Tag Archives: tutorial

How to Take a HDR Photo – HDR Photography Part 1

I have had a few people asking me what my process or method for processing HDR images is over the last few days, so here is a detailed run down of how I shoot, process, blend and publish my HDR images. I will split this up into a number of shorter posts, but I will try to get through all the steps as quickly as I can over the next few days.

HDR Photography

  1. Shooting a HDR
  2. Getting it off the Camera
  3. Blending Time
  4. Final Processing
  5. Some Inspiration

Shooting a HDR Image

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and a HDR image is an image where the range of brightness displayed in that single image is more than you would normally get from a single photo. In a HDR image you are compressing really bright stuff, and really dark stuff into a more evenly lit image. By doing so you can make out the detail in the darker areas, and the detail in the bright areas, where normally, you would just see black, or white sections.

There are 2 main ways of shooting a HDR image. The first is to shoot a single frame, and have it saved as a RAW file (RAW files contain a wider range of brightness information for each pixel than a JPEG file). You can then compress the wide range of brightness in that file down into a HDR image. I rarely use this method, as I always shoot RAW anyway, and only use HDR when there is need to capture a wider range of information than a single RAW can capture.

The 2nd method is to shoot multiple frames of the same scene at different exposures, which is called “Bracketing”. Most new digital cameras give you the ability to shoot in a bracketing mode. When shooting in this mode, the camera will take 3 (or more) images at varying exposures. By doing so, you are able to capture the detail in the image over a much wider range of brightness. When you blend these 3 (or more) exposures together, you end up with a HDR image. This is the method I use for shooting my HDR images.

Bracketing Shots

If your camera gives you the option to shoot in Bracketing mode, it will often allow you to select the spacing between the exposures of each image. With my Pentax K200D camera, I am able to adjust the exposure brackets from 0.3 EV spacing, up to 2.0 EV spacing, in 1/3 EV steps (0.3, 0.7, 1.0 etc). Most people seem to recommend shooting your brackets at +/- 2.0 EV. This gives a good range of exposure, without going too far apart in your images. When shooting your brackets, it is very helpful to use a tripod. This will prevent any problems in blending the final image due to misalignment of the images, but it also helps to prevent camera shake causing blurry shots, especially for the +2.0 EV shot, as the shutter speed for this shot will be quite slow.

Other Settings

Most of my HDR shots are of buildings/landscapes and other things which do not move and require a large Depth of Field. So when shooting this type of scene I recommend shooting in Aperture Priority mode on your camera, with the aperture set to around f13 or even f16 (where possible, see 2 paragraphs down for why it might not be). Shooting in Av (aperture priority) will give the best control over your depth of field, using aperture priority mode when bracketing means that the camera will only adjust the shutter speed for your brackets. By locking the aperture down, it means the depth of field remains constant throughout the bracketed images.

It is also possible to use Shutter Priority mode for shooting your HDR, however this means the camera will adjust the aperture +/- 2.0 EV stops for each bracket, giving you varying depth of field, which may result in some parts of the scene being out of focus for the +2.0 EV image (where the aperture will be the widest).

A lot of my HDR’s are in poor light, so I almost always use ISO 100 with longer exposures to ensure the least possible amount of noise. Something to watch out for though is the 30″ (second) maximum shutter time limit on most DSLRs. If you’re 0.0 EV image requires a shutter speed of anything greater than 2 stops less than 30 seconds (7.5″ is 2 stops less than 30″) it means that your +2.0 EV shot will not be a full 2 stops brighter. For this reason I try to adjust the ISO and aperture until I am able to get the 0.0 EV shot down to at least a 10″ shutter speed. By ensuring I have at least 1.7 stops of headroom in shutter speed I am able to use the longer shutter speed shot to get the details out of the darkest areas in the image.

Extra Dynamic Range
n some cases (not very often though) a +/- 2.0 EV bracket does not give enough range in light, and you still have blown out highlights, or blacked out shadows. Some cameras allow you to specify a wider range for bracketing, but my camera does not. So a little trick I have learnt is to use the exposure compensation (or exposure bias) to help fill those ranges. What I do is set the exposure compensation to -2.0 EV, and then shoot a 3 image bracket at +/- 2.0 EV. This results in shots at -4.0 EV, -2.0 EV and 0.0 EV. Then I quickly reset the exposure compensation to +2.0 EV and shoot another 3 image bracket. So in total I have a -4.0 EV, -2.0 EV, 2x 0.0 EV, +2.0 EV and +4.0 EV images. When processing, I simply discard 1 of the 0.0 EV images and blend away.

