How to take good photo's for photostich?

[cA70]

I've just done another panoramic, and as in my previous ones, the edges 'creep in'. It seems to get worse as the sequence goes on. The first few are ok, but after that there is alot of cropping needed to get rid of all the white edging.

Is there a 'propper' or best way to take photos when in panoramic to avoid this?

[stopbath]

I'm not sure what the white bars are that you are referring to, but perhaps you referring to the image borders?

Stitch crops those off during the processing.

There is a setting in stitch for the type of joins to use. Ensure it is on landscape, if you have it on the wrong one, it'll compose the landscape strangely (at least it did for me.)

Also, keep your shots level and lined up as best you can. A tripod may help here.

[cA70]

I'll post a pic of what i'm talking about soon. (30 mins till i head off).

Just when they dont match perfectly and it moves the picture up/down a bit and where there is no picture it is just left white.

[PeterS45]

I didn't see the pic yet, but I think I know what you mean because I had the same experience. In fact there's only one way to avoid it and that is using a tripod and make sure it's exactly levelled horizontally.

Good luck!

[stduc]

Peter's right - It's virtually impossible to avoid a panoramic that doesn't end up 'shrinking' at each end. For what it's worth here's my technique.

1. Ensure camera is set to save images with the least compression in photostitch mode. i.e. Superfine Large.

2. Face centre shot squarley, legs slightly apart and assuming it's too bright to use the screen, swivel hips and try to find a 'horizontal line' to follow through the viewfinder. When ready, facing ahead, half press shutter then swivel fully left and start shooting, panning right. (or the opposite as preferred)

3. Take too many shots, so overlaps are hugh. You will have to throw some of these away at post processing but who cares!

4. Take three panoramics - the one you want and one higher and one lower.

Set photostitch to save with minimul compression. Stitch all three and then rotate them so you can stitch these together. Rotate final result back.

It's a bit more work - but the efforts often worthwhile.

Of course - if anything moves whilst your shooting - your in trouble. Sometimes you get ghosts, Sometimes strange effects - I have a great shot until you look closely and realise several people have lost their heads/bodies/hands etc. I have another shot where the same car appears twice!

Learn to set the overlap/ corresponding areas by hand.

All above advise is regarding canon photostich 3.1

[cA70]

Think it could be the tri-pod, cause i've been shooting just holding it, mabey when i move around i'm not exact enough, i try to line edges up etc but just seems to always be at the end.

The other thing i couldn't do it take night pano's. Seems it just wont open up the shutter long enough to get the light in. I'll have to shoot manualy i think and stich myself. Ive noticed in photostich that you can manualy move them round urself anyway.

stduc:are you saying that u take:

[ higher ]
[ the 1 ]
[ lower ]

Then stich them across, then up and down? or just where the white bit are, and edit just that little bit?

[stduc]

I'm saying I take three panoramics of the same view. One too high, one just right, one too low. Each with plenty (30% -ish) of overlap to the other. It doesn't matter which order you take them in. As photostitch will only stitch left to right you have to rotate the three stitches 90 degree in order to stitch them.
Therefore you make three stitches and then stich the stitches - If that makes sense. You then end up with a really good panoramic (with luck!).
I hope this makes it clearer - it's really quite hard to describe, easy to show!

[lcfred]

A good hint to take panorama shots when you're holding the camera is to use your thumb in the tripod hole and rotate the camera in that axis. It avoids most of the problems in the overlap area. You just have to pay attention to the horizon level of your camera.

Thanks to my friend Flavio for this trick! ;-)

[piper]

stduc,

I understand your multi-stitch technique, but haven't tried it yet. Offhand it seems like the additional horizontal stitch blurring would be more noticable than the normal vertical and would put a blurry tic-tac-toe grid over the final stitch. Is that not a problem? Or just less apparent than I am imagining?

[stduc]

Ive never noticed this grid effect you mention. What I forgot to mention though was that you have to change the stitch settings to 'images scanned in sections' for the final stitch of the three pans.
I tend to use 'show seams' and then select two or more (4 if I can) corresponding areas by hand when stitching.

[cA70]

studc: i see now, i didn,t realise how to stich the 3 together, the rotate bit makes it all clear.


lcfred: interesting idea, might be hard to keep it level though the spin, will give it a go for sure.

[stduc]

A few points.

1. Using Photostitch 3.1 for 'different' stitches. I forgot to mention the 'arrange' button - if you haven't - explore it's use, it's quite powerful. It allows you to stitch vertical and combination pictures quite easily.

2. I tried a horizontal stitch holding the camera in portrait mode this weekend. I have to say it worked rather well.

3. Has anyone found a good way to remove the vertical lines you get on sky when stitching with Photostitch 3.1? I took some panoramics of the Thames and even got them on the water! I usually select the sky and use a combination of gaussian blur - or if that fails I'm reduced to replacing the sky with a flood fill, or similar. It's all very time consuming and tedious. Any ideas/techniques would be appreciated.

[stduc]

I got Panorama Factory yesterday - awesome - try it!
panoramafactory (http://www.panoramafactory.com)

[cA70]

I'm currently downloading, will get on to it next week.

Why's it better? does it eliminate that white edging?

[stduc]

Very little banding - and by carefully adjusting the chosen overlap areas before saving the completed image I can often eliminate them entirely.
Does a lovely job of giving you a straight result.
Auto corrects for lense distortion and vignetting
Can save a quicktime movie.

BTW what white edging?

[cA70]

Next time i'm home i'll post a pic of it, either u'll then know what i'm taken about or i can't take panos!!