Do you remember the first time you saw a panoramic photo? They are so appealing because we “see” in 180 degrees and most photos, even with a wide-angle lens can only capture about half that. In the old film days you needed a special camera and specially made film. Have you seen one of these cameras? Anyway, thanks to digital cameras and software, any of us can make an appealing “pano”. Here’s how.
Chose the Right Subject
This is probably the easiest step. Almost any sweeping view makes a good panorama. Sometimes, when you do this, one might ask, “what is the subject?” When making a pano, sometimes the focal point of the subject is not readily apparent. The subject is the sweeping view. It is always good to maintain compositional discipline using the rules of thirds, strong foreground, and a good subject.
There are other times, where a panorama eliminates a distracting foreground which concentrates the view on the actual subject. I loved these stone temples, but the foreground was distracting. A pano crop made a huge difference.
Make the Photos
There are at least three ways to make the photos you will need for your pano. If you have a point and shoot, you may be able to do it by hand. My Canon G12 has a “pano assist” feature on the LCD that helps me make a pano that I can process later in Photoshop. Newer point and shots have “sweep” technology where you simply press the shutter while sweeping the camera slowly from one side to the other to create one panoramic image in-camera.
Most of us with a DLSR will need to do it the following way. With my Canon 5D Mark II, I place the camera in portrait orientation and make 5-7 photos. Remember to overlap the composition by about 33% to get the best and easiest stitching. Make sure your tripod base and camera are level. If you are not level, you will get a very crooked panorama and therefore, have to make a more severe crop. I also use this pano stitch plate from Really Right Stuff (see our camera kit.)
Process the Photos
After I download my photos, I export them into Photoshop and execute the command to combine the individual photos into a panorama. After this is complete, the stitched pano will show up on the screen and you will, most likely, have gaps above and below the completed panoramic photo. Here you have two choices, you can crop the photo or use the “magic wand” and “content aware fill” to fill-in the open spaces. Do both to see what looks better.
Crop the photo with the right aspect ratio in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Blow-Up from Alien Skin software. Standard size panoramas use aspect ratios of 1:2, 1:2.5, and 1:3. This is especially important if you are going to print them.
Cautions
There are three main dangers in making a pano. First, and most important, is you need to set up your tripod and camera level. Second, watch out for filters and polarizers, especially on a wide-angle lens. You may get areas that are darker or more blue than others in the pano and this will look wrong and will be hard to fix later in processing. Third, make sure you understand how you are cropping. Cropping loses mega pixels and the aspect ratio may be wrong if you do not pay attention.
Finally, a most special caution is to watch out for parallax. This will show up in two ways. First straight lines in the photo may not match up. Second, you will have a concave pano with very little room to crop. The reason this happens is the entrance pupil of the lens has to be right over the point of rotation when making the panoramic photos. This is also called the nodal point. If you want all of the technical issues, see this article in Wikipedia.
DSLR Equipment
Here are two ideal equipment set-ups to make a pano and reduce the possibility of parallax. Of course, we always recommend you use a tripod. When using a wide-angle lens with no lens collar, you should use a nodal bar or rail (from Really Right Stuff). Now the lens is over the rotation point.
Conclusion
Panoramas are not that hard to create and make great final photographs. The warnings above are easy to deal with in the field or later in Photoshop. There is some let down in the field because you can not see your finished panorama with a DLSR, but if you use your imagination and gain some experience, you will see panoramic opportunities everywhere. To see more of our photos, please go to www.pamphotography.com
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