I hope this helps you get your HDR shot. In the next post I will cover my workflow for processing HDR’s up to the tone mapping stage.

Tips and Tricks From The Web – Street Photography Part 5

I haven’t been out shooting any street over the last little while, so instead of giving you my tips and tricks, I will share some I have found on the web. Hopefully they will help me out, and you too.

Street Photography Series

  1. Previous Attempts
  2. Zone Focusing
  3. Hyperfocal Distance
  4. Progress?
  5. Tips and Tricks from the Web

19 Killer Street Photography Tips

The first site with some notable tips I have found is this one. From ILovePhotoBlogs.com. Here are the points that stood out to me.

What is the best lens for street photography?
“I personally like to use a wide lens (24mm, 28mm, 35mm on full frame 35mm) to be pretty close to my subject and get that intimate look of my photos. It took me a while to get closer, so I’d suggest to start with maybe a 75mm or 50mm lens to keep some distance and get closer from there…”

Lens choice is an important technical aspect to street photography, and this tip is something I have seen mentioned more than once (many times in fact).

What are the best places to shoot street photography?
“At a fair, a midway at a carnival, a sports event, parade, concert or public ceremony, people’s need for personal space and therefore privacy is reduced. The level of sensory stimulation is also usually high at these events, which tends to reduce the need for space. As well, in most of these situations people are having fun so they are more relaxed.”

Choosing somewhere to take street shots is important. You won’t get yourself out the door if you don’t have somewhere to go in mind.

10 Quick Street Photography Tips

This 2nd link is from a Canon Powershot S90 Street Photography Challenge website. It is just 10 short tips on how to get some street shots. I don’t necessarily agree with them all by the way. These are the tips that hit home when I read it.

3. PRE-FRAME. PRE-FOCUS.
Frame the scene, preset your focus and wait patiently for the right elements to fall into place, before you click. You’ll be surprised at the results of this simple technique.

This is another technique I have seen mentioned a few times. I have tried this out once or twice. If you see a great background or scene, and can imagine a person with a certain look would work well there, then frame up, and wait patiently for someone matching your idea to come by, or you might find someone with a different look that works while you are waiting.

5. SHOOT FROM THE HIP.Learn to frame your images without looking through the viewfinder or at the LCD. Shoot with the camera away from your face – from the hip or low at your chest work well. Low angle shooting also gives an interesting perspective.

Another way to get that candid shot. Most of the street photographers I follow have used this method from time to time. It is worth while learning to aim your camera without looking through the view finder. I am notoriously bad at this myself, but it is something I am working on.

6. OBSERVE. OBSERVE. OBSERVE.Keep your eyes open and be aware of your surroundings. Observe everyone and everything around you. You’ll be surprised at how much is going on in front of you, and how much you can anticipate – ready for that next perfect shot.
7. BE PATIENT.Street photography is a test of patience. Either waiting for the scene to evolve or just capturing the right shot, a great photograph takes time to realize. Don’t rush that special moment before clicking.

I believe these 2 tips go hand in hand. You must observe whats going on around you, and you must be patient. A good shot won’t come by every 10-15 seconds. Wait for it to make itself available, be prepared, anticipate it, and shoot it.

Street Photography Tips

This is the final link for todays post. There are some really great street shots posted in this forum post, along with some interesting tips.

readiness
learn your camera’s controls, shoot in a way that let’s you shoot quickly! i’m always pre-set for the most part (choice of iso, aperture) and i typically shoot in aperture priority mode. i also learn the hyperfocal distances of my lenses, so that i can shoot comfortable within a distance range. watch the lighting, which can change by 8 or 9 stops just by turning a corner! it’s really important to have all your senses focused on the job at hand

You must be able to react quickly, part of that is knowing that your equipment is ready, the other part is being ready to react yourself.

