Stitching for landscapes - opinions please

cmcm789

cmcm789

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I currently use an 11-22mm EF M lens on my Crop sensor M5. I don't shoot a lot, but for landscapes i would tend to use the wider end when I do. I'm looking at upgrading to the RP + 24-105 Kit lens but wondering would I miss the 11mm focal length (FF 17.6mm). I don't really want to buy or carry additional lenses and would be comfortable enough to stitch in PS/LR.

I know there would be potential issues with moving elements, sky, water etc and a CPL may prove difficult to use, but does anyone on here stitch rather than use a UWA?

Any advice from the experienced photographers on here would be great.

Thanks
 
Look at it this way.

Use a wide angle. Take one shot. Assuming you get it right. Done. Barely taken you a second.

Or to go through the motions of stitching. Take multiple shot, which may not look perfect and you have no real way of checking, then you have to get back to the office, run it through stitching software, probably make lots of little manual adjustments. Time taken an hour or more easy. Along with lots of risk that you may have issues.

I stitch for very specific reasons and very specific projects. Its very time consuming and I have to charge accordingly. You wouldn't do it unless you need to.
Additionally for real stitching success you need a special pano head, thats a few hundred quid there and on its own weighs way more than a lens does.
 
LeeRatters said:
I would much rather shoot a panorama than use a wide angle. I do it quite often especially in woodland images where I don't want excess 'background' elements creeping in.

No special equipment needed or specialist editing programs.
Click to expand...

I don't shoot them often but when I do I tend to shoot hand-held, and I find LR excellent at stitching without issues usually

Dave
 
neither one nor the other for me. i'll use a wide angle if i want to get close and distort something in the foreground, or some element in the scene. sometimes use a stitch to control how much sky / or cut out the sky from a shot - typically woodland. it'd be great to get it framed right in one shot, so will ususally take a wide shot just to be safe, but then capture a few frames for the stitch. as above, if you use ligthroom/photoshop it's under a minute to merge the files into a single image, but as @riddell says - you are more open to missing something or including something you would rather not, hope that helps
 
LeeRatters said:
Same here - although I do usually tripod them but that's just my preference - and I'm on LR5 and CS6.
Click to expand...

I'm more lazy then lol

I just set everything to manual, do a couple of practice scans then switch it onto high-speed shooting and fire away. The overlap is easily enough to not worry about and LR sorts it all out anyway

Its really simple. I'm using the monthly paid Adobe, and LR I think has updated the pano on LR5, so maybe its a bit quicker/easier, but I didn't have any problems with LR5 either

My biggest problem is what to do with the pano lol - my last one printed would have been 5ft long and only 20 inches high !!! Which is why I do them so rarely I guess :D

Dave
 
Really useful feedback from everyone, thanks.

I suppose i'm not really using an ultra wide lens in FF terms so it's maybe not that difficult to replicate. At least i know i could get by in the interim and if i need to i can purchase a wide angle later. I'll make an effort to get out with my 11-22 and 17-50 on the M5 and take a few images with both to see how the 17mm stitched compares to the 11mm.
 
cmcm789 said:
I currently use an 11-22mm EF M lens on my Crop sensor M5. I don't shoot a lot, but for landscapes i would tend to use the wider end when I do. I'm looking at upgrading to the RP + 24-105 Kit lens but wondering would I miss the 11mm focal length (FF 17.6mm). I don't really want to buy or carry additional lenses and would be comfortable enough to stitch in PS/LR.

I know there would be potential issues with moving elements, sky, water etc and a CPL may prove difficult to use, but does anyone on here stitch rather than use a UWA?

Any advice from the experienced photographers on here would be great.

Thanks
Click to expand...
I owned a Samyang 12mm F2 and used it for landscapes for a long time. Now however I much prefer longer lenses, I usually leave a Sigma 30mm on my a6000 all the time so about a 45mm on a FF.
Lake Boathouse by benjohns4 johns, on Flickr

This was stitched from quite a few shots using the kit zoom lens at 27mm, about 40mm FF.
 
cmcm789 said:
I currently use an 11-22mm EF M lens on my Crop sensor M5. I don't shoot a lot, but for landscapes i would tend to use the wider end when I do. I'm looking at upgrading to the RP + 24-105 Kit lens but wondering would I miss the 11mm focal length (FF 17.6mm). I don't really want to buy or carry additional lenses and would be comfortable enough to stitch in PS/LR.

