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High resolution photos from a digital camera.



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 6th 05, 01:06 PM
Scott W
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Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

A while back someone referenced Ken Rockwell's article regarding the
quality of digital vs. film. Ken decided to compare what he was
shooting for digital, a Nikon D70, to a 4 x 5 camera. But a D70 and a
4 x 5 large format camera are not meant for the same uses, so this seem
like a bit of an odd comparison to make, at least to me.

A 4 x 5 camera is used for cases where one is taking the time to get a
high resolution photo, if this same time is used with a digital camera
you can also get a high resolution photos with it.

Yesterday I took a 95 MP photo using my digital camera, here is a link
to a overview photo along with a small 100% crop from the photo.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/51841148/original

The photos is 15730 by 6000 pixels, just short of a 100 MP photo, it is
a view of the small beach in front of the King Kamehameha hotel, taken
off the Kailua Pier in Kona Hawaii.

For those who have high speed internet and want to see the whole photo
here is a link to that, I compressed it fairly hard to fit it into a 10
MB file, at normal compression it takes about 27 MB.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/51841619/original

The photo is of course stitched, it is a way to get a lot of pixels
using a digital camera. This photos does not even come close to what
some others have done, I have seen a 2.5 GP photo. But the high
resolution stitched photos that I have seen to date have been of pretty
static scenes, I wanted something with a bit of a dynamic feel to it,
something where people are doing things in the photo.

I am not trying to tell people that this is a better way to take photos
then using a large format camera, all that I am trying to say is that
some of the limitations that many people believe digital cameras have
are not real limitations at all. The tools to do the stitching are
getting better all the time. I also use a special tripod head that is
designed to take these kind of photos, it cost a fair bit but less then
one good wide angle lens.

BTW the time to take the 36 photos used in the stitching was 1 minute
and 23 seconds.

There are many others that have done far more with stitching that I
have, I thought I would just share the kind of photo that I am takeing
using this method.

Scott

  #2  
Old November 6th 05, 04:29 PM
Måns Rullgård
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Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

"Scott W" writes:

The photo is of course stitched, it is a way to get a lot of pixels
using a digital camera. This photos does not even come close to what
some others have done, I have seen a 2.5 GP photo. But the high
resolution stitched photos that I have seen to date have been of pretty
static scenes, I wanted something with a bit of a dynamic feel to it,
something where people are doing things in the photo.


If people are moving around too much they might end up in several
places in the picture.

--
Måns Rullgård

  #3  
Old November 6th 05, 04:29 PM
Dave Cohen
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.


"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
A while back someone referenced Ken Rockwell's article regarding the
quality of digital vs. film. Ken decided to compare what he was
shooting for digital, a Nikon D70, to a 4 x 5 camera. But a D70 and a
4 x 5 large format camera are not meant for the same uses, so this seem
like a bit of an odd comparison to make, at least to me.

A 4 x 5 camera is used for cases where one is taking the time to get a
high resolution photo, if this same time is used with a digital camera
you can also get a high resolution photos with it.

Yesterday I took a 95 MP photo using my digital camera, here is a link
to a overview photo along with a small 100% crop from the photo.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/51841148/original

The photos is 15730 by 6000 pixels, just short of a 100 MP photo, it is
a view of the small beach in front of the King Kamehameha hotel, taken
off the Kailua Pier in Kona Hawaii.

For those who have high speed internet and want to see the whole photo
here is a link to that, I compressed it fairly hard to fit it into a 10
MB file, at normal compression it takes about 27 MB.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/51841619/original

The photo is of course stitched, it is a way to get a lot of pixels
using a digital camera. This photos does not even come close to what
some others have done, I have seen a 2.5 GP photo. But the high
resolution stitched photos that I have seen to date have been of pretty
static scenes, I wanted something with a bit of a dynamic feel to it,
something where people are doing things in the photo.

I am not trying to tell people that this is a better way to take photos
then using a large format camera, all that I am trying to say is that
some of the limitations that many people believe digital cameras have
are not real limitations at all. The tools to do the stitching are
getting better all the time. I also use a special tripod head that is
designed to take these kind of photos, it cost a fair bit but less then
one good wide angle lens.

BTW the time to take the 36 photos used in the stitching was 1 minute
and 23 seconds.

