Creating super-wide panoramas

Creating super-wide panoramas
The digital technology offers easier methods to create super-wide panoramic photos. I could essentially create a 180-degree view scene using digital applications such as Photoshop CS3. Through much experimentation, I have created some perfect super-wide panoramas, merged by more than 10 frames.

In my opinion, a separate view points need to be implemented to judge such an image. Due to its unusual width and height, one is difficult to fully appreciate the work with a small sample. If one views a proper sized print of super-wide panorama (a usual size of such image will be around 2-3metres long), the viewer can get a dramatic impression as if he/she is facing a 180 degree real landscape. You will be able to see all the details and the different parts of the scene from on side to the other.

Another advantage of super-wide panoramas is the super large size files around 200MB. This means the possible creation of large professional quality prints. It is impossible to achieve such a file size or high definition of the print from cropping a single frame image taken by a super-wide angle lens.

Basic Equipment
1. A good sturdy tripod with separate motion controls to keep each frame in the same horizontal level. (Ball heads may be difficult to control, but I use a ball head and through some practice I could manage it well.)
2. Digital SLR. 28mm-300mm lens.
3. Image-editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop CS2-3; Element 5; or RealVIZ Stitcher Unlimited 5.6 (this one can create 360 degrees images.

Optimal Settings
1. Manually set shutter speed and aperture.
2. Set the white balance on manual to suit the scene.
3. Set the ISO to the lowest setting.
4. Use manual focusing.

Shooting sequences images
1. I normally set up camera to aperture priority and the best metering to suit the location. (Set the aperture between f8 to f22). Shoot three or four test frames: the left end and right end and two frames in the middle area instead of shoot all the sequence to same time.

2. Look at each frame and exposure data. Set the shutter speed to the average reading in the test shoots. Pay more attention to the highlight area details. I always set up -0.3 to -1.0 underexposure. Make sure to capture the details in the highlight areas.

3. Set up my position and place the tripod on a level spot. Look through the viewfinder and using the horizon or other lines for your reference swing the camera through left to right while looking at the horizon to make sure the alignment is correct.

4. Shoot the first frame then pan the camera to shoot the next images, overlapping the previous image by at least 20-30%. Once completed, check each image on the review screen.
5. Take a second row of frames at a slightly different shutter speed to break the images.

Merging Images
1. Start up Adobe Bridge to view the all RAW files and label each sequence of images with same colour for easy reference.

2. Open each RAW image in the set and adjust their colour temperature, so that all images in the same set have same colour temperature. I feel it is easier to adjust the colour balance in Bridge than in Photoshop, as you can set the actual number of colour temperature instead of check colour in Photoshop.

Save images in TIFE format and label them in another colour. This group of the images will be used for merging in Photoshop and all the RAW files will be kept intact.

3. Start up Photoshop CS > File > Automate> Photomerge. This will open the file selection window.
If the numbers of the image in the sequence are less then 4, you could select all the images and click open Photomerge now and go into automatic mode and open the Photomerge editor screen to view the panorama.
4. As super-wide panoramas may be stitched by more frames, I usually select only first 2 images to merge first, then save the first temporarily merged image as “merged-1”. Then select “merged_1” and third image from the sequence to merge a second temporarily file, and name it merged-2 and so on until all the frames is merged. By using this method there will be less trouble and speed up the workflow.

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Tags:

creating, panoramas, super and wide