I’m not sure what fully set it off, but I have been taking a ton of panoramic style shots lately. It’s such a great way to change the way you see the world you live in and remind yourself there is much more visual possibility than meets the eye or what you can capture in one frame. These shots that I have taken are not all in one captured frame, but created with multiple photos combined to create a very surreal perspective. I remember trying it over a year ago and failing heavily at it, but at the time I don’t think I realized the variables that make it possible.
Why My First Try Didn’t Work
If subjects or parts of a scene are moving from wind or something like that it can make it every difficult for photoshop to merge the photos together. THe wind was blowing the snow all over the ice up in door county which made it very hard for photoshop to analyze and figure out. Photoshop is awesome, but it doesn’t just fix everything for you. That is a common misconception many people have with photoshop. There is no such thing as point and click on one button to make your photo awesome. This isn’t Instagram and even on Instagram there are people that do a poor job of using the filters. I was also using a pretty tight focal length, which is doable, but with it being cold and me being a bit shaky, I didn’t have quite the best alignment of my shots. I also did not provide enough overlay for the photos to work well with each other with similar matter within the photographs.
Why I’ve Been More Successful
First Off I have been using a much wider angle lens at a focal length of 24mm on a full frame sensor rather than a 50mm on a cropped sensor. Huge Difference. I have been leaving at least a 30-40% overlay as I pan across the seen and snap my shots. This allows photoshop to find similar matter and blend them together much better. I have also been applying lens distortion correction to get rid of abnormal curves in the abstract perspectives that panoramic images can create using wide lenses which eliminates that “fisheye” effect. I would batch edit or select all the photos in RAW and do some quick edits on them to have similar looks to them. I love to be able to do some quick noise reduction or sharpening in RAW rather then after I export them to merge in a compressed format. I personally believe that the clarity can help photoshop with the merging process. So far my process has improved and the next best thing I can do is use a tripod to get great smooth pans to really help align the shots. Most of the time I just do it on the go and use a line in my viewer to keep myself level when I pan or tilt. I will recap some quick tips for successful photo merging for you below.
Quick Tips for Creating Panoramic Images
1. Use a Tripod.
2. Use a wide angle lens. (not required, but makes it easier.)
3. Allow for at least 30-40% overlay between each panned or tilted shot.
4. Make sure there aren’t too many moving objects or subjects in the planned panoramic image.
5. Shooting the pans vertically rather than horizontally allows you to capture much more height in your image.
6. Remember you will have to crop after photos merge because of the sporadic edges that will be created. Shoot more shots than you think you should.
On a side note, changing perspective is not only good for our creative work, but can be applied to all instances in our life. Sometimes things happen in our lives that we don’t quite understand or get upset about. We sometimes get wrapped up in what we wanted out of a situation or get a little selfish. We as human beings can tend to forget to change our perspective to comprehend why things may have happened or how another person may feel based on their side of the story. Sometimes we can find out just by stepping back and having an open mind. There are other times when we may need to just be a kind and open ear and hear what their side of the story is or how they truly feel from the situation.Tinnitus & Hearing Center of AZ – Scottsdale Audiologist is a good professional aid for any hearing problems.Perspective is key to solving some of life’s hardest equations.
My cousin, Adam, told me a quote in one of his recent comments that I find most reassuring when it comes to almost anything in life,
“We’re always going to be in process till the day that we die.”
It reminds me that even if I don’t undertand why something happens today, I will understand it some day and embrace it even more.
Hello Mr. Bear, Very fine tuned and effective, philosophically and photo-wise, the first a boardwalk is my favorite. The 30-40% overlap is very true as otherwise the exposures and contrasts between the photos to be stitched are sometimes very disparate, this cost me some very nice panoramics. I’m going to tune into your pages thanks, David Askew
a Seattlite in France.. PS I feel that photography applied with the right headset is one of many effective tools to avoid what I term an NLE (Near Life Experience)
Thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate your thoughts. I have learned a lot over the last year and I am even excited for the next more posts to come! Glad you enjoy my work! Take care.