Panorama Question

[RxForB3]

From what I gather, when doing a panorama, you simply rotate the camera on the tripod while taking pictures with some overlapping. Would it not be better to soft the whole tripod over? Also, why do I read to take panoramas in portrait orientation?

 

[Josh66]

Would it not be better to soft the whole tripod over?

I don't know what this means...
...Looking at my keyboard trying to see what the typo is, and I'm thinking maybe you meant to type 'shift'? If that's the case, yes that would be ideal - but usually you won't be able to shift the tripod over that far (think, a couple hundred feet, if not a thousand), and also keep it the same distance from the subject. If you were doing macro panoramas, that wouldn't be a big deal, but people typically do panoramas on things that are very far away.



Optimally, you'll want to rotate around the nodal point.

Also, why do I read to take panoramas in portrait orientation?

Makes a taller panorama.

 

[ann]

with portrait mode, less change of parellex issues and other issues that can occur with wider angle lens

 

[480sparky]

with portrait mode, less change of parellex issues and other issues that can occur with wider angle lens

What parallax issues are solved by shooting in landscape mode?

 

[RxForB3]

Sorry I did indeed mean shift. I'm using my phone and swype thought it knew better and apparently I wasn't paying enough attention.

Thanks for the reply. I think I might try both shifting and rotating tonight if I find a good shot. Unfortunately I don't have a way on my tripod to do portrait orientation, so I guess that will have to wait for next time!

 

[Hildegard52]

If you were doing macro panoramas, that wouldn't be a big deal, but people typically do panoramas on things that are very far away.

 

[Edsport]

I have yet to understand why portrait orientation has anything to do with taller panoramas. You can take shots in landscape mode and get a panorama as tall as you want and a tripod is just a waste of time unless you're using slow shutter speed. This shot below is about 24 shots without a tripod and no problem stitching it...

 

[480sparky]

I have yet to understand why portrait orientation has anything to do with taller panoramas. You can take shots in landscape mode and get a panorama as tall as you want and a tripod is just a waste of time unless you're using slow shutter speed. This shot below is about 24 shots without a tripod and no problem stitching it...

Try taking interior shots in landscape orientation.

I'm only about 12 feet from the bookshelves in the center of the image, but I still can see 3-4 floors of them. Taking this is landscape orientation would lose 1/3 of the image, 1/6 at the top and 1/6 at the bottom.

Taking this room in landscape will produce these frames:

Kinda hard to create the pano as shown shooting in landscape. Taking in portrait orientation.....:

...will allow for creating a 'taller' stitch.

 

[Big Mike]

Yes, if you are limited by how far back you can get, shooting vertical will allow you to get more height...but the main reason for shooting stitched panos in vertical, is that because the long edges of the image are closer to the centre, they have less error/distortion. This is especially important if you're using a wider angle lens....where the edge distortion can get pretty bad.

The most common recommendation I've heard, is to overlap each shot by 30%.

Just like most thing in photography, there are quick and dirty techniques that may be 'good enough', but there are tools and techniques to take it as far as you could want.
There are point & shoot cameras where you just set it to pano mode and sweep it across the scene, it creates the pano right in-camera.
On the other end of the spectrum, for best results, you will want to rotate the camera around it's nodal point...but with most tripods, if you turn the camera to a vertical orientation, you put the camera way off centre. Not only would you not be close to the nodal point, but you put the camera in a much less stable position on the tripod. The solution is to get an L-bracket, which allows you to secure the camera to the tripod head in both vertical or horizontal, keeping it centred. There are also special tripod heads (or accessories) that allow you to tweak the position of the camera on the head, allowing for more precisely aligning the nodal point to the centre of rotation. This is more important if your shot will have both near and far aspects.
Another thing that can be rather important, is that the rotation be as level as possible. That's easy enough if you're on flat ground, but if your tripod legs & base, aren't level, and you use the head to level the camera, the rotation probably won't be level as you go from shot to shot. This is where photographers use something called a leveling plate. It's a device that goes between the tripod and the head (sometimes built into the tripod). It allows you a limited degree of movement, just enough to level the top surface of the tripod, so that the tripod head itself if level, not just the camera.

And of course, if you're shooting for the best possible image quality you can get, you'll want a tripod that is very stable....and will be able to limit vibration of the camera from things like mirror and shutter movement.

Many will say that this is all overkill....but you probably won't hear that from a photographer who makes their living selling landscape photos.

