Stitch assist with G6 - Program mode, only?

[Superbaldguy]

I have been playing round with the stitch assist mode on my G6. Works great but it seems that it's only available in the Program mode. Are any other modes workable with this feature?

[ATucker]

Without having the manual in front of me, I am not sure.

However, what stitch assist does is set the exposure - shutter and aperture (and focus???) - on the first shot, and uses these same settings on progressive shots until you are finished shooting your pano.

You could do the same thing in manual mode. In manual mode, set the camera exposure for the highlights that you want to retain in the whole scene, then start shooting your pano with 30-50% overlap between pictures. Depending on the scene and the effect you are looking for, also consider setting the focus.

Then using Photostitch, or Autostitch, or Panotools or whatever your favorite flavor of pano software is to stitch the photo.

[Superbaldguy]

Is that part of Zoombrowser? The regular stitch assist mode is, as the files are tagged as such.

[ATucker]

I am not sure exactly what your question is. Is what part of Zoombrowser?

Photostitch came with your camera and is an independent program from Zoombrowser. It can be run from inside ZB or by itself as a standalone program. My G5 came with Photostitch 3.1. (I assume the G6 also came with Photostitch. If not, my comments may be way off base.)

When you are in stitch assist mode, the camera itself names the files with an ST prefix, not ZB. The actual stitching program, Photostitch, can stitch photos with either an the ST* prefix or any other series of JPG's or Tif's files. In other words, you can make panos with your pics whether or not they were taken with the camera in stitch assist mode. Photostitch does not care.

I stated in the first post, with the camera in manual mode, you should set the exposure for the brightest hightlights that you do not want to blowout. Then shoot your pano. Then start Photostitch and start making panos. By shooting in manual mode, you assure that the exposure from shot to shot is the same and that when you stitch the photos together, Photostitch will be able to blend the images (both color and brightness) smoothly. Essentially this is what occurs when you put the camera in stitch assist, the camera sets and locks the exposure and white balance on the first shot and maintains these setting until you are done taking the photo.

Photostitch will attempt to stitch the pano together automatically. However, if you have a problem pano that is not stitching correctly, do not give up. Read the manual to figure out how to set the control points manually. It could save your pano.

I also mentioned Autostitch and Panotools. Neither are part of the software that came with your camera. Autostitch is free: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/%7Embrown/autostitch/autostitch.html)

Of course there are other programs that can stitch your photo. I personally use PTAssembler, which is a front end to Panotools.

Hope this helps and happy stitching.

Tom

[Superbaldguy]

The same software comes with the G6 and tags the images as mentioned. I'll have to play with it some more to see if I can use the Manual mode.