Panorama tips?

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I've never taken a panorama picture before, so of course this week's competition theme is...panoramas! To compound things, while researching "How To Do Panoramas For Dummies" I discovered that my camera (D5500) does not have a panorama setting. Of course.

So...

Anyone have any general tips when it comes to taking a panorama shot (tripod? hand held? VR on or off? DoF setting? Wide angle lens vs telephoto? other?)?

And...

How do you stitch together photos in Lightroom so they meld into one? I did create a diptych previously, but that places a border between pictures. I want to try an actual panorama, like I see a lot of the members here create so artfully.

If you don't care to type out your advice but know of a vid or online tutorial that you think might be helpful, I'd be just as grateful to see that. The places I've checked out have been all over the map, advice-wise. My head is starting to spin from the sometimes seemingly contradictory instructions.

Thanks very much!
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
I will give you some quick, off of the top of my head tips.

1. tripods are best to keep the horizon straight/level, however handheld can be used also.
2. Overlap each shot by at least 1/3 with the previous shot whether horizontal or vertically oriented.
3. Don't change exposure settings.
4. Other things like DoF, lens type, etc. will be determined by what your subject is just like any other photo.

I can't help you with LR, because I have never used it.
I'm sure others will have some good advice and may disagree with some of what I have said. Ha!
The reason for Pano shots is to get more detail from your camera than what you could do with only one shot.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I will give you some quick, off of the top of my head tips.

Thanks very much for all that, Walt! Seems like good starting advice, whether or not anyone here would be boorish enough to disagree with any of it ;)

edit: Hey Walt, if you don't use Lightroom...how DO you stitch your photos together?
 
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Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Lightroom does Panoramas
Use a Tripod, use portrait orientation... <-- Panos tends to lose image area when heavily cropped, and portrait orientations help to reduce that loss... manual exposure is best to keep exposure from changing...
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Lightroom does Panoramas
Use a Tripod, use portrait orientation... <-- Panos tends to lose image area when heavily cropped, and portrait orientations help to reduce that loss... manual exposure is best to keep exposure from changing...

Thank you for that, Fred. Sounds good - and good to know LR can handle it.
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
The main thing to consider is to put your camera in total MANUAL mode. Do a test shot to check your exposure and focus, then turn off auto-focus and make certain that you are in manual exposure. Then you can rely on your sight to take 3 or 4 pictures in portrait mode (camera in vertical) while trying to keep a line leveled. Then you open LightRoom, select the shots you want, right click and select merge panorama. Then wait for the result to come up. Some shots take longer than others.
There are several tutorials for this on YTube.

Good luck.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
The main thing to consider is to put your camera in total MANUAL mode. Do a test shot to check your exposure and focus, then turn off auto-focus and make certain that you are in manual exposure. Then you can rely on your sight to take 3 or 4 pictures in portrait mode (camera in vertical) while trying to keep a line leveled. Then you open LightRoom, select the shots you want, right click and select merge panorama. Then wait for the result to come up. Some shots take longer than others.
There are several tutorials for this on YTube.

Good luck.

Thanks so much, Marcel! I appreciate that, and will give it all a try :encouragement:
 

Marilynne

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
I've never taken a panorama picture before, so of course this week's competition theme is...panoramas! To compound things, while researching "How To Do Panoramas For Dummies" I discovered that my camera (D5500) does not have a panorama setting. Of course.

...

Thanks very much!

I use A. I tried manual for about two weeks and missed a lot of great shots, so I went back to A.

I try to hold the camera steady and overlap my shots.

I use MS ICE (Image Composite Editor) to stitch them together.

Part of the challenges are to get you out of your comfort zone. Good luck!​
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Marilynne, I'm not saying that one should always shoot in manual mode, but for panorama yes. The simple reason is that from one shot to the next, depending on how much dark or light areas are predominant your camera exposure will vary. So when the software tries to match, you sometime have different sly density or exposure.
Practice makes perfect they say.

good luck.

I use A. I tried manual for about two weeks and missed a lot of great shots, so I went back to A.

I try to hold the camera steady and overlap my shots.

I use MS ICE (Image Composite Editor) to stitch them together.

Part of the challenges are to get you out of your comfort zone. Good luck!​
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Dangerspouse, you might want to check out Aaron Nace from Phlearn. He is pretty good with his explanations, and this video shows how to create a pano in Lightroom.