I know there would be potential issues with moving elements, sky, water etc and a CPL may prove difficult to use, but does anyone on here stitch rather than use a UWA?

Any advice from the experienced photographers on here would be great.

Thanks
Click to expand...

It depends on the look you want, there is an important difference between the two things. Different focal lengths have different effects - UWA lenses have the effect of making things close to the lens look larger than they are and things further away look smaller giving an exaggerated sense of distance. Telephoto lenses have the opposite effect, making things appear closer together.

A panorama allows you to have the latter effect while still getting a wide field of view, as in the below image which was shot at 105mm and would look different if a wide angle lens was used to fit that width in

_S6A4048-Pano-Edit.jpg
 
justinminns said:
It depends on the look you want, there is an important difference between the two things. Different focal lengths have different effects - UWA lenses have the effect of making things close to the lens look larger than they are and things further away look smaller giving an exaggerated sense of distance. Telephoto lenses have the opposite effect, making things appear closer together.

A panorama allows you to have the latter effect while still getting a wide field of view, as in the below image which was shot at 105mm and would look different if a wide angle lens was used to fit that width in

_S6A4048-Pano-Edit.jpg
Click to expand...

The perfect example of why I like to stitch right there! (y)......... Nicer scenery too ;)
 
Depends which camera/system I'm using. I'll usually use a UWA on my Nikon (Sigma 12-24) and if I've got the 10-24 on a Fuji body handy but if I've only got a longer lens (18-135) on the Fuji body, I'll use its in-body panorama function, as will I when I'm using a compact with the feature. Rarely shoot a sequence for stitching unless I want/need much higher resolution than the above methods can offer me.
 
As described by a professional landscape photographer (Justin) there are reasons for using both approaches, but the time required should not be the main controlling factor.
 
justinminns said:
It depends on the look you want, there is an important difference between the two things. Different focal lengths have different effects - UWA lenses have the effect of making things close to the lens look larger than they are and things further away look smaller giving an exaggerated sense of distance. Telephoto lenses have the opposite effect, making things appear closer together.

A panorama allows you to have the latter effect while still getting a wide field of view, as in the below image which was shot at 105mm and would look different if a wide angle lens was used to fit that width in

_S6A4048-Pano-Edit.jpg
Click to expand...
Do you have a standard crop factor when you shoot panos, such as 3x1, or do you just crop the stitched photo until you get what you wanted? I ask as when I've just cropped to whatever crop I want in the past its made getting frames tricky as its not a "standard" ratio
 
No harm at all in turning the camera into portrait, and taking enough shots with plenty of overlap and stitching them together to give you a landscape image, lightroom does a brilliant job of it these days, just make sure you shoot wider and talker than you need as the stitching will waste a bit round the edges
 
When I go for a wander along our local riverside, I take my a6600 with the 70-350G attached.
This is great for wildlife but sometimes not nearly wide enough for landscapes.
This is when I shoot with panos in mind.
If I shoot for a landscape image I take them in portrait orientation and landscape orientation for vertoramas.
Here is a few examples stitched in Lightroom

2 image vertorama
Winter, River Don by Mike Stephen, on Flickr

3 image vertorama
Winter Bench by Mike Stephen, on Flickr

4 image panorama
Icy Pond by Mike Stephen, on Flickr
 
Ben johns said:
Do you have a standard crop factor when you shoot panos, such as 3x1, or do you just crop the stitched photo until you get what you wanted? I ask as when I've just cropped to whatever crop I want in the past its made getting frames tricky as its not a "standard" ratio
Click to expand...

I do tend to stick to 3:1 or 2:1 for consistency but I always get my frames made so it's not essential
 
I prefer stitching and LR makes it incredibly easy to do. Subjects moving across the scene can present a challenge though.

Two such examples where stitching was more preferable to an UWA for me was both a landscape and a interior believe it or not. With the landscape of the Naval Base it was impossible for me to get closer, so an UWA would have struggled to capture any detail of it. With the interior, an angle wide enough to get all of the shot in may have probably caused too much distortion, so I stitched two shots together.



HMNB Clyde Resized.jpg


Campervan.jpg
 
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