* Mark Thomas wrote :
Troy Piggins wrote:
* Mark Thomas wrote :
More work in progress..

http://www.marktphoto.com/examples/pano_night1_test.jpg

Fuji S9000, fl~35mm, 3s f5.6, 5 images, PTGUI, adjusted levels/sat,
lightly denoised, reduced to about 1/3 size and USM.
(Need any of this explained or elaborated? just ask..)
snip /

G'day Mark.

Cheers, mate - nice to see you still pop by occasionally!

Let's just say your post piqued my interest.
I didn't say I was going altogether, just not posting as much.


I've been thinking about panos lately.

Try to resist, even though the Force is strong!! I think they are
starting to take over my hobby completely... aaargh..

I have a trip planned in a couple of months, and think that panos
will work very nicely there. Santorini/Greek Islands, thankyou
very much

I don't have
a pano head, so trying them handheld. Having trouble I think
because the lens I'm using is too wide and getting like a fisheye
effect in each frame which is not condusive to the stitching.

A lot depends on the software you are using.. ? I don't *normally*
hesitate to use mine right down to 28mm with PTGUI, but.. read on..

I'm very green to the software. I've heard of PTGUI. I've had a
go with the Canon software that came with the camera -
Photostitch or something like that.

I've heard good things about hugin and enblend but haven't played
with it yet.

What lens/focal length should you use?

It depends.. If most/all of the subject matter is a reasonable distance
away from you, then you will probably find you are ok down to 28mm, and
handheld will suffice in most cases as long as you watch what you are
doing. But if there is stuff up close to you, it will all get very
tricky without that pano head - and longer f-l's will help.
snip /
In summary, yes a pano head will help a lot if your pano's have a lot of
deopth or close up stuff. So will using longer focal lengths, but of
course the penalty is the extra time and effort.

And to minimise the effects of that, should you shoot with
horizon dead centre, as opposed to rule of thirds?

Again, it depends somewhat on the capabilities of the program you stitch
with. The less the program has to stretch/distort images the better, so
I guess yes is the answer.
Plus panoramas by their nature tend to be
'what-you-would-see-if-you-turn-your-head-around', so a level-ish and
centred horizon seems to work better, for me anyways..

And you can always crop high or low - increasingly I am shooting the
source images portrait-ways, so I have a fair bit of head- and foot-room ..

Yeah, in my few recent attempts I have been trying portrait
orientation.

Hope that helps, sorry I waffled on..

Thanks mate.

--
Troy Piggins
I always appreciate critique.