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blondgecko
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Aug 24, 2004, 6:50 AM
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So, is there anyone else out there who gets a lot of satisfaction out of digital panoramas? While obviously somewhat limited to reasonably still conditions, I've found that they're quickly becoming my favorite format. Any comments on this one, for example?
Edit: little stuff-up with hyperlink script.
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melekzek
Aug 24, 2004, 4:36 PM
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i like the unconventional look on them, if done at the right place. i am still working on getting it right, not all the panoramas look great. a blank space will be a blank panorama in the best case :lol: And sometimes very cool places do not come out that great in panorama format.
another problem is the web display. panoramas do not fit our 3:4 aspect ratio, either you have to go with a scroll or make it thumbnail height. I myself do not like scroll, it takes away the picture viewing feeling.
Last week, in a art gallery (in siggraph, i wonder if anybody else was there from this community?), there was a panorama by anthony santoro, which was 54 feet x 3 inches. show this on the web, :twisted:
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timstich
Aug 24, 2004, 4:54 PM
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I've tried doing it with actual photographs and noted that you have to lock the exposure settings to get seamless transitions between frames. There is some software out there that will stitch digital images together automatically, but I forget its name. It's not too bad in Photoshop in any case.
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melekzek
Aug 24, 2004, 6:24 PM
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for the best results, you should take in manual mode, fixing the exposure and shutter. Although there are some tools to match the exposure they do not work in some cases.
if you are shooting film, make sure that they are on the same film, since minor processing differences will change the image. And also you have to fix the scanner settings and scan all the images using the same settings (no more auto correction, :lol:) If shooting negatives, scan the film itself, since the one-hour-auto-print-shop will print each one differently.
With digital it is easier, but again you should go to manual mode, or fix every setting for the best seamless results. Even auto white balance, if you can. Most of the digitals have a build in panorama mode to make this easy for you.
My best stiches are done with 50mm and above. since there is not much deformation, just put them next to each other and blend. On the wider side, things get complicated, upto 28mm it is still semi-easy. Wider than that, you are looking for trouble. I spend multiple days to get this one right, shot at 19 mm.
Check the free panorama tools, there are some nice gui build for this package as well. Canon stich tool is also good, if you like to have an automated tool, with only a minor control on it. If it works, it is fast and nice, if it does not, there is not much you could fix things.
also stay away from polarizer filter, since it is orientation sensitive, you will get color changes across the seams....
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blondgecko
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Aug 24, 2004, 11:45 PM
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My favourite software is the Panorama Factory - only good for linear panoramas (not mosaics), but does these really well - exposure matching, correcting for falloff, etc. For anything more complicated I use PanoTools.
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coldclimb
Aug 25, 2004, 4:06 AM
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They're cool to have to remember how the place looked, but for the most part they don't display fantastically on a computer monitor. :( I have a 360 hung on my wall that's a popular attraction in my room. Works better when you can see the whole thing in peripheral vision.
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blondgecko
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Aug 25, 2004, 4:22 AM
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In reply to: but for the most part they don't display fantastically on a computer monitor. |
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squish
Aug 25, 2004, 5:35 AM
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Max Lyons has some amazing photos using PanoTools and some very clever techniques. Look for the gigapixel image of Bryce Canyon, assembled from 192 shots using a 6MP Canon, stitched together.
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pico23
Aug 31, 2004, 2:32 AM
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PanoTools is insanely complicated. It's free but if you are going to use it you are going to have to buy the graphical interfaces for it or spend a long time figuring things out.
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eyecannon
Aug 31, 2004, 4:59 AM
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I've used Panorama Factory quite a bit, and I find it to work quite well. You can also make quicktime VRML thingies with them, which can be pretty cool.
Cool idea to do it vertically with a climbing wall...
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squish
Aug 31, 2004, 5:12 AM
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I've found Panorama Factory to be quite limited in maximum resolution. It's good for screen-display images or VR movies, but not for large photos.
Once upon a time I had to assemble a large (5' high, 12' wide) panorama from a set of photos taken from a helicopter. If you can imagine, the heli is never quite in the same place when the frames were taken, so some fudging was needed to make things line up. What made it even more fun was that the shots were fisheye, angled downward so the horizon was noticeably bowed in each frame.
Due to the size, Panorama Factory wouldn't cut it, and I don't think PanoTools was even around at the time. I used a Photoshop plugin called Squizz to manually warp the photos to square them up. It involved drawing a warping grid over the image by dragging each grid point while eyeballing the angles of the surrounding grid lines... Lots of trial and error and processing time. Ugh.
I'm blown away by the Mars panoramas that NASA assembles, almost completely automatically!
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blondgecko
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Aug 31, 2004, 6:38 AM
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Never tried Panorama factory with something quite that large, but it works fine with my little 3.2 MPixel images... PanoTools is reasonably easy to pick up for linear panoramas if you use the free GUI (PTPicker) that comes with it. Mosaics take a little more work, but can be done (I've done a 3x3 mosaic from some pretty poorly aligned images of a rime-covered tree, and it came out amazingly well).
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mheyman
Aug 31, 2004, 12:23 PM
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Good site to check out. Great work. Information on SW.
http://www.gdargaud.net/Photo/Panorama.html
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melekzek
Aug 31, 2004, 7:38 PM
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In reply to: PanoTools is insanely complicated.
this free gui is good
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pico23
Sep 1, 2004, 12:01 AM
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thanks for the bone on the free GUI.
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melekzek
Sep 1, 2004, 7:06 PM
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i am working on another style of panoramas, lets call them social panoramas :roll:
I shoot people on the same table/room separetely, to stich back a panorama of the environment. it allows me to work on individual capture of expressive faces, which is really hard to get by shooting them together. The results show them spacially next to each other, but the temporal difference increases individuality (alienation as well, if you like).
here is a sample
http://people.cs.tamu.edu/.../simit02_smaller.jpg
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coldclimb
Sep 1, 2004, 7:22 PM
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Those are really cool. I gotta say this thread has made me reallize how I've hardly even touched panoramic images, and it makes me want to do better. I like this stuff...
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csoles
Sep 1, 2004, 7:39 PM
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Heck of a lot easier to shoot with a real swing-lens panorama camera. One shot gets the action and no stitching or exposure correction needed.
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