Panoramas/Collages/Stitches

Not something I do a great deal of but must do some more .......... lol


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One I did yesterday :D


261/365 by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Full Size version HERE

Made up of 7 bracketed exposures so actually 21 frames individually blended to make to make the 7 frames then stitched to make the panorama and finally the tone mapping was completed :D

Matt
MWHCVT
 
Musicman said:
FWIW, the it is named the St Botolph Building, by Nicholas Grimshaw Architects.

I thought that said Elliott Smith for a moment, which left me wondering how and when... :D
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Good to know about that building! Was wondering what it was called alright. Looks like the Aviva building in Dublin so one of my mates was wondering how I got there and back so quick!

Elliott Smith! Gas. One of my favourite musicians as well. What a great talent he was, shame he's gone. Legendary music he left behind though.
 
Haven't looked in here for a bit! Nice pano's guys. That 20 shot is pretty hardcore Rob!
 
ecniv said:
karmagarda:
nice pics.. you've really got the putting pics together done well... mine never look that good (when I tried).

Others:
Really nice pictures... enjoying the thread :)
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Thanks! Haven't been back here in a while so apologies for the delayed response... I find stitching quite therapeutic would you believe. It's quite daunting to start with when you've taken anywhere from 15 to 40 or 50 shots and then start piecing them together again. But when you get into it it's quite enjoyable. Or maybe I'm just nuts! :nuts:

Nice uploads from the rest here. Really liking that pano Leigh. The sky is awesome!
 
Can anyone tell me the best way to stitch photos together? I have light room 4 and gimp to use. Maybe point me to a good guide perhaps?
 
simonmoran said:
Can anyone tell me the best way to stitch photos together? I have light room 4 and gimp to use. Maybe point me to a good guide perhaps?
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It depends what style you're going for. If its panos which look seamless then maybe look into the pandora plugin for Gimp.

On the other hand, if you want to create a "Hockney" style stitch like the style I use, then it's a manual process. Create a canvas about 4 times as wide as an image and maybe 2.5 times as high. Load all images in as layers, start moving them around so they roughly match their correct positions. Then tweak the layer positions so that the important parts of the stitch appear on top. For example, I always try to get a few focal points into a stitch, such as a bird, plane, people (or even better, twins), the same bus or lorry in 2 different shots, etc. So obviously these can't be hidden by an overlap when you're done.
 
@karmagarda ..this is the kind of stitching/joining I've been looking for. Any recommendations on settings , WB etc and focal length on fx? I had a try the other week (before I found this thread) and the result wasn't what I had in my mind. I'm assuming these are all handheld? I got lost at what area I'd covered and ended up with multiple shots (was a nightmare tbh). I'm also keen to try this with night images but obviously the results would look a little more organised (exposure etc). So how would I get the sort of randomness with that? Also I shot in TIFF on my D800 and resized all the photos to something like 1600 pixels across, is this advisable or am I better shooting in Raw or Jpeg?
Thanks
JohnyT
 
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A panorama of the inside of my tent at camp bastion, showing the 'beds' on both sides. Sadly i cant find the original and this is just the small one from Facebook.
 
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Johnytuono said:
@karmagarda ..this is the kind of stitching/joining I've been looking for....
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I shoot in raw and usually in manual. I may shoot in aperture priority if I am moving in between shooting into and away from the sun. But manual is the best way if you want even exposure.

When taking the shots its all free hand, I think it works better. I'll have an idea in my head of my shot and which parts I want to look certain ways. I will either work from one side right across or I'll pick sections and work on them one by one. You'll end up with lots of duplicates, but this is fine. I'll often reshoot a part if a bird or bus or person happens to walk into a part of my scene, so I expect duplicates.

Now, Because I shoot raw I will then import all of these into Lightroom (or similar like phocus). I can worry about putting them into another format after here.

Next step is optional, if I think the white balance is off, or the colours are a bit off, I might do a bulk process in Lightroom over all the photos.

Then I export all as high quality jpegs and at the same time reduce the size of all images to something like 1600 on the longest edge.

Import all the photos as layers into photoshop/gimp and manually level/twist/arrange the layers. This is the longest part of the job.

Finally, I'll do some edits on the final shots in position to get the scene I want. Then create my single merged layers, do some sharpens or contrast tweaks, etc.

That's about it really!
 
And another after thought... you mentioned focal length and I never commented. I generally shoot using an 85mm prime. A little bit of zoom is required but not too much. Obviously wide isn't ideal unless you're experimenting. Too much zoom and you're going to have a shed load of photos - not a problem but I think it's too much.

Personally, I think for stitching on FX a nice range to work with is in between the 70 - 100 range. It's wide enough so that you can cover the scene in about 3 - 5 shots wide so doesn't end up in an astronomically sized image.

I must write up a tutorial on this at some stage with some screen shots.
 
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