Just remember what others have mentioned. If you are looking for the end result to be a horizontal image, then take a series of vertical pics. If you are looking to create a vertical image, shoot in the horizontal format. And shoot in manual to keep your exposure from changing as you move (and use a tripod if you have one).

One last thing to remember - if you don't have a lot of RAM, don't shoot a lot of images to merge together. The more images you use, the more RAM necessary to process the merge. The end result will be a big file which also will also use more RAM.

 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Dangerspouse, you might want to check out Aaron Nace from Phlearn. He is pretty good with his explanations, and this video shows how to create a pano in Lightroom.

Just remember what others have mentioned. If you are looking for the end result to be a horizontal image, then take a series of vertical pics. If you are looking to create a vertical image, shoot in the horizontal format. And shoot in manual to keep your exposure from changing as you move (and use a tripod if you have one).

One last thing to remember - if you don't have a lot of RAM, don't shoot a lot of images to merge together. The more images you use, the more RAM necessary to process the merge. The end result will be a big file which also will also use more RAM.

Wow, that was really nice of you to drag that video here - thank you! I'm just on my way to bed now, but I'll be sure to watch it tomorrow first thing. I'm glad I asked here, you guys are great! Thank you also for reiterating the advice I've already gotten from others, and adding the part about RAM. I never would have accounted for that.

:cheerful:
 

nikonpup

Senior Member
lightroom has made changes to panoramas - check out YOU TUBE - lightroom panorama tutorials - in filters select this year. this should have the latest versions of lightroom.
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
Another important step is to use manual focus since changes in focus between shots can alter the overlap of the images enough to cause the software to fail to stitch the images together. In addition, changing focus can alter some lenses focal length, leading to the same outcome.

WM
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Another important step is to use manual focus since changes in focus between shots can alter the overlap of the images enough to cause the software to fail to stitch the images together. In addition, changing focus can alter some lenses focal length, leading to the same outcome.

WM

I never would have considered that on my own. Thanks very much for it!
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
I'd like to thank everyone here for their very helpful and generous advice. Thanks to the tips I received from all of you I was able to go out yesterday and shoot a series of pictures, then stitch them into a panorama for the first time. I couldn't have done it without you (well...not as fast, anyway ;)).

Of course, I wouldn't be a newbie if I didn't make at least one boneheaded mistake. In this case, I forgot one of the very first and most often heard exhortations: turn the camera sideways into portrait mode. I didn't remember that until my very last attempt of the day.

Anyway, here's what I ended up with thanks to you all.

This is the one I entered in this week's "Panorama" contest. It's not the best one of the bunch, but since it's my very first it's my favorite. This was just before dawn on a very foggy morning, but with the last glow of the full Autumn moon visible overhead. I was actually driving to a spot elsewhere, but when I saw that moon and realized it would disappear in mere minutes I had to pull over and give it a try. Fortunately I live in a remote area, and at that hour of the morning I was able to safely stand in the middle of the highway without worry that any other cars might come by. Not exactly Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico"...but it is to me :) :

Rt. 94 Moonrise Panorama resize.jpg

I did end up cropping it to what I thought made a better picture, although I wanted to use the uncropped version for the weekly challenge:

Rt. 94 Moonrise Panorama resize 2 CROP.jpg

I did make it to my intended destination after this, creating these at a local historic pre-Colonial farm (who the hell runs an overhead phone line down their otherwise bucolic field??) Still a lot of fog down in the valley:

High Breeze Farm Sunrise Panorama 2 RESIZE.jpg

And turning 90-dgrees to my right to try some backlighting:

Sunrise Barrett Road RESIZE.jpg

Finally I went down the road to our little local lake, since I knew it took longer for the sun to crest the hill on the east and give good light. I got there just in time. This is the one where I finally figured out I needed to flip the camera sideways:

Lake Barry Panorama RESIZE 2.jpg

BTW, I made that last shot a little different. The first three were all 6-panel, hand held, the camera revolving around my thumb stuck to the lens nodal point (learned it here). But that lake shot is 12-panels, and rather than rotate the camera I took a wide step to my left, shot, another step, another shot, etc. Just did it on a whim, but I think it worked out ok.

I know this was long, but I really am grateful to everyone here for so selflessly helping me out when I asked for it, and wanted to share what I learned thanks to you all.

Any further comments or suggestions you have after seeing these will be most welcome also. I have a pretty thick skin, so give it to me straight :boxing::boxing::boxing:

Thanks again!
 
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