confidence
street shooting requires confidence.. *you* are doing nothing wrong, so don’t sneak around! put away that tele, and stick a fifty or thirty-five on your dslr, or set your digicam’s zoom to the wider end of things, and see the scene “normally,” up close and personaly. this may be strange for some of you, but i assure you it gets easier after your initial trepidation wears off. the worst that can happen is people say “no, i don’t want my photo taken,” and so you smile and move on! the wider angles offer so much more to the viewer imo, that they’re worth the extra effort in becoming more comfortable …

The final tip of the day is this one. BE CONFIDENT! This is something I definately suffer from myself, I am shy by nature, so being out in the middle of a group of strangers pointing my camera at them is not comfortable for me, but, I do get out there, and I do try it. The more you do it, the more confident you will get.

If you have any good tips please share them with me, ill make sure they get posted up. Best of luck with your street shooting

Neutral Density (ND) Filter FAQ

This is a bit different to a normal post by me. This is a reproduction of a fantastic FAQ I found posted on PentaxForums.com (click for the original). Rather than trying to come up with something similar, I asked the original poster if I could post it here. So here it is, a great ND filter FAQ by Andrew Stockwell who runs Northeast Light Photography.com. Thanks Andrew.

Welcome, if you reading this, and are not sure what a Neutral Density (ND) Filter is or a Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter is, read on, hopefully I’m going to answer all or most of your questions about this topic that since I have joined here there seems to be a lot of speculation and questions about, or people that are just unaware of a great tool in your bag. Also there seeems to be a lot of threads about them, but not one place where everything, or at least the basics in one place. In this FAQ, I will use links, and there will be stuff cut and pasted, and I may use some of my shots for examples. So if I have your interest piqued now, sit back, relax, and read on.

1. What is a Neutral Density Filter?

In photography and optics, a neutral density filter or ND filter is a “grey” filter. An ideal neutral density filter reduces light of all wavelengths or colors equally. The purpose of standard photographic neutral density filters is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the apeture or exposure time, allowing for more control, particularly in extreme circumstances.

A common example of this is use of a GND filter to control sky exposure (hold back), while using enough shutter time to expose the foreground of a scene, and have a photo that has a balanced exposure, and looks as close to the human eye saw it as possible.

Or a ND solid to reduce light, so shutter times can be longer, and produce a desired effect in a shot, example:

I don’t remember what ND I had on for this shot, but it was taken in the middle of a mostly cloudy day, so I got the shutter time long enough to produce that silky/misty water effect in the shot.

2. What types of Neutral Density Filters are there?

The two most common types used in film and digital photography are:

  • Round Screw-In filters that thread on to the front of a lens.
  • The “Cokin” type system, which uses mostly square or rectangle filters, that are mounted to the lens via a holder, and a adapter ring that threads onto the lens.

3. What are the advantages and disadvatages to each type?

Round, Screw-In Filters:

Advantages:

  • Compact, they usually take up less room in a kit bag, but it depends on lens size also, if you are using large ring size lenses, the filters can get pretty big.
  • Ability to combine or stack filters on the front of a lens, although this can cause vignetting on some lenses, if using thick ring filters.
  • Vari ND’s or Combo ND/Polarizer filters, such as Singh-Ray brand produces
  • Commonly sold at stores like Best Buy, Wal Mart, Ritz, etc, so they are easy to find in a pinch.
  • A majority of ND’s above 4 stops are sold in the Round/Screw-In style.

Disadvantages:

  • In using Round/Screw-In Graduated ND filters, it give the photographer absolutely no control of the grad line placement in a scene, as the line is always in the center. (This is a big one for me)
  • On certain lenses, UWA usually, round filters can vignette, as the angle of view is so wide on these lenses, that the ring that holds the filter element can be seen in the corners of a photo taken on the wide end of the lens.
  • Some lower quality filters are not optically good, meaning they can cause color casts on photos taken
  • If you have a lot of different lens sizes (front element size), you have to carry a set of filters for all lenses you wish to use the filters on (Another big one for me)

“Cokin” Style Filters:

Advantages:

