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Panorama Technique

David K

Workshop Member
Ben,
Great tips and very much appreciated. I'll try to digest them as I play with the demo some more. I haven't been shooting middle frame first... I can see where that will resolve some of the issues I've run into. As far as being resource hungry both programs are memory hogs and use almost all of my 10 GB of RAM. Can't remember specifically what brought on the crash but I did check it in task manager at the time. I have found though that crashed programs (showing red in Task Manager) sometimes "uncrash" by themselves if given some time. Maybe that's what happened here and I didn't give it enough time.
 

David K

Workshop Member
David

I have both Autopano Pro and PT Gui and like both. I have had a few more difficulties with AutoPano though than with PT Gui. However both can create very nice Pano's. I wonder which software is used by Arne Hvaring? He has posted some really great panos on these threads.

Woody
Is there any good reason to have both... seems to me it's an either or thing. Unless you had one, tried the other and found it better (or thought so at the time) I don't see the need for both. From what I've read from experienced pano shooters (mostly on LL) they seem to wind up with PT Gui. I've watched my friend Andre spend a lot of time lining up control points with PT Gui and still have problems where certain of the frames don't really have any. For example, Andre was shooting a 360 pano of his studio and the frames with the white cyc wall didn't line up automatically and, for all intents and purposes there are no control points on a white wall. Same thing if you run into an expanse of sky that's got no clouds in it. These would be easy as pie to fix in post by cloning IF you could get the program to render the pano.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
David, the trick is to make sure the files are in number order right to left or top to bottom. That's why I ran into some problems. Having images mixed around seems to confuse the program. Wasn't I have 3 gig of ram and Autopano will use up over 2 gig when rendering. Given that CS3 has the rights to 2 gig as well, running PS or bridge makes my system panic but I've never had a crash.
 

David K

Workshop Member
Ben,
If you're shooting multiple panos, i.e. different scenes do you put them in different folders or just let Autopano Pro find them on it's own and do it's thing.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Different folders. I'm sure that Autopano can find pano's but a) I need to organise them for myself and b) I often shoot pano's as the light changes and there are more than one 'set', I want the program to work with what I choose not with what it thinks is best! BTW you can select only specific images as opposed to a whole folder, it's the icon next to the one with a folder on it.

I think the reasons most experienced shooters use PT is because for a long time it really was the only game in town, lot of people paid for it and know it inside out. It is faster and seems to be fooled less often by default than Autopano but I like the interface better myself on Autopano and I know it pretty damn well.

I have PTGUI on my computer and it had a fit trying to line up this image below, said I had to add control points. Some of the images were pretty cropped because I was refocusing and PT really didn't like it. Autopano got it perfect once I'd set the RMS to 2.

 
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David K

Workshop Member
Ben, I'd like to know how you decide what focal length to use on a given pano. Take the image above for example. If I were shooting that one with MF and wanted to get that look I'd probably shoot with my normal 80mm lens stopped down to around f/11.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Perspective. I'm looking for a 50mm perseptive when shooting this stuff, keeps the near/far relationship as I want it. When you shoot a pano however you are getting a wider FOV by definition. As such to achieve the same perspective I need to use between 70-100mm. To be honest 70mm is too wide, in my test shots the wall on the left was more predominant. I zoomed back a bit because I was hurting for DOF.
 

yaya

Active member
There's always the rough and dirty way....

Handheld, AFi-7 with 80mm AFD and WLF, 7 horizontals with loads of overlap, about 24,000 pixel wide:



Photomerge straight from the raws, all set to "auto"

Yair
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Your new wide chip is going to be great for pano shooters, with that much resolution and the wider ratio you will only need a few frames to get incredible pano's. Not that any casual pano shooter can afford it but such is life! :D
 

