Need Help From A Pano Guru

[canonloader]

I can get really great looking Panos from my 40D/1D and Tokina 12/24, running them through CS3 Photomerge. It stitches them, adjusts the colors and lighting and they look perfect, all with a couple of clicks. That is when using a set of images shot from a tripod, all distorted and weird looking to start with. Amazing that it can do that so well.

But I have recently tried another kind of shooting. There are some things simply too long to get from a tripod set in the middle. Distance limitations, things in the way or the object is simply too big. Like a train, a barge and tow on the river, a bridge, a city block. So what I have tried, is to take a shot at one end, move down several paces and set it up again, take another straight on shot, move again and so on, till I have a full set. This would seem to be quite easy for any stitching software to put these together, but it always falls on it's face. Even trying to match points by hand does not come up with a good merge.

Has anyone else tried this? Got any tips? What's going wrong?

Here is a recent attempt (http://www.picturelacrosse.com/pano/trains/large/train-panorama3.jpg). I think it is 7 images.

[envyr]

This may sound obvious, but have you tried giving them a run through autostitch?

[canonloader]

Ya know, I actually downloaded it for this express purpose and it didn't do any better than CS3 or PFactory. It seems kind of strange that it wouldn't work with these kinds of images, but these programs must have been built around some algorithm that has to start with a distorted image to begin with.

I am going to try again when I get the time, and try and just manually add images that have been converted from the RAW's and are already rolled out flat. Although I don't think that's going to work either, especially starting with a images from a wide angle lens.

I think I see what it's getting stuck on though. The images I used were of two cars from an antique train, with a sidewalk running beside it. In each wide angle image, the sidewalk cracks are all pointed toward the lower center of the images, in all of them. The right side cracks lean one way, the left side crack lean the other, with all the near ends of the cracks pointing to the lower middle of each image.

[rrdjserv@earthlink.net]

Pushing the limits again, Mitch? If you can't do it, it probably can't be done. Just curious; Is your wide angle creating a fish eye effect that could be screwing things up? Maybe try a 100mm or greater. Just shooting in the dark. Good luck. --Rick

[canonloader]

Just trying something new, but should have been fairly obvious in the past. I haven't tried again since the first time, cause I haven't really had a good subject for it. Landscape panoramas obviously have to be done from one spot, and can be, but in the case of this train, I guess it could be too, but then it looks bent, from the wide angle. I might have to go look at this again, but there really isn't a lot of room to back up much and shoot the whole train with a longer lens.