  • You can use them on any lens you carry as long as you carry the adapter rings for your particular system, which are usually cheaper than a round/screw-in ND filter usually costs.
  • You have almost infinte possibilities for composing a shot, in relation to the grad line on a GND filter, since you can slide the filters up and down in the filter holder to control the placement of the grad line.
  • As long as you buy the right system for the lenses you have, you shouldn’t see vignetting on you lenses, example if you have a 10mm lens with a 77mm ring size, you might want to think of at least 100mm size filters or 4X4 or 4X6, or hand holding them if you buy 85mm or 3X3 filters
  • Filters are typically made of resin, unless you spend mucho $$, so they are harder to damage, but are still able to be scratched or can chip if dropped on an edge on a hard or jagged object.
  • More choices for types of ND and GND filters. Due to size, you can get reverse GND, which start darker in near the grad line, and get lighter as they move toward the edge, or you can get hardline or softline GNDs, which have many uses and advantages, which I will go into.

Disadvantages:

  • Initial cost, some systems, depending on size and brand can be very pricey, but I typically think the cost of admission is worth it, but shop around, and find a system that works for you, and won’t make you broke. Read a lot of reviews!!! But once you have a system of filters, and you have all the filters you want, all you need to do is buy adapter rings at that point if you get a new lens that has a different filter size than you already have.
  • Depending on the amount of adapter rings, filters, holders, case, the system can get rather large. This can take up a bit of room in your kit. My recommendation is to buy a filter one at a time, if you find you use it, stick with it, and if you want more stops of ND, then buy another, the next level darker. Also read a lot about this before buying. If you have a bunch of filters in your bag you don’t ever use, then it isn’t worth wasting you money on them. Figure out what you shoot, and what filters would be best for what you typically shoot.
  • They can scratch, they can chip, they can break. But this shouldn’t be a discouragement from buying them. Just be careful with them, and you shouldn’t have any problems.
  • Dependent on what size lens you have, and FOV of the lens at wide end if a zoom, if you use the wrong size filters, you could also vignette, example is: My 16-50mm vignetted on the Cokin P series regular holder on the wide end, and it would sometime vignette on the P-Size wide angle holder if oriented incorrectly.

4. What brands are out there for purchase?

The answer is many.

Typical screw-in brands are Tiffen, Hoya, B+W, Singh Ray, Heliopan, and many more, but those are typically the better quality brands.

For “Cokin” type systems:

I am going to amplify this by saying when I use the word Cokin, I use it because it is the brand typically seen and used by a lot of people, but there are many makers of “slide holder” filter systems

They are:
Cokin, Lee, Formatt, Hi-Tech (made by Formatt), Tiffen, Schneider, are the common ones.

5. Where can I purchase both types?

Screw-In filters: Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc. are the easy places the find them, but your selection will be limited here

B&H, Adorama, 2Filter.com, Filterhouse.com are going to have much more diverse inventories and types of filters, check here if you are looking for specialty stuff, or want a better selection, and if you don’t see it on their site, it doesn’t hurt to call and ask if someone makes something like what you are looking for. Example, Hi-tech makes 10 Stop ND filters, but 2Filter.com typically doesn’t stock them, but they can be ordered off the Formatt.co.uk website.

For “slide holder” style systems, you can buy these at most of the places you can buy the round/screw in style at, but you are probably not going to find them at Best-Buy or Wal-Mart.

6. What Types of ND’s do I need?

Only you can really answer this question, first ask yourself, what do you shoot the most, and what types of effects are you looking for when you use the filters. Are you trying to induce motion blur by using a longer shutter speed? Are you shooting seascapes or such that have a hard horizon line? Conversely is there any foreground items that a hard grad line would show up on if you placed it wrong, and make your picture look like someone drew a line through it? Do you want to do multi minute exposures during the middle of day, or early morning or late evening during the best light? Do you want to shoot shot with a lot of dynamic range and contrast, (sunrises and sunsets with good foreground interest), and have everything exposed right?

Here is what I will say, if you use a hard line grad in a scene without a good hard horizon line, or somewhere to logically terminate the grad line, your shots will look weird, as you will see this line run through your shot, and it isn’t intended to be there, but it shows up either due to no straight line in the shot to put the grad line, or the filter you used is to dark for the scene. I use all soft line grads, as i can control how much ND I use by sliding up or down. Hard line grads tend to be not as graduated, as they are basically filter that is half dark, and half light with very little “taper”

Soft line grads are also easier to “hide” in a scene, and there is not hard dividing line.

