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Posted on 17/11/09 2:23:06 PM |
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The Mad Lep
Four-Leafed Fantasist Posts: 323 Reply  |
Beach
I was passing the beach today, so I took a few quick snaps. Also took a few pics from higher up, in an area which gives a lovely view on a clear day. Today wasn't ideal though, a lot of watery, wintry sun and ominous looking clouds, but you get the idea anyway. 
The lighthouse you see is (I think) the only one in Ireland situated right at the side of the road. It's been on that site since 1190, when it was originally looked after by an order of nuns, until their order dissolved around 1542. The present lighthouse was rebuilt on the foundations of the old one and was first lit in 1852. Thus endeth useless historical fact number 867.  
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Posted on 17/11/09 2:53:18 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 3853 Reply  |
Re: Beach
Celia, I ran 3 of your images through Autopano and tweaked the shadows and highlights in Photoshop for this....  _________________ Why is there only one body to investigate Monopolies ? |
Posted on 17/11/09 6:15:35 PM |
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The Mad Lep
Four-Leafed Fantasist Posts: 323 Reply |
Re: Beach
Gordon that is awesome!! 
Forgive my ignorance; what is Autopano? That is just great, I love it. How did you make it so seamless? I'm in awe here, educate me!  |
Posted on 17/11/09 7:11:09 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 3853 Reply |
Re: Beach
Hi Celia, Autopano is a panorama creation software which stitches images together. See it here http://www.autopano.net/en/ . There are certain rules to follow for creating good panoramas but this is no problem. Photographs need about 25% overlap and they ought to be taken on a tripod for accuracy with the camera rotating around its 'nodal' axis. The software will automatically correct exposures to even out the lighting. Although there are limits to what this can achieve it has handled the varying exposures on your shots without too much difficulty. Below is an image I posted back at the end of July which used 6 images and covers an angle of some 200 degrees. 
Photoshop has its own image stitching capability under File>Automate>Photomerge but it does not handle the stitching as well as Autopano. I tried the same three images using Photomerge and it made a complete hash of it. The other shot is of Wakehurst Place near me. The original consists of 67 photographs and covers an angle of 360 degrees. The file size is 707.6 Mb. When I was working on it I had to duplicate the layer and found I was working with a file of 1.6 GB. I couldn't render it out at the full size because it is 38,000 pixels wide and Photoshop (CS2) told me it couldn't open a file with a side greater than 30,000 pixels! Gordon 
_________________ Why is there only one word for ‘Thesaurus’? |
Posted on 17/11/09 8:26:17 PM |
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Ben Mills
Luminous Luminary Posts: 570 Reply  |
Re: Beach
I find Photomerge is a bit "user hostile." There is a demo version of Autopano's little brother called Autostitch which is free to download from Here Ben.  |
Posted on 17/11/09 8:45:41 PM |
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The Mad Lep
Four-Leafed Fantasist Posts: 323 Reply |
Re: Beach
Wow! I have a lot to learn about photography, and it's great to have folks to ask, thanks for the details Gordon and Ben. Those look really impressive. Can I ask a stupid question, do you have to have a camera that takes pictures in a certain way, in order for that type of program to join them correctly? It seemed to work pretty impressively on those 3 odd pictures of mine, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work that well on pics taken by a normal camera on default settings. Am I wrong? Either way it looks like great fun to try out, I must definitely have a look at this more. Thanks for that link Ben, I'll give it a try! |
Posted on 17/11/09 11:00:00 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 3853 Reply |
Re: Beach
Any camera can be used to take panoramic shots. I have even used film cameras and scanned the transparencies but, of course, this is rather time consuming. Firstly you ought to have the camera mounted on a tripod. With the shot above you would get away with just rotating your body for each shot as the scene is far away. If you wanted to get really serious you would have a panoramic head (on the tripod - not your shoulders) which would allow you to rotate the camera in even increments but this is not really necessary. And if you want to get REALLY serious you would pop down the shops and get a motorised set up that would download the images as they are taken and dump them straight into the software at the same time as it cooks your spag bol for dinner. The next thing is the exposure. As a general rule it is best to determine the correct exposure and set it manually. Use a small aperture to maximise depth-of-field. It can be done on an automatic setting but you may get different combinations of shutter speed and aperture if set on 'Auto'. It is best not to use Shutter priority as you may get considerable variations of aperture setting as the exposure changes when you rotate the camera. This would give you varying depth-of-field between shots causing potential stitching problems. It is really only a problem if you have objects fairly close to the camera, though. Aperture priority can be used and this should avoid most problems. Exposure may change as you rotate the camera but the software should be able to cope with that to a large extent. The biggest problem can be the focus changing as you rotate the camera if it is set on auto focus. I usually determine where the best point of focus should be, set the camera to that and switch to manual focus so that the setting doesn't change from shot to shot. Using a small aperture will allow depth-of-field to take care of any problems here. The next thing to do is make sure that you have something like a 25% or more overlap between shots so that the stitching software has something to work on. The software cannot work on shots that are butt-jointed. And, of course, it works in the vertical plane as well as horizontal. The shot of Wakehurst Place was made up of 3 rows of 22 shots (plus an extra one that appeared from somewhere!) You can run into problems with 'ghosting' when people or animals appear in the overlap but but have moved out of the next frame. The software is being developed where it will ask you if you wish to keep the artefact or not. If you are shooting a scene and there are fast moving clouds involved then take your shots as quickly as possible as clouds that have moved too much between shots will either give you some ghosting or confuse the software. As with all these things just go out and play with the camera and the software. You'll learn a whole lot more that way than to have someone wittering at you about what is right and what is wrong. _________________ If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried. |
Posted on 18/11/09 2:03:12 PM |
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The Mad Lep
Four-Leafed Fantasist Posts: 323 Reply |
Re: Beach
There's a real wealth of great information there Gordon, thank you! It's a bit daunting, all the technical details, but I know I'll pick it up after a while. I'm really pleased at how much I'm enjoying myself just messing about with it at the moment, so I'm sure the rest will come in time, as I get used to things and discover the settings. A friend has loaned me a basic little how-to book, which will be a nice starting place. It's my first priority as soon as I finish the new Stephen King book! |