Yellow Lily - 5 Image Panorama

Mike Jordan · Jun 6, 2005

This is a shot I took of a couple of stems of Yellow Lilys. I took 5 images and stitched this final one together in Panorama Factory. Even though my lens was only about a foot from the flowers, there was only minimal distortion that is hard to see unless you know where to look. Even the full size printed at 12x18 it is hard to see.

Taken with my 10D and 24-70 2.8L lens. I was using two softboxes on monolights, one to the right and one to the left. ISO 100, about f18 to give me good depth of field.

Mike

Shan · Jun 6, 2005

admire your equipment ~~~I only have olympus X250 ~~~total atomatic DC ~~

clarinetJWD · Jun 6, 2005

VERY Nice. The detail is quite nice because of the number of photos used. I can't see any distortion myself

. Sounds like an elaborate setup

john3eblover · Jun 7, 2005

great idea, and great picture. i can't wait to try this some time

Mike Jordan · Jun 7, 2005

Shan, you mean I didn't need to show the image, just my camera list?

Really though, I've seen people take a lot better pictures with a lot less equipment. People that have talent can get away with it... for the rest of us there's Mastercard.

Joe, I had one area that didn't line up very well. That was the top left group of stamen's. The were off just a tad. The back edge of the pedal to their left almost looks like it's a ghost image, but it's a fold in the pedal that makes it look that way. And it's not an elaborate setup at all. I have a platform in the middle of my living room (I used it for doing dog portraits) that I put things on, a roll of black seamless paper behind and 3 lights, two with softboxes and one with a snoot. But I really could get by with one light and either a large umbrella (a 60" one is fairly cheap but very good as a large light source) or a softbox. Or a single light and a large light panel made out of white translucent nylon on a frame to help spread the light out. It's just easier to spread the light out with the 3 lights.

John, I hope this does encourage others to try. I had been thinking of trying it for awhile, but it wasn't until I saw someone do it with a couple of images that I actually did it. I've got some 3 image shots I did of a single Lily that let me get as close as my 24-70 would focus. I've seen someone else that did a 2x2 series (4 images, 2 above 2) and the detail was really great.

Thanks for looking and the comments. I appreciate it.

Mike

Ghoste · Jun 7, 2005

That is an amazing shot! My girlfriend thinks so too. I've never seen a panorama that small, looks awesome.

Raymond J Barlow · Jun 7, 2005

really quite remarkable .. excellent job, wish I knew how to do this!! envious here!

Canoncan · Jun 7, 2005

What great detail you managed to capture. Well done! :thumbup: :thumbup:

Mike Jordan · Jun 8, 2005

Thanks Ghoste, Raymond and Canoncan.

Raymond, it isn't hard to do at all. The key is using a tripod for something this close and make sure it is level. If it isn't level, your camera will dip and rise at it goes through it's arc from left to right, which will cause distortion and you will lose image area that has to be cropped off in the final print. The other thing is to keep the same focus and exposure across all of the images. If you are using flash, you will be in manual exposure anyway. If you are using existing light you will want to use exposure lock or put it in manual after you take a meter reading (or with digital determine the proper exposure with test shots and the histogram.

What I do is set up the object to shoot and get it positioned and lighted the way I want. I then set up my tripod and make sure it is level. I have bubble levels on my both the column and the ball head so I make sure the legs are level first and then level the ball head with the camera on it. If you don't have a tripod with bubble levels on it, you can get a regular carpenter level and sit it across the top before you put your camera on, or across the top of your camera after you have it there.

After I have the camera positioned and level across the width of left to right I take some pictures of the left, middle and right sides and check the histogram to make sure there is very little exposure changes from left to right. Sometimes the flash from my monolights will be different than I expected. I then focus on the center area and push the button half way down to lock focus (I'm in manual exposure so don't need to worry about that) swing the camera to the left for the first shot, take a shot (and still holding the button half way down so as not to lose focus) swing to the right so that I have at least 25% overlap from the first shot in the view finder, wait a couple of seconds after my lights whistle to let me know they are charged again, take the next picture, swing to the right, overlap of about 25%, take a picture and continue doing this until I've got all of my shots. If I find I have trouble keeping the button half way down I will put it in manual focus and take the shots.

Also, I shot panoramas usually in vertical orientation. I have to take a few more images sometimes, but I get more image area vertically this way.

I will do several series of shots, all going from left to right each time. If I want to bracket the exposure I will change the exposure between series.

It really isn't as complicated or take as long as I explained here. After you have done it a couple of times, you will get a good idea of what you need to do and it will be easier. For Canon cameras, there is a program called Photo Stitch that comes on the CD. This works pretty good for stitching images together. I found I like Panorama Factory even better than Photo Stitch. I believe Photoshop CS comes with a decent stitcher built in. And there is a freebie called Photo Tools that a lot of people use but it isn't real user friendly. You can find out more about it and more information on panoramas at this site: http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/index.php

Mike

mentos_007 · Jun 8, 2005

beautiful pano Mike! I paid attention to the light... perfect for me

Mike Jordan · Jun 17, 2005

Thanks for looking Mentos.

Mike

Mike Jordan · Jul 9, 2005

To go along with the multi-image lilly above, here is a single Yellow Lily that is made up of 3 images stitched together.

Mike

ferny · Jul 12, 2005

You have really shown off those lilies. I don't think they could look much better. The detail, and the vibrant colours are truly impressive. And thank you for the info you give in your replies.

dalebe · Jul 12, 2005

great seamless images, very sharp, good work.

Mike Jordan · Jul 12, 2005

Thanks again for looking and the comments, Ferny and dalebe. I try to provide the information that goes into most of my shots. Not that's it's all that unique or difficult, but it sometimes helps give others ideas to try out and a place to start.

Mike