I will also tell you what I currenly own, and have owned in the past, and what I use the most.

I currently have a set of Hi-Tech 4X4 and 4X6 filters, that fit nicely in to a Cokin Z-Pro holder, using Cokin Z-Pro adapter rings. I use the cokin holder since it is muc cheaper than the Hi-tech holder, and does the same thing.

I have a .9 (3-stop) soft edge GND, a 1.2 ND solid, a .9 ND solid, and have just ordered a 3.0 (10-Stop) solid ND, and will be ordering a .6 SE GND before I leave for Acadia in July. I just switched systems, from a Cokin P-Size set of Hi-Techs, so I don’t have as many filters yet. For two reasons, I haven’t had enough time and money to buy more yet, but I also saw what filters I actually used when I owned P-Series filters. I used pretty much what I own now for Z-Pro size.

Bottom line, look at a lot of photos, read a lot of reviews, read a lot of forums, and if you can borrow some, do it, so you don’t buy more than what you need to get started.

7. So why the 10-Stop filter?

For shots like this:

This is a 136 second shot, taken with a 3 stop solid ND, and a 3 stop GND. In the right conditions, imagine what can be done with a 10-Stop filter. The emphasis is on the cloud and water movement here. The extremely long shutter times give the clouds a chance to move through the shot, and the water becomes a mist with enough sea state. It also helps saturate the light in the sky a little more as the light has more time to change as the shot goes on, so you can get some pretty cool effects with ND filters, and this is my favorite aspect of what I do with them.

What sizes are common for “slide holder” system?

Common are 2X2 inch, 3X3″, 4X4″, 4×6″ 2X3″ 3×4″ and 4×5″

Conversion time:

3X3 or 3 inch systems are relative to 85mm. (Cokin P Series)
4X4 and 4 inch systems are relative to 100mm. (Cokin Z-Pro Series)

If you get X-Pro by Cokin, well great, you have the biggest ones, and I don’t think many others make filters this big, so I am not going to try to convert them.

I will tell you that on my Pentax 16-50mm lens, P-Series size vignetted using the Cokin regular holder, and sometimes with the wide angle holder, so food for thought if you think you are going to go cheap and get P-size, and use them on a UWA lens at the wide end and think they won’t vignette.

8. What is a reverse GND?

I mentioned this earlier, a reverse GND has the darker part of the gradient closer to the center, and it gets lighter going toward the “top” of the filter. I haven’t used one yet, haven’t needed one yet.

If someone has used one, and wants to chime in, and show examples, I will paste your experiences into this post.

9. What is this .6, .9, 1.2, business, and what does it mean?

ND filters are quantified by their optical density or equivalently their f-Stop reduction as follows:

Code:
Attenuation Factor| Filter Optical Density| F-Stop Reduction  | % Light Transmittance
2                     0.3              1      50%
4                     0.6              2      25%
8                     0.9              3      12.5%
64                    1.8              6      1.5625%
1,000                3.0              10       <0.1%
10,000              4.0              13
1,000,000          6.0              20

So when you see ND-2, it is one stop of light reduction (refer to first column

Also,
When you see .3, it is one stop of light reduction, refer to 2nd column.

So when you are deciding what filters you need, refer to this chart so you can see how much neutral density you want. It all depends on the desired effects you want to introduce into a shot, or if you think you may encounter a very contrasty scene, needing a lot of ND in the sky, to get the foreground exposed correctly.

I will continue to expand this as people point out new things I haven’t covered yet, or their experiences, so if you guys see anything you want added to this, or otherwise, let me know. I hope this helps make a decision for people that are looking to cross this bridge. I will tell you this, I almost never shoot without these. I don’t believe in adding gradient filters in post processing, and believe that filters are still a valuable tool to photographers who know how and when to use them, and I think they will never become obsolete. I agree a lot of things can be done in PS, but it still doesn’t make up for good exposure made at point of capture.