David K

Workshop Member
Yair and Ben,
The advantages of shooting with normal perspective lenses are starting to make more sense to me now. My original thinking was that a wider lens, offering an expanded FOV, would make pano's easier but I'm feeling now that quite the opposite is true. Need to go reshoot some panos with the MF kit and 80mm lens. Agree with you, Ben, about Leaf's wider chip, a boon for pano shooting.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Different folders. I'm sure that Autopano can find pano's . . .
I have PTGUI on my computer and it had a fit trying to line up this image below, said I had to add control points. Some of the images were pretty cropped because I was refocusing and PT really didn't like it. Autopano got it perfect once I'd set the RMS to 2.
I use both PTGui and Autopano. PTGui seems to do a better job when there are archiitectural features that cross multiple frames and require proper perspective, etc. Autopano seems to be better at working out control points - it often works where PTGui doesn't. For many images I try both to see which I prefer. By the way the stitching feature in Photoshop PS3 also works very well, although it's somewhat less flexible than the stand-alone packages.

Autopano is more flexible hand held. I many cases I just make a lot of overlapping exposures handheld with a longish lens. Autopano handles these even if overlaps, and numbers of images in rows, are inconsistent.
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
RE: "focus manually on a distant point"

Given your style of shooting, if you are looking to maximize DOF without causing diffraction then it's probably worth your time to mark your lenses for hyperfocal at your desired f-stop.

Select your desired f-stop, point towards infinity, and slowly draw focus back until infinity loses any sharpness at all, then back off towards infinity just a hair (to allow for mistakes in the field and variation in temperature). Doing this while tethered to a large monitor of course is the fastest, but regardless of method, judge each image at 100% with only pre-sharpening. Mark this focus point (or just make a mental note); also of use would be to then note what the closest "acceptable" focus is at that focus point. I do this with all of the range-finder tech cameras we have in stock so when I go out to play with them I know what I don't have to worry about focusing.

That way there is one less variable to mess up when capturing multiple images. Nothing worse than shooting 20 images and coming back to find something awry.

For anyone in the Miami area: we are having the 2nd in a 3-part seminar on image combination this coming month. The last topic was on depth of field stacking. The upcoming topic is on... drum role please... panoramic stitching.

P.S. http://dofmaster.com/dofjs.html has a great calculator, but I rarely find that more useful for determining hyperfocal at a particular always-used-f-stop than just shooting and seeing when infinity looses sharpness.

Doug Peterson
Capture Integration, Phase One Dealer
Doug Peterson Personal Portfolio
 

David K

Workshop Member
Good tips guys, they are appreciated.

Doug,
Do you have a date for the seminar... if not, drop me a line when you do.
 

woodyspedden

New member
Is there any good reason to have both... seems to me it's an either or thing. Unless you had one, tried the other and found it better (or thought so at the time) I don't see the need for both. From what I've read from experienced pano shooters (mostly on LL) they seem to wind up with PT Gui. I've watched my friend Andre spend a lot of time lining up control points with PT Gui and still have problems where certain of the frames don't really have any. For example, Andre was shooting a 360 pano of his studio and the frames with the white cyc wall didn't line up automatically and, for all intents and purposes there are no control points on a white wall. Same thing if you run into an expanse of sky that's got no clouds in it. These would be easy as pie to fix in post by cloning IF you could get the program to render the pano.
David

You are absolutely correct...........there is no need for both. I had PT Gui and trialled Autopano and seemed to get better results. So I bought it. Now I am not so sure that this was true. I think it may just have been the particular images I was stitching that made the software seem different. So on further reflection I would recommend you try both and choose the one you feel is best for you

Woody
 

Don Libby

Well-known member
Going though some older images shot late last year.

Seven shot panorama with the Mamiya 28mm lens. I shoot manual left to right overlapping at least 30 to 40%. This was shot 1/400 at F.8 using photomerge directly from CS3 then cropping the excess unwanted stuff. "Native" image turns out at 8506 by 5855 pixels. I used RRS pano gear.....



Sorry if its too large - I thought I had dumbed it down enough.

don
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Wow Don... just spectacular. I've got the RRS pano gear and CS3 but my images don't look like this :)
In all fairness David, you need to keep in mind Don IS shooting a Mamiya...


:ROTFL: :ROTFL: :ROTFL:
 
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