There are many others that have done far more with stitching that I
have, I thought I would just share the kind of photo that I am takeing
using this method.

Scott

I must be losing it in my old age. So I'm standing alongside this guy who is
carefully composing an image of this beautiful old church and is using the
swing and tilt feature of his 4x5 to include the steeple. Now using the
technique described in this post, what exactly do I do, get close to the
subject and take a shot of a few bricks (or stones at a time), climb up a
ladder to shoot the steeple, then stitch the whole thing together.
Since I'm using dial-up, I can't view the sample. I'm confident it's very
good and I have stitched landscape views myself, so I'm both aware of and
certainly not opposed to stitching as a useful technique, I just think the
rational of this post is missing something.
Dave Cohen


  #4  
Old November 6th 05, 04:40 PM
Joseph Meehan
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

Dave Cohen wrote:
....

I must be losing it in my old age. So I'm standing alongside this guy
who is carefully composing an image of this beautiful old church and
is using the swing and tilt feature of his 4x5 to include the
steeple. Now using the technique described in this post, what exactly
do I do, get close to the subject and take a shot of a few bricks (or
stones at a time), climb up a ladder to shoot the steeple, then
stitch the whole thing together. Since I'm using dial-up, I can't view the
sample. I'm confident it's
very good and I have stitched landscape views myself, so I'm both
aware of and certainly not opposed to stitching as a useful
technique, I just think the rational of this post is missing
something. Dave Cohen


I believe that Scott cover that in his original message: " I am trying
to say is that some of the limitations that many people believe digital
cameras have are not real limitations at all."


--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit


  #5  
Old November 6th 05, 04:41 PM
Richard H.
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

Scott W wrote:
The photo is of course stitched, it is a way to get a lot of pixels
using a digital camera. This photos does not even come close to what
some others have done, I have seen a 2.5 GP photo. But the high
resolution stitched photos that I have seen to date have been of pretty
static scenes, I wanted something with a bit of a dynamic feel to it,
something where people are doing things in the photo.


Interesting test - what did you use for the stitching? How much overlap
was there between the shots? Did you use a rigging to take the
photos, or was it handheld?

Buried on my list of to-dos, I'd like to experiment with very
large-scale stitching, with a goal in the 1000MP range (wall-sized
high-res print).

I expected to do a static scene, and probably make a rig to pan & scan
the ~400 images. This could even fit on one memory card, but flash
recording time will be the limiting factor for a live scene - capturing
a single scene could easily take 2 minutes. Using a bank of several
cameras might be an (expensive) idea, if the colors / exposures can be
balanced.

Your example is encouraging; maybe a live scene is even viable if the
images can be captured quickly enough. Perhaps by rapid-firing the live
areas and methodically collecting the static portions, then compiling
the result - what was your technique?.

Cheers,
Richard
  #6  
Old November 6th 05, 04:59 PM
Scott W
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.


Richard H. wrote:
Scott W wrote:
The photo is of course stitched, it is a way to get a lot of pixels
using a digital camera. This photos does not even come close to what
some others have done, I have seen a 2.5 GP photo. But the high
resolution stitched photos that I have seen to date have been of pretty
static scenes, I wanted something with a bit of a dynamic feel to it,
something where people are doing things in the photo.


Interesting test - what did you use for the stitching? How much overlap
was there between the shots? Did you use a rigging to take the
photos, or was it handheld?

Buried on my list of to-dos, I'd like to experiment with very
large-scale stitching, with a goal in the 1000MP range (wall-sized
high-res print).

I expected to do a static scene, and probably make a rig to pan & scan
the ~400 images. This could even fit on one memory card, but flash
recording time will be the limiting factor for a live scene - capturing
a single scene could easily take 2 minutes. Using a bank of several
cameras might be an (expensive) idea, if the colors / exposures can be
balanced.

Your example is encouraging; maybe a live scene is even viable if the
images can be captured quickly enough. Perhaps by rapid-firing the live
areas and methodically collecting the static portions, then compiling
the result - what was your technique?.

Cheers,
Richard


I used PTGui for the stitching, greatly improved in the newest version.
The camera is set to manual focus and no instant review, this speeds
up the shooting a lot. I have a tripod head that rotates the camera
around the nodal point of the lens, this avoids parallax.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...goryNavigation
The photo I posted was made from 3 rows and 12 columns, 36 photos all
together. I used a 8 MP Sony camera and ended up with a 95 MP photo,
288 MP - 95. Part of this is from down sampling to get a bit sharper
photos and part is from the overlap.