You can read more by typing Neutral Density Filter into a google search, or here is the Wiki enty: Neutral density filter – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here is the Grad wiki:
Graduated neutral density filter – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, I am by no means saying I know everything there is to know about this topic, and I am always learning, so if you have something to add, please add it. And Mods, consider stickying this, so people can easily find it, or put it into a threads of note thread.

One other thing you may want to consider is a tripod if you don’t own one, as longer exposures require them to keep camera shake introduced by you the photographer out of the shot, and keep it sharp.

Enjoy this,
-Andy

Edits:

One thing I’d add in selecting the “right” GND filter to use for a given scene is to start by understanding the difference between the dark and light points in it. I might also add that the cost difference between a 10 stop screw in filter and a 2 stop is substantial. You can stack ND filters as well (and don’t forget step rings provide you with greater flexibility too).

There is quite a price difference between a 10stop filter, and a 2 or 3 stop filter. For example a B+W screw in 77mm 10 stop will run you about $100 depending on vendor. A 2 or 3 stop tiffen ND or GND will cost you about $40.

Also, in the realm of round/screw-in filters, you could also buy the filter bigger than your lens ring size, then use a step up ring to alliviate any vignetting you have from a stack of filters. You can stack filters, that is why filters have threads on them, and filter holders have multiple slots, but be aware, that some ND’s are not of the best optical quality, and depending on the quality of your IR filter on your CMOS, it can cause color casts on your shots based on some wavelengths of light not making it through the 3 stacked 3stop ND’s you have on the front of your camera. Formatt freely admits that you may see color casts from the Hi-Tech 10 stop ND. It is just that something that dark is going to filter some light wavelengths. Usually blue, since it is a shorter wavelength than red, and then you may see red casts to your shots. So keep this in mind when buying, and using the filters. If the scene is really dark to begin with, you are going to need a lot more shutter time to make the proper exposure.

More good reading here about color casts:
Crummy ND filters seem to be a crummy IR filter… – FM Forums

Zone Focusing – Street Photography Part 2

When shooting street photography it is often important to be able to fire off a shot without any delay or hesitation, from yourself, or your gear, to capture that moment of shown emotion or humor or who knows what.

Street Photography Series

  1. Previous Attempts
  2. Zone Focusing
  3. Hyperfocal Distance
  4. Progress?
  5. Tips and Tricks from the Web

Zone Focusing Overview

One of the techniques you can use to ensure there is no delay from your equipment is to pre-focus using the zone focusing technique. What this requires is a good estimation of distance ahead of time. The general idea is to set the focus to a given range (or zone) ahead of time, and shoot within this zone. This technique is very effective with older manual focus lenses but can also be used with autofocus lenses, set to manual focus mode.

How to Focus on a Zone – DOF Scale

Many (in fact all the ones I own) older lenses will have a handy DOF scale or guide built into the focus and aperture rings on the lens. This article has a fantastic shot and explanation of how the guide on your lens can help you. As I’ve said, you need to have a reasonably good judge of distance to use this method, but if you don’t, try it out, because you will soon learn to be able to judge the distances better.

Without a DOF Scale

If you are using a lens which does not have a handy DOF guide (most newer lenses do not) you can still use the zone focusing technique, however you will need to pre-calculate your DOF (use the online calculator here), or use an application such as Photobuddy to help you out (this is the what I do).

Does It Work

I have used this technique in the past with my 50mm lens. I set the aperture to f8.0, then focused to 8m on the focusing scale. This gives a DOF of 11m (5.3m to 16.3m) on my K200D (the sensor crop factor does play a factor here!). Then when shooting all you need to do is pick your subjects within that range.

Good luck with your Zone Focusing!

Tips and Attempts – Street Photography Part 1

I have decided to try to get better at shooting some street type stuff. I have done a little of it before, but not very successfully. So this will be the start of another series, this time all about street.

Street Photography Series

  1. Previous Attempts
  2. Zone Focusing
  3. Hyperfocal Distance
  4. Progress?
  5. Tips and Tricks from the Web

I sent Javier (who writes the Street Vision blog) a message the other day asking for some advice on focusing techniques. He suggested using hyperfocal distance and zone focusing, he also suggested I write an article on the subject, which I will when I have experience in using them. This has been a bit of a catalyst for me to try out street shooting again, and write about my experiences, successful and not. I will be posting a number of links in this series as I learn by reading others work, so be prepared for some clicking.

