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Originally Posted by Uneek  Did you stitch it manually, Photoshop's photo merge or a plug-in?
The panoramic is awesome. I've taken one in the past that worked out fairly well with PS's photo merge. I'll have to get out there and retry again with some new tips (most were about settings and keeping them on manual, rather than auto) I just read about. |
Thank you for the kind words. That particular image was troublesome. I don't do very many 360 images but this one for several reasons was difficult. I use photomerge in Adobe Photoshop. This was not automatic or manual. It was a mix. PS kept picking images at the end (behind me) and making those the center. Because it is a 360 there is nothing technically wrong with that...but it was annoying. I am still not sure why PS was doing that. The image PS wanted in the middle were the ones shot first and last....Anyway.
What I like to do is shoot with a tripod and align things best as I can. For this shot I didn't carry the beast up the mtn. And the dogs were milling around so that also took some editing. Half of a dog in one picture doesn't mix with no dog in another. One reason only one of the dogs is in the shot. Anyway...I stitched half of them together using cylindrical. I prefer that mode for most of my images. Then I stitched the remaining images together using cylindrical again. Then I took the two PS files and did a manual stitch to bring them together the way I wanted....looking West!
If you are going to do a bunch of panos...some advice. Use a tripod whenever you can. If you are really serious buy a pano head that will correct for the parallax. I still don't have one...they are rather expensive for a nice one. It's on my list of things to eventually get. Along with so many other expensive toys. Make sure that you do EVERYTHING in manual. Take your meter reading and focus the shot. Then switch the AF to Manual and don't touch anything. Overlap by 10-30% of the images. Another hint...if you plan on stitching more than a few together (something very long) Take the shots in the vertical. It gives you more room to crop the top and bottom. It requires more photos for the image but will give you more flexibility.
My largest stitched image was made from 34 or so stills. It took me about 15 minutes to get all the shots, but it worked out very well. It will take you more time to capture something like that where you over lap say 3 rows (not just columns) to get as much detail as possible. I'm not sure if this is clear or not...but if you want a higher resolution image make sure you are using a tripod and cable release/or timer....set your zoom at its maximum range (narrowest field of view). Then take your images. You will end up with a lot more of them to stitch but a tremendous amount of detail in the image. Of course this takes very precise shooting, patience and plenty of computing power...but the results are great when it works!
Panos are easy enough to practice at home if you just want to experiment and don't really care about the image itself. A few last thoughts...(it doesn't always apply but 99.99% of the time it will) ... shoot with your smallest aperture F16-32..etc. This will give you the maximum depth of field for your shots. This will require slower shutter speeds (or higher ASA values...haha I just realized I'm old saying ASA whoops...I meant ISO values)...so a tripod is essential. Level the shot when you reframe each image. Don't just rotate the tripod. Also remember to turn off the autofocus. The slightest difference in focus can shift the focal length of the lens. This is not noticeable in one shot, but if you are stitching it can and probably will make you crazy!
Hope that helps....best of luck!
Shuly
Pics from This weekend Mar 2010 - Badger Flat 
Runner
Linear Mode
