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Stitched image mimicking LF

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
Here is a stitched image from 10 shots (5x2 rows) of the interior of St Stephens in Vienna taken with a D700 and 85mm F1.4 lens. Details in the image caption.

http://qdfb.smugmug.com/photos/403770683_MFQe9-O.jpg

I still occasionally shoot 8x10 film, but doing so is complex and not practical when traveling. Modern software and cameras allow even hand-held shots to be stitched to a high degree of accuracy. Note I don't say that these stitched shots are as good as true LF images shot with camera movements etc. I don't think they are, but they can still be pretty good.

Quentin
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Your stitch looks very good.
That sort of shot is often bedeviled by wild variation of color temperature which is not evident in your fine example.
I guess it would have been more difficult if the congregation were moving around a lot.
-bob
 

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
Bob, Mike,

So far as technique goes, I used a decent lens, the 85mm F/1.4 Nikkor. Using a standard or moderate telephoto means less distortion, which is a good start.

I focused on the altar. It was pretty dark, so I shot at f.1.8, which means fairly shallow DOF but that looks natural to me. Metering was a compromise because of the very wide dynamic range. Obviously the D700 was on manual.

then it was a question of mentally working out what the heck I was going to do! On a tripod with a pano head, its pretty easy doing an accurate two row series of shots. Hand-held as here, its a tad more difficult, but I did a dummy run, then just shot away as carefully as I could (portrait format), five shots top, left to right, then five shots bottom, left to right. I have a tendency not to shoot very level, and some of the shots were a tad skewed. Anyway, after recovering as much highlight detail as I could in Silkypix, I converted to 16bit tiffs, then loaded in to PTGui, optimised, chose the default rendering, check the control points, did a preview run, then opted for the largest pano size it would generate, saved out using the Smartblend plug-in (Enblend is as good - don't use the standard PTGui blending engine) as 16bit tiff, Adobe RGB. The final result needed a bit of perspective correction in Photoshop and a little cropping to get rid of the rough bits around the edges, then a little post processing to improve the dynamic range.

It was not too difficult - just takes a bit of care. But what it means is it is possible to use a high quality dslr when traveling to produce the kind of images that would otherwise be difficult without bulkier kit. With a tripod, I could have gone for an HDR stitch by shooting different exposures, but I don't think I have lost out here - this is how I remember the shot. In fact its a bit better in some ways.

Quentin
 
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jonoslack

Active member
Nicely done Q
I would have found it hard to resist getting the depth of field right through (tricky handheld though I suppose).

Are you going to make a mega print?
 

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
Nicely done Q
I would have found it hard to resist getting the depth of field right through (tricky handheld though I suppose).

Are you going to make a mega print?
Hi Jono,

DOF is not far off where you'd be at with LF in a shot like this where you could not use movements and the light (or lack thereof) was a limiting factor (even with a D700!) - so it is right, in my view.

Megaprint is probably not on the cards. I'm running low on ink for the 7600. The new 24" printers from HP and Epson look good.

Cheers

Quentin
 

jonoslack

Active member
Hi Jono,

DOF is not far off where you'd be at with LF in a shot like this where you could not use movements and the light (or lack thereof) was a limiting factor (even with a D700!) - so it is right, in my view.

Megaprint is probably not on the cards. I'm running low on ink for the 7600. The new 24" printers from HP and Epson look good.

Cheers

Quentin
Shhhhhhh - don't they - we're getting some wraps done for a couple of clients (you know those nasty canvas things). I'm hoping that they might order enough to make it worthwhile getting one of those BIIIG printers to do the job!
 

Jeremy

New member
DOF is not far off where you'd be at with LF in a shot like this where you could not use movements and the light (or lack thereof) was a limiting factor (even with a D700!) - so it is right, in my view.

Quentin
I disagree, because if you're shooting large format you're *probably* on a tripod which means you can stop down as needed. If you're talking hand-held LF (like the Fotoman cameras) then all bets are off....

Here's a church example with LF.

 
V

Vivek

Guest
Quentin, Nice example but as Jeremy says what is there to mimick? :)
 

Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
Jeremy,

Great shot. I agree of course (i.e. I don't think we do disagree) - although with 8x10, which is the only LF I still occasionally shoot, DOF is shallow even if you stop way down, and particularly if you can't take advantage of the Scheimpflug principle to get front to back sharpness. Much also depends on final print size... and what do you use to print B&W? I was an early Piezography adopter (Jon Cone's stuff) but I can't see much benefit from that system now given how good current generation printers have become at monochrome.

Still I'm not knocking LF, which is still the best option in a moderate contrast environment, but its a pain - even though I own my own drum scanner.

And Vivek, I guess every solution throws up new challenges and the solutions have their own quirks :)

And Jono....just place the order, you'll love it (and I want you to test drive one of the new ones for me :toocool: )

Quentin
 
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Jeremy

New member
Jeremy,

Much also depends on final print size... and what do you use to print B&W?

Quentin
Very true. My most common print size is only 12" x 15" in gum over palladium using a digital negative. I could easily do this with many digital cameras, but I just enjoy shooting large format quite a bit.

-Jeremy-
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Quentin, Quite right. I hope to see more from you.

Perhaps, we should send a Jono a D700. After his switch to the "walkman", the traffic here is slow!
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Hi All, been doing some hand held Panoramics with the D700 @ ISO 800 and Zeiss 28/2 for fun (I do them for profit with a H3D-II/39 : -)

Pretty amazing what you can accomplish with a 12 meg camera and the right optic even at a higher ISO. The original is 35"" wide after cropping and without up-sizing. An easy 50" print.

Early morning in Times Square last Sunday ... I was the "tripod":ROTFL:
 

durrIII

New member
Marc, is that you? I love this shot of Times Square. Great pan! My bro-in-law lives up there. I would love to send him a copy. How much for a print?

Durr Wise (from photo.net)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Hi Durr.

Yes, I admit it ... it is me :)

What size print?

I can only print to 21.25" wide on my Epson 3800.

If you want something larger I can ftp the file to you to get printed yourself for $20.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
File is being sent now. It will take awhile since it is 500 meg.

You will get an e-mail when it's ready to download at your end. It's being sent through my company's SendThisFile FTP account (Stone & Simons Advertising.)
It will take a long time to download also, so be patient.

Sorry, I think you misunderstood (I guess I wasn't clear enough) ... my price was $20. to me ... then you go get it printed to any size you want. A really big print will be more than $20.

I'm still being nice aren't I? :angel:
 
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