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Boke Panoramas - large format with small cameras

Paratom

Well-known member
Carsten,
I just wondered if the effect of a very fast wide angle wide open should be the same as a stitched from a longer lens? What do you think?
Tom
 

Lars

Active member
Carsten,
I just wondered if the effect of a very fast wide angle wide open should be the same as a stitched from a longer lens? What do you think?
Tom
If I recall correctly - I hope I got this right:

For a given angle of view it's the actual physical diameter of the aperture that determines the amount of defocus. This would mean that a stitched image of 2x2 frames from a 50 mm lens at f/4 (12.5 mm aperture) would appear similar to a single frame from a 25mm lens at f/2 (also 12.5 mm aperture) (same size frame, for example full-frame 24x36 mm).

So let's say that Carsten's tree image corresponds to a 4x4 frame stitch (96x144 mm) when we take overlaps into account - essentially a 4x6" format image. He used a 100 mm lens, so that would correspond to a field of view of a 100/4 = 25 mm lens. The corresponding aperture for a 25 mm lens would then be 3.3/4 = 0.825. That would be a sweet lens indeed.

Carsten has pinpointed with the tree image what sets larger formats apart from smaller: Extremely shallow depth of field, even for wide angle lenses. As a comparison, I have for large format a f/5.6 100 mm Apo-Symmar lens that just covers 4x5", perhaps wide open it would yield results comparable to Carsten's image but there would be a lot of corner fall-off. Stepping up to 8x10, I have a f/5.6 210 mm Fujinon. Shooting that one wide open would yield slightly shallower DOF, whereas f/6.6 should make DOF appear about the same as in Carsten's image (if it was a 200 mm lens). All approximations, of course.
 

carstenw

Active member
Ach, I forgot the vignetting again! Damn, I have to remember this. I will try adding it and see how it looks.

Tom, as Lars points out, some of the characteristics are similar between large format wide angles and small format stitched photos, but not all. The look of the lens remains per lens. I would love to use 8x10" digital with the Cooke that I think Lars has, but this is a pipe dream.

How is your S2 photography going?
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Ach, I forgot the vignetting again! Damn, I have to remember this. I will try adding it and see how it looks.

Tom, as Lars points out, some of the characteristics are similar between large format wide angles and small format stitched photos, but not all. The look of the lens remains per lens. I would love to use 8x10" digital with the Cooke that I think Lars has, but this is a pipe dream.

How is your S2 photography going?
Hi Carsten,
S2 does fine but time is limited.
Sometimes I still think that I also want something different for some occasions, either tech camera or maybe LF.

...Iasked about the fast WA with one image in my mind and just found it again (24/1.4 on M9)...but just, obviously the DOF is shallow but not as shallow and smooth as the one in the stitches you posted.
 

Lars

Active member
I would love to use 8x10" digital with the Cooke that I think Lars has, but this is a pipe dream.
Well... The Cooke XVa is a really nice lens for 8x10 (partly because of its convertible feature) but if you compare resolving power to a stitch of 25 frames from your Zeiss it probably wouldnt measure up - it comes down to MTF of lp/mm. 40 lp/mm is quite sufficient on 8x10 whereas on a 24x36 sensor it would be a bit soft even on a 12 Mpx sensor.

Next question, of course would be where we would find an 8x10" sensor. Now THAT's a pipe dream :D.

EDIT: Well, what do you know, somebody created a 10 megapixel 8x10 back - yours (or his) for $500K:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/08/23/mitchell-feinbergs-8x10-digital-capture-back/
 
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Lars

Active member
Tom,
I think you'll find that the tree in Carsten's image really just is a little bush - look at the grass straws near the trunk. So the focusing distance in your image is much larger, thus the almost sharp background.
...Iasked about the fast WA with one image in my mind and just found it again (24/1.4 on M9)...but just, obviously the DOF is shallow but not as shallow and smooth as the one in the stitches you posted.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
I've had a look into this kind of thing, attempting the LF look from stitching frames with shallow DOF. First thing I learnt was that you need a lot, a heck of a lot of frames for it to work, Yes you can cover 4X5 with 16 FF DSLR frames but when you need to shoot overlap it's nearer 30. That's before you HDR or bracket. You end up with the same issues you face with LF, it becomes slow, very very slow. From the shooting to the processing. Nevermind the changing light during the shots, etc. I'll be honest that if I was trying for that look, the tonality/shallow DOF/long lens used close up, etc of a 4X5+ format I'd be very tempted to say screw it, just shoot film in the first place. If you are going for pure resolution then of course you can do it in a fraction of the frames with a good DSLR but if you want the tonality it's somewhat different.

Oh for the return of T55!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Lars

Active member
Oh I would say it's even slower - and it's not single-shot so it's even less useful for subjects that are not stationary.

Interesting to try if you don't have an LF rig though - and I think experimenting should be encouraged for those willing to make the effort.
 

carstenw

Active member
The 8x10" digital sensor is interesting, but costs 6 figures and is only 12MP. The guy who commissioned it only uses it as a digital Polaroid, doing the final shot with film. As such, I doubt the back has very good quality, just sufficient.

