Stitching

Big Stu · Oct 16, 2006

I'm currently trying to experiment with stitching photos together, to form a wider view (obviously haha). I was wondering whether people would mind posting examples of their own stitching efforts?

Big Mike · Oct 16, 2006

This is my one and only attempt so far. It's not perfect....

EBphotography · Oct 16, 2006

Thats a pretty good one Mike.

PNA · Oct 25, 2006

This is my effort...three photos.

David · Oct 25, 2006

Here's a few more that I've done over the last year....

Fairoaks Airport - Surrey

Larger image here (427kb). The full image is made up of 6 images, and is around 25,000 pixels wide at 300dpi, so was a bit large for here! There are still some joins visible, and I have used quite a high level of compression to get the file size down, which has affected the quality somewhat.

Holmbury Hill - Surrey

Larger image here (480kb). The image covers over 270 degrees (north round to west) and is taken from an old iron age fort in the Surrey Hills. I forget how many images it was made from, but it was around 9 or 10.

Pitch Hill - Surrey

Larger image here (212kb). Pitch Hill is the next hill across from Holmbury Hill above. Apologies for the still 'obvious' join to the left hand side of this image.

Friday Street - Surrey

Larger image here (300kb).

Larger image here (231kb).

Friday street is a small hamlet set in the Surrey Hills to the west of Dorking, with a rather nice pub, The Stephan Langton, if you happen to round that way. The images are made up of 3 and 4 photos respectively.

David

dewey · Oct 25, 2006

I recently became interested in stitching... I still have much to learn! It's fun to experiment - I've been using a free software progrm called hugin to stitch the images and then Photoshop to tweak them. I haven't had a chance to Photoshop this one yet, but what the heck - it'll do for now.

It's easy to see the places that the stitching sotware misses that you have to tweak, but it's most likely operator error. After Photoshop it's difficult to see the joints. I would have liked to do vertical shots to get more of the city line, but I didn't have the right tripod with me that trip.

This image is made from 5 images of Dundas Square in downtown Toronto on a rainy and foggy day last week... Exposures were 1 sec at 200 ISO on a D50.

~Dewey

gizmo2071 · Oct 25, 2006

I'm not to bad with my photoshop skills, but I havn't mastered the art of stitching.
When you take the photograps in a series... Do you pan? OR use a tripod and rotate slightly for each shot?

Big Mike · Oct 25, 2006

Tripod. If you pan...you will only get a blurry image.

There are special 'panoramic' cameras that do actually pan as they record the image...but I think that the lens has to pan while the film is stationary...which isn't possible with a regular camera.

Also, here is a good tip for stitching. Use your camera in portrait orientation (vertical)...and over lap your shots by 1/2 or 1/3. There is more barrel distortion at the ends of the frame (top and bottom in portrait)...it's easier to stitch the long edges together.

gizmo2071 · Oct 25, 2006

Cool, cheers I'll test it out.
I guess using an ultra wide angle lens doesn't help. Seems to distort the edges a bit more than usual.

David · Oct 25, 2006

Using a short focal length causes a lot of distortion, and some stitching programs that read exif data will not even attempt to merge photos that have short focal lengths.

Using a tripod makes for better results, but if you do make sure it is level in all planes.

David

theRossatron · Dec 27, 2006

Just been looking for a Panoramic photo tutorial and came across this thread.

This is the best I could get from Photoshop so far.

Philip Weir · Dec 28, 2006

Just Google "Panoguide" The best site I've found to help. You will need the proper head on your tripod to do it correctly.

Digital Matt · Dec 28, 2006

Here's my favorite of the ones I've done.

Click it to see a larger version.

RacePhoto · Dec 29, 2006

Philip Weir said:
Just Google "Panoguide" The best site I've found to help. You will need the proper head on your tripod to do it correctly.

I second that site.

The special head is one that rotates on the Nodal Point of the lens, rather than film plane or some random place.

20-50% overlap works best. The tripod also prevents slight tilt differences that can make the stitch more difficult or distorted.

I wondered if people would mind posting the software that they used to create the Panoramas? I have Photoshop and elements and the things that came with the cameras "free" but found that PhotoVista works well, for a specific stitching software. I don't have clue how to use Photoshop for stitching and correction for warping.

This was done hand held, from a boat no less, using a disposable camera, back in 1991, way before I even thought of software that would put images together into one.

Link below is to panning image with Java, zoom, pan, and other features.

http://www.gizex.com/gallery/sports_car_racing/sailcent.htm