My wee brother asked for some advice about making panoramas from separate images. My wee brother is about 6'8". Here's what I wrote him, and perhaps it will be helpful to others. I use Photoshop CS2. It has an automatic stitching feature but I do it manually because I'm better than the program. Here's some pointers: 1. Use a tripod, and make sure it's level. I've done a bunch of panoramas without a tripod, but you generally lose parts of the images due to incorrect vertical registration. 2. Don't use a lens that's too wide. My 12mm lens (18 35mm SLR equivalent) has too much barrel distortion and natural perspective distortion to be a good panorama lens. I have pretty good luck with a 24mm (36mm equivalent). 3. Once you get your exposure set, lock it. I go to manual operation. When you pan, light changes, and you get different exposures, which are a pain to stitch together unless you're a magician with exposure and color balance. I'm pretty good, but it's a pain. 4. Overlap only by a little. I shoot left to right. So I notice one feature on the right edge of the viewfinder, and make sure it's on the left side in the next shot. And so forth. I take four or five shots for an 180 degree panorama. 5. On my computer in Photoshop, it's pretty easy to line up stuff. I open one huge blank image, then start pasting the individual images into it. Photoshop does this in layers--each image is still separate. Photoshop makes things semi-transparent, so it's not hard to get a rough alignment. 6. Lens distortion and perspective changes might give you some vertical alignment problems at the edges. Photoshop has features that can correct this. I use the "Unsphere-ize" command (filter), which basically adds pincushion distortion to a barrel-distorted image. Barrel is when things bulge in the middle; pincushion is the opposite. This is really trial and error stuff. Sometimes--in fact, often--I'll just use the "Distort" command, which allows me to change the picture dimensions manually, so that features line up. This is probably easier because you are working with one side of the image at a time, rather than both sides in an Unsphereize command. 7. I use the rubber stamp ("clone") tool extensively to hide seams. No matter how careful you are, you will have noticeable seams. I randomize extensively. I take a sample from the left of the seam, put in a few clicks; then take a sample from the right, and repeat until I've hidden the seam. Nature is pretty random, so this works. 8. Never flatten the layers of your original stitching. If you want to flatten the image, do it with a copy. That's all I can remember right now. I rarely to a 360 degree pan--most are in the 160-220 degree range.
Pete, There's an AE Lock feature on the Nikons (the button marked AE-L/AF-L to the right of the D70's viewfinder). No need to go manual.
MK, I know that. But my wee brother may not. I don't know what he's shooting with, so I thought I'd go simple. He's a smart boy, schooled in the old ways of photography by me. He's also about 6'-8" tall, and will thrash me readily if I mislead him. It takes a bit of time to go from shot to shot, so I find it easier to go manual to explain it. It's just my preference. Once the camera has figured out that it's f/10 at 1/400, it's pretty easy to set that for subsequent shots, then switch back to Program mode when I'm done. It's just a way that I know will work. There's a sequence. I've urged my wife to call "Camera Check!" before every important shot. That means I do things any photographer should do: check ISO, check the shooting mode, etc.
Absolutely Pete. Before I got my D70 I went the manual route too as it didn't have a lock button. When I shot film it was problematic even with manual exposure. From the negative the exposure was all the same but at the photo processor, the print machine will try to readjust the prints. So, even though I was suppose to get all similarly exposed print, most of the time the prints came out different! I would have to go to a custom lab and tell them to turn off auto on the print machine.
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! MK, you just brought up one of my biggest headaches of all time! Yes, I also had to go to a custom lab and tell them not to auto-adjust! Or I shot slides. With my 1968 Nikon F and a good light meter, I could nail an exposure. Without a custom lab, the prints would come back just awful. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! My worst memories of shooting film!
