patrick Kaine: How do you get autostitch to output at such high resolution?

Has Anyone Checked out Windows Live Photo Gallery? They have a great "autostitch" feature built in. I've done some good ones with that too.

Surprise Surprise, it's Microsoft too. Something done before Apple does.

Bruno Miller

If your camera has a panorama mode, ignore it. any software on your computer will do better. There is lots of free stuff, such as autostitch, and paid stuff such as the awesome autopano pro which i use. The paid software actually gets arond moving stuff by cutting it out, and accounts for lens distortion.

heres my tips for a great panoramic image:
1. use software on your computer rather than your camera, you really think the stuff in your camera can do better than the beast under your desk? the panorama mode might be ok for a test shot to preview the composition etc, but you cant beat the computer.

2. get a tripod. The more the camera moves between shots, the more artifacts you get, especially when the subject is close, unless you are going to splash out for a panoramic head. A tripod also makes it easier to get the right level of overlap, and to make sure you dont miss any gaps if you are shooting multiple rows/columns.

3. panoramic software can be used for more than just panoramas, you can use it to combine multiple images to get a high resolution images in a regualr aspect ratio (or a high res panoramic image)

i made a post places you can go to get software, and to view and display high res/panoramic software last time the topic came up, to save copy/past, heres the link to the comment: [lifehacker.com]

I have been using the free and easy to use AutoStitch program(www.autostitch.net)and have had really great results.

This is my favorite one yet. It is comprised of 35 different photographs automatically stitched together:

[www.flickr.com]

S. Patrick Kaine

I concur with the overlapping tip. I attempted a panorama of downton London from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, and between pictures two and three I moved too much. I was still able to make a panorama from three images, but it could have been more impressive had I overlapped more.

For actually stitching the pictures together, I recommend Hugin. It's a little confusing at first, but it does a remarkable job. [hugin.sourceforge.net]

@wjh31: Wonderful thank you!

@anthonylitz: I agree surprisingly powerful.

zolielo

@wewillchange: yes it is, load images, one button to stitch, another to render the stitch, but you can fiddle with options if you want to, e.g for HDR

one caveat: its non-free, but the trial version has pretty much everything available, and just adds a few watermarks to the final image. available at:
[www.autopano.net]

bonus: it can use GPU acceleration if you got one, and is available for Mac, windows and linux (in a .deb version), all in 32 an 64bit versions

PhotoShop CS3 has delivered good results for me.

Counterglow

@PSUMarkDC: Yes I've tried that but it gives a memory error. What did you set your memory usage to in options?
@wjh31: Is autopano pro as easy as autostich?

@outerfringe: Now there's an odd coincidence. I did the same shot, but was lucky enough to get the right overlap. My exposure could have been a bit better, though.

Counterglow

When I take panoramic shots, generally I pretend like I'm a tripod if I don't have one with me. This means locking my arms at my sides in a fixed position and moving my feet and torso rather than my head and neck. This can help a little bit with the fish eye look as you're moving the camera around a bigger plane rather than from a very small axis.

Also, the more pictures the better. Don't be afraid to get snap happy, and don't be afraid to put all of them into whatever mixing program you're using. The more data you give your computer, the more it has to go on to get rid of seams, color abberations and artifacts. Also, as another commenter mentioned above, in correcting for some lens distortions you can lose up to 30% of your image around the edges. Compensate for this by taking lots of pictures of the sky and the ground. Then you'll have more to work with if you need to crop.

DeeJayQueue

@S. Patrick Kaine: Bar Harbour or, as the locals say, Bah Hahbah.

The shots very well done - if you look at the max res you can see a few people appear to be disintegrating. Bonus!

is there a program that does vertical stitching? by default, they all do it horizontally.

onlysublime

I use Photoshop CS3. However, if you don't have Photoshop, I would recommend Microsoft ICE. It has worked good for me in the past for creating panoramas.

@wjh31: When you take a panoramic shot with a straight structure (especially nearby) it will look like it is bent.

The fish eye lens look.

Look at the bridge in the image at the top of the article. It is straight, but the picture of it is curved.

I would like some software to at least minimize it.

I did this one using the Photoshop CS4 Photomerge option: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hardrockcamaro/3455127975/sizes/o/ It seems to work really well. Just make sure you level the horizon in each picture if you took them handheld like I did. Otherwise you get a curved horizon. I find that overlapping by a 1/3rd gives good results, and obviously, shooting in full manual.

TessCulver

@wjh31: Can AutoPano Pro remove a moving object comletely?

I ask because there are some things I'd like to shoot where there are always people milling about. I can take multiple shots so the people aren't always in the same place, thus giving the software a full view of the background spread over various shots.

I've found the answer to this question very hard to Google for, maybe you or someone here can help?

Jake712

try Panorama Factory

jkforde

@[gigapan.org]

from autopano documentation:
Smartblend: this blender combines a Multiband blender and picture analysis engine in order to identify objects common to the source images (a moving object, a strong line,…). From the results of this analysis, Smartblend tries to keep the features common between images (edges, lines, curves,…) and automatically discard objects that have moved. Even though much slower than the other algorithms, this blender gives a much higher rendering quality.

One technique that I use that never seems to get mentioned is to turn the camera vertical for a horizontal subject. It requires more overlap-I use about 50%-and definitely more pictures, but I get a lot of extra sky and ground for cropping.

RolandAlcidice

I used to do this with prints back when I was in middle school. It's a neat trick but honestly I'm not a big fan of these types of photos anymore.

I do want to build the pinhole panorama in an old issue of Make I saw not long ago

I don't totally agree with some of the advice in the linked article. In fact, I routinely and flagrantly violate some of the advice and get rather pleasing and perfectly stitched results.

I'm a huge fan of Hugin because it's easily downloadable and finally good enough for prime time. So I wrote some notes about how I shoot at:
[www.wireheadarts.com]

I love panos. It's true, you can take them with any camera and a tiny bit of forethought.

[farm4.static.flickr.com]

Geoff Fox

I use Microsoft's Image Composite Editor,it's a perfect for Panoramas and it's free.However needs .NET Framework package to work...You can also save your Panoramas in HD format (or Deep Tile) to zoom in certain points using Microsoft's silverlight suite.I thing it's a great application (Windows only). http://tinyurl.com/olapwk ps:the server is currently down...

ZionLooney

Canon Photostich does a remarkable job at horizontal, vertical and Quicktime VR panoramas. The software came with my point and shoot but they may offer it through their site too. It's the best software I've used so far.

SampattiLucullus