I will start the series with some of my previous attempts at street shooting. I believe most are pretty boring, but they are street shots none the less. Lets see if I can improve the shots as this series goes on!

If you are a street shooter, let me know your tips to include, if you want to share your own street shots, post those too!

 

 

 

Autopano Pro and Giga

Following on from my previous posts about panoramas, and the Brenizer narrow DOF panorama technique. I am briefly going to give Autopano’s panorama stitching software a plug, and explain how I use it. Autopano is one of the best panorama stitching applications around. I never have had any problems with it (that weren’t fixed by an update shortly later!) when stitching panoramas, even those as large as 100 shots.

I use Autopano Giga 2, although I really only use the features in Autopano Pro. My usual workflow for a panorama is as follows :-

  • Shoot in Pentax RAW, Manual mode but Auto White Balance
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Set a custom white balance on 1 image from the panorama
  • Select all images in panorama and sync the white balance to the value I chose.
  • Export all images in the panorama to a new subfolder (eg. Pano-1) as 16 bit TIFF
  • Open the new subfolder in an explorer window
  • Open Autopano
  • Create a new group in Autopano
  • Select all the files in the subfolder in the explorer window, and drag and drop onto the new group in Autopano
  • Edit the settings on the group in Autopano. Set the project folder to the subfolder location. Turn off Auto colour correction, sometimes I will increase the number of control points if there are few features in the images.
  • Click the Detect button in Autpano, it will then stitch the images and render a small preview.
  • Click the Render button in Autopano next to the preview. It will show a dialog with the render options. I render to a 16 bit TIFF with ZIP compression, and I change the output folder to be 1 above the subfolder (the same folder as the original import from camera). Also don’t forget to check the output size, if the panorama is not going to be printed extremely large, scale down the render, it will save a lot of time! And finally I change the filename to match the subfolder name, eg Pano-1.tif.
  • Once rendering is complete, I return to Lightroom, library and synchronize the import folder, select Import new files, show import dialog before importing.
  • Then I deselect the All option and only select the base import folder where I saved the panorama to.
  • My Pano-1.tif file should now be present along with the original panorama frames in the library, I can edit it as I please (crop, curves, colours etc)
  • And the final step is to export to JPG for publishing and also to DNG for archiving purposes.

Well that workflow took a more to write down than I expected. I hope it helps you out next time you are doing a panorama!

Tips for Shooting Panoramas

Shooting panoramas is something I have done a little bit of now. It allows you to really get some great large images, without having a super expensive camera or lenses. Some tips I’ve found from experience.

  • Avoid Parallax – Landscapes work best, where most of the image is at infinity focus or close to it. This avoids parallax error. (see here for a good article about parallax error)
  • Camera Orientation – Shoot with the camera in portrait orientation when doing a landscape orientation panorama, this gives a much better final image, not too wide for the height. With a portrait orientation panorama, shoot with the camera in landscape orientation.
  • Manual Exposure – Set the camera on manual mode, so all shots will be at the same ISO / shutter / aperture. You can use another auto mode to get the required exposure for the panorama. Pick the point in the panorama which will be brightest, and use the exposure information to guide your manual settings.
  • White Balance – If shooting JPG also set the white balance (dont use Auto white balance) so that the white balance is the same for all the shots (if you shoot RAW then make sure you set the white balance to the same for all shots before you merge the panorama).
  • Overlap! – Make sure you overlap shots by plenty. Better to have too many photos to stitch than having gaps. I aim for about 50% overlap. To do this when you compose the next shot in the sequence, have something that was at the very edge of the previous frame, and move it to the centre of the next.
  • Shoot Extra – Go extra around the edges. Dont stop where you want the final cropped panorama to finish. When correcting distortion you can often lose parts of the edges of the image. So go an extra row if you are doing a multiple row panorama, and go for an extra shot at either end of what you would like to show in the final image.
  • Manual Focus – Make sure the camera is set to manual focus. By all means use autofocus to get the correct focus, but then switch to manual. This will make sure the focus doesnt change between shots.

Thats all I can think of just at the moment, I’ll add more if I think of them! :)

Good luck panorama shooting.