I find it takes me about the same amount of time to set up my 4x5 (Linhof MT) or to set up my D3 and do a panorama, carefully. The development is of course faster with the digital photos, since if you do it carefully, you just throw them into Autopano Pro and let it do its thing.

Tom, if instead of taking that shot from where you were standing, you used the same lens, but went twice as close, made two vertical shots and stitched them, you would have much less depth of field. By going twice as close with the 24, you would also change the perspective, since the relative distances to the various parts of the tree would change.

My shots were taken from about 2-3m, and I took 25 shots with a 100mm at f/3.3. This is quite extreme, but you can't get that look without similar numbers.

Here is another one I made yesterday, 100MP@f/3.3, 41 shots:

 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Oh I would say it's even slower - and it's not single-shot so it's even less useful for subjects that are not stationary.

Interesting to try if you don't have an LF rig though - and I think experimenting should be encouraged for those willing to make the effort.
Very much agree! I spent about 3 hours experimenting with it last night actually, working out how many frames and what focal length I needed to give a 5X4 sensor real estate with the resolution of my 5D. Quick answer was use the same focal length you would use on a 5X4 but on the 35mm camera and stitch to cover the necessary FOV. In other words a 150mm lens to cover the 46 degree FOV provided by a 50mm lens on my DSLR. Ditto 90mm lens to cover the 65 degree FOV provided by a 28mm lens on a DSLR. Not actually a huge amount of frames, 25 will do it easily with room to spare.

Most importantly, what is needed is the vision to make something like this work! I have to work on that aspect.
 
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carstenw

Active member
Well, there is nothing to do but get started :) My first attempts were not so satisfactory, but I learned much from trying, and I am getting closer to what I want all the time. The tree with the red berries is what I have been trying to get. Now I need to get good enough to get that effect with other types of subjects too.
 

Pierrard

New member
If I may, I would like to keep this thread going - I just started trying this method myself and want to continue!

My first bokeh panorama that I'm happy with:


Nikon D90, 50/1.8 at f/4, four shots vertical.
 

pophoto

New member
I'm sorry, I thought there was some sort of focus stacking involved to give the 'boke' effect. I recently did some HDR panoramics, and found it tricky in strong sunlight situations and moving people and trees swaying. Hence I wondered about the process/methodology to achieve a 'greater' boke effect in 35mm for pans.
 

Pierrard

New member
Focus stacking is for when you have an extremely small depth of field (especially in macro applications) and want to extend the depth of field by shooting multiple images focussed at various points along the subject. Software is then used to get all the in-focus areas onto a single layered shot.

In comparison, Boke(h) panoramas are panoramas in the sense of stitching images together to get a wider field of view than your lens at that focal length will give. The term boke(h) is used because the panoramas are done usually at a fast aperture, such that there are substantial out-of-focus regions (that is, there is a goodly amount of subject isolation).

The methodology is pretty simple: multiple overlapping images (like a standard digital panorama) which are stitched together in software, with a shallow depth of field due to fast aperture or longer focal length. The result is a larger field of view where the depth of field is substantially smaller than would be expected at that equivalent focal length.

Since large format cameras are very well known for this type of image, this methodology is a way of emulating the "look" of large format, using small format digital sensors.

Hope that clears things up!
 

pophoto

New member
Focus stacking is for when you have an extremely small depth of field (especially in macro applications) and want to extend the depth of field by shooting multiple images focussed at various points along the subject. Software is then used to get all the in-focus areas onto a single layered shot.

In comparison, Boke(h) panoramas are panoramas in the sense of stitching images together to get a wider field of view than your lens at that focal length will give. The term boke(h) is used because the panoramas are done usually at a fast aperture, such that there are substantial out-of-focus regions (that is, there is a goodly amount of subject isolation).

The methodology is pretty simple: multiple overlapping images (like a standard digital panorama) which are stitched together in software, with a shallow depth of field due to fast aperture or longer focal length. The result is a larger field of view where the depth of field is substantially smaller than would be expected at that equivalent focal length.

Since large format cameras are very well known for this type of image, this methodology is a way of emulating the "look" of large format, using small format digital sensors.

Hope that clears things up!
Thank you Pierrard for your clear explanation.
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Very quick and dirty test with an IQ180 and Mamiya 80mm f/1.9

Poor stitch as I didn't set up the right XML for the sensor.



Planning on a much bigger (multi-gigapixel) landscape shot sometime in the next couple of weeks using the Mamiya 300mm f/2.8 and will post here if people are interested.
 

Pierrard

New member
@gerald.d: that would be awesome! I do have to say the stitching errors in your initial test here are distracting, but a landscape shot (without the grief of parallax errors) would be very interesting, especially at that kind of focal length.
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Yeah - as I said, this was just a really quick and dirty proof of concept. 20 minutes from start to finish. The set-up was fairly accurate for the nodal point of the lens - it's a stitch issue primarily, rather than parallax problems. I just wanted to get a feel for what the output would look like.

I'll take rather more care over the landscape one ;)
 
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