When shooting people it helps to have overlap to take care of the case
when someone moves, I can adjust what part of the photo comes from
which of the 36 photos, in this way I can clean up any problems from
people moving. I have been surprised at just how little problems there
tends to be shooting people.

PTGui now does a really go job of correcting for lighting changing from
photo to photo, it has some limits but it is pretty impressive.

I know there is one person who shoot a GP photo, he used 196 photos.
http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

155 MP should be enough for a 3 x 4 foot print at 300 ppi, something
that I would kind of like to have.

Scott

  #7  
Old November 6th 05, 05:08 PM
Scott W
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.


Dave Cohen wrote:

I must be losing it in my old age. So I'm standing alongside this guy who is
carefully composing an image of this beautiful old church and is using the
swing and tilt feature of his 4x5 to include the steeple. Now using the
technique described in this post, what exactly do I do, get close to the
subject and take a shot of a few bricks (or stones at a time), climb up a
ladder to shoot the steeple, then stitch the whole thing together.
Since I'm using dial-up, I can't view the sample. I'm confident it's very
good and I have stitched landscape views myself, so I'm both aware of and
certainly not opposed to stitching as a useful technique, I just think the
rational of this post is missing something.
Dave Cohen


You would set up your camera at the same spot the guy shooting the 4 x
5 view camera would. With the 4 x 5 camera he can get the whole photo
in one shoot, with the digital it would take a number of shoot, the
camera stays in the same spot but is aimed at different parts of the
church. The software can stitch the photo as if a view camera was
being used, at least the shift part which is what corrects for the
perspective.

Most people do not understand how a shifting lens works, basically the
camera lens that is used with a view camera has a much larger field of
view then the film, if you want to shoot something like a church you
point the camera straight at the horizon and then shift the lens up or
the film down. You could get the same effect by using a 8 x 10 sheet
of film in the 4 x 5 camera, not shifting the lens and cropping the
photo.

I think using a view camera is a great way to get a fantastic photo and
am not arguing against it. What I am trying to say is that there is a
lot more that you can do with a digital camera then many people are
aware of.

Scott

  #8  
Old November 6th 05, 05:41 PM
PcB
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

I am not trying to tell people that this is a better way to take photos
then using a large format camera, all that I am trying to say is that
some of the limitations that many people believe digital cameras have
are not real limitations at all.

You are correct in what you say and the following is not said simply to
disagree with you. However, isn't there a major difference between shooting
one frame with a 5x4 camera (complete with lens tilt, etc) and stitching
several frames taken on a 35mm or equivalent (digital or film, doesn't
matter), i.e. parallax error. There will be a different amount of parallax
"creep" between the shot taken parallel to the ground and a shot taken at 45
degrees to the ground. I haven't done too much with stitched panoramas so
maybe this isn't an issue?

--
Paul ============}
o o

// Live fast, die old //
PaulsPages and galleries are at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pcbradley/


  #9  
Old November 6th 05, 05:57 PM
Scott W
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.


PcB wrote:
I am not trying to tell people that this is a better way to take photos
then using a large format camera, all that I am trying to say is that
some of the limitations that many people believe digital cameras have
are not real limitations at all.

You are correct in what you say and the following is not said simply to
disagree with you. However, isn't there a major difference between shooting
one frame with a 5x4 camera (complete with lens tilt, etc) and stitching
several frames taken on a 35mm or equivalent (digital or film, doesn't
matter), i.e. parallax error. There will be a different amount of parallax
"creep" between the shot taken parallel to the ground and a shot taken at 45
degrees to the ground. I haven't done too much with stitched panoramas so
maybe this isn't an issue?

You need a really good tripod head, one that rotates the camera around
the nodal point of the lens. I use this one.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...tegoryNavigati

Basically what you are doing to mapping angle in both azimuth and
elevation to pixels in one or more of the photos. If can then
reconstruct the a photo for any given pointing and any given field of
view, assuming you cover a large enough area with your photos.

Scott

  #10  
Old November 6th 05, 06:18 PM
Annika1980
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Posts: n/a
Default High resolution photos from a digital camera.

Nice work! I like the doggy.

 




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