Digital Panorama

Panorama photographs are so easy with digital images and for me they have presented a host of new opportunities.  I'm not sure how a professional photographer would approach a panorama shot but I have a few guidelines developed from my own experience that seem to work and if possible, I try to adhere to most of them - which to be honest seldom happens...

One thing I have learnt from using Olympus and Fuji cameras (the ones that use XD memory) is that you should start working from the left of the shot, especially if you intend to use the XD panorama facility together with Olympus panorama software.  Actually it makes sense to have a routine regardless of the software you use and frankly, there is better software available as I shall demonstrate so establish a procedure and you'll find your panorama shots work well even in difficult conditions.

If you can use a tripod that's fine but it isn't essential as long as you try to get your shots fairly well matched on the horizontal plane, and overlapping by at least 10% and anything up to 50%.  You can manage with a smaller overlap but there are good reasons why wider is better - for example some inexpensive cameras produce images that are darker towards the edges than in the middle.  A wide overlap gives the software a decent chance of eliminating such exposure variations so the finished picture is consistent in tone.  Also make your shots taller shot than you really want to allow for generous cropping.

What you really must not do is alter the zoom level since that will cause a very serious mismatch with which the panorama software will be unable to deal.  You may change position in order to eliminate the 'curvature' caused by perspective convergent (as seen in the example below) if there are suitable viewpoints.  In this instance you should make sure you have generous overlaps and nothing in the foreground that will cause a 'ghost' image, such as street furniture or trees or people. 

Also try to ensure consistent lighting which means taking all your shots at the same time and in fairly quick succession.  Sunsets are particularly difficult to capture in panorama unless you are quick.  The reason being that the position of the sun at such times moves perceivably and if you allow more than a few seconds between shots, you might find the image of the sun and any clouds becomes distorted.  The same applies when there are people, animals or vehicles in the shot.

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Software

I recommend Panorama Composer which is astonishingly easy to use but produces excellent results. If you don't have any software at present I recommend this because it does just about everything you could wish for and costs about £16 for a full license.  You can download a 30 day trial from http://panorama.firmtools.com and you get a superb package that will deliver everything you'll need to produce amazing panorama shots. 

If you choose this one you'll be able to send panorama shots with a proper player embedded so your recipient can see them to best advantage.  Better still, if you want to display your panoramas on a website, it will produce the HTML code for inclusion in your own template or webpage as the following example demonstrates.

First of all choose your shots.  I've chosen four fairly awful shots of a local beauty spot just to demonstrate a 'worst-case' scenario.  Notice the generous overlap on each frame but also note how the light and colour doesn't match in the two end ones.  This is more a result of the camera's automatic exposure settings than changing light conditions so if you have manual settings available, try to use them to gain some consistency.

      

      

As it is, the two end shots need some correction before I attempt to 'stitch' them together so I used Paint Shop Pro to adjust the 'gamma' and colour balance.  This gave me a better, though not a perfect match.  However the software will deal with this by making adjustments in the overlapping areas so the finished picture will appear seamless.

      

      

Having made a reasonable match, it is not time to import the photos into the software, place them in the correct order, then let the program do it's magic and in a few moment, hey presto!  A beautiful wide view of Monsal Dale in Derbyshire.

Panorama Maker offers several very useful settings that give you control over the final image.  These include lens correction and pixel density on overlapping areas.  You can save your pictures as standard JPG files, as animated HTML files for websites, or even an EXE file with it's own built-in player so you can share it or send a copy via email.   However you want to use it, it is one of the best available at any price and I recommend it.