Lastly, there are robotic devices that will automatically move the camera in precise increments so as to give you images for stitching. I'd think that theses are more commonly used for creating multiple row pano stitches. So rather than taking 5 shots in a row, you could take two rows of 5 shots each, either giving you a taller pano or allowing you to use a longer focal length, like with less distortion. Either way, it allows you to multiply the number of pixels in the final stitched image.

 

[tenthumbs]

I have yet to understand why portrait orientation has anything to do with taller panoramas. You can take shots in landscape mode and get a panorama as tall as you want and a tripod is just a waste of time unless you're using slow shutter speed. This shot below is about 24 shots without a tripod and no problem stitching it...

Try taking interior shots in landscape orientation.

I'm only about 12 feet from the bookshelves in the center of the image, but I still can see 3-4 floors of them. Taking this is landscape orientation would lose 1/3 of the image, 1/6 at the top and 1/6 at the bottom.

Taking this room in landscape will produce these frames:

Kinda hard to create the pano as shown shooting in landscape. Taking in portrait orientation.....:

...will allow for creating a 'taller' stitch.

I know this is off topic but your pano shot at the top is AWESOME!

 

[Edsport]

I have yet to understand why portrait orientation has anything to do with taller panoramas. You can take shots in landscape mode and get a panorama as tall as you want and a tripod is just a waste of time unless you're using slow shutter speed. This shot below is about 24 shots without a tripod and no problem stitching it...

Try taking interior shots in landscape orientation.

I'm only about 12 feet from the bookshelves in the center of the image, but I still can see 3-4 floors of them. Taking this is landscape orientation would lose 1/3 of the image, 1/6 at the top and 1/6 at the bottom.

Taking this room in landscape will produce these frames:

Kinda hard to create the pano as shown shooting in landscape. Taking in portrait orientation.....:

...will allow for creating a 'taller' stitch.

You can take shots up and down and across and the software will stitch it. You're not just limited to stitching one way, it will stitch up, down and across so you're not limited to any height when using landscape mode.

Using landscape mode is not limited to the shots your'e showing, if you want to go taller and still using landscape mode just move the camera up or down and take another shot. You're not limited to just one shot vertically as you describe...

 

[RxForB3]

It seems to me that using landscape mode would provide less distortion since you don't have to use as many shots to get the same horizontal length. Therefore, the angle of view would change less. But then I have no clue seeing as how I've yet to make a pano. I tried last night, but the weather in Seattle was awful and I barely got 3 good pictures from the whole night, much less several in a row.

Thanks for the discussion!

 

[Big Mike]

It seems to me that using landscape mode would provide less distortion since you don't have to use as many shots to get the same horizontal length.

The distortion comes not from the number of shots but the focal length & distance to the subject. Imagine a wide angle shot of a group of people. The people in the middle of the frame probably look pretty normal (unless they get really close), but the people on the outsides start to look stretched. The farther away from centre they are, the more stretch (distorted) they will look.
So now think about our landscape pano. If you shoot horizontal, the edges of the images, where they will be stitched, will be more distorted than if you turn the camera....because the long edges of the image will be less distorted than the short edges, because they are closer to the centre.

 

[480sparky]

You can take shots up and down and across and the software will stitch it. You're not just limited to stitching one way, it will stitch up, down and across so you're not limited to any height when using landscape mode.

Using landscape mode is not limited to the shots your'e showing, if you want to go taller and still using landscape mode just move the camera up or down and take another shot. You're not limited to just one shot vertically as you describe...

In short, just take more shots and take more time in post.



Nah, I'll take the short and easy route.

 

[Edsport]

You can take shots up and down and across and the software will stitch it. You're not just limited to stitching one way, it will stitch up, down and across so you're not limited to any height when using landscape mode.

Using landscape mode is not limited to the shots your'e showing, if you want to go taller and still using landscape mode just move the camera up or down and take another shot. You're not limited to just one shot vertically as you describe...

In short, just take more shots and take more time in post.



Nah, I'll take the short and easy route.

Short and easy route is off topic. You're saying that portrait orientation will make a taller stitch. Landscape mode can make just as tall a shot as portrait orientation and you can go as tall as you want and it dosen't mean more shots to make the pano. Sometimes using portrait orientation will use more shots than necessary. It depends on high you want to go.

Eg. If you want to go a bit higher than the portrait orientation is giving then it would be less shots to do it 2 high using landscape mode...