Panning Setup

Here is a fact: results will be better if you use a tripod. However, if you don’t have one or if an opportunity that does not allow you to set it up presets itself, you can still make a very decent panorama by following a few simple tips.

If you have a tripod:

Set up your tripod so that your camera is perfectly horizontal. You can do this by hand, or use a spirit level if you have one. Top geek stuff: you can buy a mini spirit level that will adapt to the external flash slot (hot shoe) of your camera if it has one.
It is quite important that your camera is horizontal. If it is not you will get some unrecoverable distortions on the horizon line (if shooting outside), and you will loose some height on the final picture.
If you want to fine tune the setup, you can take an extra step to make sure your camera will rotate along the nodal point of this lens, or at least around the symmetry axis of the lens.
What is the nodal point of a lens you say? It’s the point, on the symmetry axis of the lens, that all the incoming light rays cross being sent to the focal plane. Rotating around this point will give you zero distortion. Rotating around a different point will create distortion – due to the parallax phenomenon.
If the tripod mount crew on the camera is not even aligned with the lens axis you’ll need to buy a specialized tripod extension that will allow you to slide the camera horizontally so that the rotating axis of the tripod is in line with the nodal point.
Such devices are often called Panoramic Tripod Heads.
The nodal point of your lens change when you zoom in and out. Finding it is a matter of trials and adjustments: try to locate two vertical objects, such as poles or light posts, one being close from the camera and the other being far away from it. Take two different shots by rotating the camera and compare the position of each object relative to the other. If the objects have moved away or toward each other from one shot to the other, you are not yet rotating around the nodal point.
Finding the precise nodal point even with most regular lenses is often a matter of millimeter, but with a few tries you should get close enough.

Note that this step is optional. You will get perfectly decent results even if you skip it and rotate around a different point, especially if you are shooting outdoor landscape panorama. More distortion will show if you are shooting indoors, where the perspective lines may appear quite different from one shot to the other.

If you don’t have a tripod:

Hold the camera at the eye level and tuck your elbows close to your body to avoid moving the camera too much when you rotate. Try to keep the camera at the same level when rotating (the horizon line is a good marquee when you shoot outside). Rotate using your shoulders and waist, and try to rotate around the camera rather than rotating the camera itself. You’ll be closer from the nodal point this way.

Continue reading part III

Introduction

A panorama – or panoramic photo – is usually made by stitching several pictures, taken with the same camera, into one. Although you can also achieve a panoramic effect with only one photo by simply cropping it aggressively – especially if you are using a wide angle lens – I will stick to the “multiple photos” approach in this article as it offers more possibilities.
A panorama can in general be horizontal, vertical or even be a mosaic of pictures taken in both orientations. For this article I will assume you want to do a horizontal panorama, which means the final photo will have a width much greater than its height and photos will be taken from right to left (or left to right if you prefer but my camera only takes ine way). The technique can, as you will see, easily be adapted to do vertical panoramas.
Making a panoramic photo really only takes a couple of important steps.

The first step is taking the pictures;
The second is stitching them using your computer.

The more effort and attention you put in the first step, the easier the second step will be and the more realistic your final photo will look.

Taking the pictures

Whether you are shooting inside or outside, and especially if you are planning to shoot a particular event such as a sunset, it is a good idea to arrive early at the location of you shot as a proper setup can take some time.
Camera Setup:
What follows is the most important tip of the whole article: Put your camera in all manual mode, including manual focus.
This will ensure all the sub pictures making up the final panorama will have the same exposure level (hence the same brightness/contrast) and the same depth of field. This will make the stitching a lot easier since you will not have to adjust the individual pictures for exposure and focus.
A few extra tips will get you the best results out of this:
Do not use a polarizing filter unless you really have to. When you are going to rotate the camera in order to take the pictures, the incidence of the light on the filter will change and this will result in different colors hues on each picture. This can make the stitching very painful.
Try to use a focal lens of 50mm or greater. This means “zooming in” a little bit. Of course it also means you will have to take more pictures to cover the panorama, but it will result in more details in the end.
It is better to do this because, if you use a wide angle lens (or short focal length), there are changes that objects in the foreground will suffer from distortion, and you will be in trouble to stitch the pictures.

Continue reading about this in part II

No matter if you are above the mountains, the hills or on the field, a large panorama will always be impressive. A tripod will give you the possibility to merge the pictures precisely. There are some tripods on the market made especially for panoramic shooting. (Actually there are some cameras that shoot only in panoramic mode). Some camera manufactures include a panoramic shooting mode which I find very useful: you can see the previous shoot and continue the next shot approximately where the other one ended. Canon cameras allow a bigger number of shots (I haven’t tried to find out the limit since I could easy make a 360 out of 13), while Nikon and Olympus only allows a few number of shots.

If the sky is interesting, like for example with more types of clouds on different highs, you can try a vertical panorama. A vertical view is also recommended for vertical cliffs.
When shooting horizontal pictures for a horizontal panorama, make sure the horizon line is not in the middle. Be careful at the exposure compensation (decrease it a bit like 1/3 step) or otherwise you will end up hawing a burned (white) sky.

Depending on what you’re shooting, you can have between 2-3 shoot and 5-7. In the examples below, the rainbow view was blocked by a tree, so the panorama is no longer than 2 photos. The other examples begin and end with the hills/rocks nearby, resulting in around 7 shots.

Later on, you can merge the images in a variety of programs. I use Photostitch software that came with my Canon digital camera. It’s easy to use and very precise.
If everything around you is interesting and you want a complete memory of the place, nothing stops you from making a 360 degrees panorama (this would be like around 10 shots). Photostich has a nice viewer for 360 panoramas, going round and round it. For webpages check this out.

Tags: panorama, panoramic view, landscape panorama, phototitch, vertical panorama, 360 panorama

Sometimes the best method of learning photography is to look inside of photo albums. This is why before even starting with theories about panoramic software and gears; I’ll take you on a trip to various places. This time to big cities. Do you notice what most of them have in common? A waterscape! Human settelments are allways near water, and you know what? The Reflections of the cities always look good in photos (both day and night). The existence of waterscapes can lead to the existence of bridges, and, once again, bridges look good in photography especially as guiding lines. There is something else you can notice in all the pictures: there is a main building, most of the times taller than the rest of the buildings. The placement of this attraction point (usually center of the city) in photography is either following the rule of thirds, or, if the picture is based on symmetry, in the center of it.
To avoid summer haze effect, and to obtain a more spectacular scene, it becomes obvious that the shots taken around sunset are the best.
The last image is a panorama of the city where I currently live: Cluj-Napoca. This article can evolve into a nice city database, who knows? Feel free to add a comment with a link to a panorama of your city and other cities missing from the current list.
Note: not all images are representative for the city.

Tags: panorama, city panorama, big cities, panoramic photography