What do you think of this pano?

There is a pretty neat bridge in my town that I have wanted to shoot for a while. Interesting light to shoot, as the bridge is lit up in bright blue, and the street and other city lights are very orange. This was my first try at shooting it, but I'm not sure if I really like it. What do you think? What should I do different next time? Might have a chance to give it a shot again tonight if the weather cooperates.

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The lights are very pretty, but it's cropped too closely on top. Next time try doing the pano in portrait orientation.

rrblint wrote in post #15873020
The lights are very pretty, but it's cropped too closely on top. Next time try doing the pano in portrait orientation.

I actually did shoot in portrait, but ended up having to crop at the top to make it fit. I will definitely keep in mind to give myself a little bigger buffer at the top!

I agree, its too tightly cropped, and it also looks like it's leaning to the right, this might be a perspective thing, maybe you need to be closer or further away form the bridge to overcome this, I can see lots of potential here

Milutiche wrote in post #15873126
I agree, its too tightly cropped, and it also looks like it's leaning to the right, this might be a perspective thing, maybe you need to be closer or further away form the bridge to overcome this, I can see lots of potential here

Thanks. I agree it looks like it was tilting. Went to rotate it in LR, and wouldn't you know it, it's straight! Definitely seems to be a perspective thing, because I thought the exact same thing at first! Really hoping the weather holds up so I can get out again tonight...

Oh..and my 5Dc comes in the mail today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just me... but while the bridge is straight, the horizon isn't. It's definitely a perspective deal. Note how the reflections and lamp posts on the left lean in, while on the right, they're vertical. I think there's a slight bend to the horizon. Part of this is that you're shooting from the side, but I think you may also have shifted position and/or tilt (front to back level) on that left-most image vs. the others.

It's a very good first try.

Suggestions: try shooting additional rows as well for more vertical coverage. Try to keep your camera level for the horizon row, and keep the tilt consistent for additional rows. Rotate the camera, do not shift its position. If you have a hotshoe level or built-in level, use that to check the camera's roll (and if you can, tilt), rather than a bubble-level on the tripod head/legs. Using the tripod head to rotate should be ok, even with parallax error, if there's nothing close by in the scene.

And I'd recommend using a more sophisticated stitcher, like Hugin than, say, Canon's Photostitch or Photoshop's Photomerge, but I'm nuts and own PTGui.

Dude. nice pano...use content aware fill to add where your "scoops" are on the top and bottom but dont go to large..might want to fix the two lights without stars on the bridge and also there appears to be one on the left thats slightly lower than the others in height...all in all nice though like the colors...from left to right or right to left go to the half way mark on the next shot overlapping by half) also lens correct in raw for all the files at once after done save as jpg then merge in PS layer control..then proceed to tweak further...good luck!

Wow, thanks for the awesome feedback inkista and NG8JGFX. The wind was blowing 35-45 mph last night, and I didn't really feel like going out in that to take pics, but I will be back soon!

inkista wrote in post #15874527
Just me... but while the bridge is straight, the horizon isn't. It's definitely a perspective deal. Note how the reflections and lamp posts on the left lean in, while on the right, they're vertical. I think there's a slight bend to the horizon. Part of this is that you're shooting from the side, but I think you may also have shifted position and/or tilt (front to back level) on that left-most image vs. the others.

Ahhh...don't know why I didn't think of that, you're exactly right! I straightened it on the bridge, but should have straightened on the horizon

inkista wrote in post #15874527
It's a very good first try.

Suggestions: try shooting additional rows as well for more vertical coverage. Try to keep your camera level for the horizon row, and keep the tilt consistent for additional rows. Rotate the camera, do not shift its position. If you have a hotshoe level or built-in level, use that to check the camera's roll (and if you can, tilt), rather than a bubble-level on the tripod head/legs. Using the tripod head to rotate should be ok, even with parallax error, if there's nothing close by in the scene.

And I'd recommend using a more sophisticated stitcher, like Hugin than, say, Canon's Photostitch or Photoshop's Photomerge, but I'm nuts and own PTGui.

I actually did use Hugin, I never have much luck with Photoshop photomerge. It bogs down my computer more than Hugin, but doesn't stitch as well! I was using a tripod, but there is no level on it. I will try to keep everything more level next time.

NG8JGFX wrote in post #15874540
Dude. nice pano...use content aware fill to add where your "scoops" are on the top and bottom but dont go to large..might want to fix the two lights without stars on the bridge and also there appears to be one on the left thats slightly lower than the others in height...all in all nice though like the colors...from left to right or right to left go to the half way mark on the next shot overlapping by half) also lens correct in raw for all the files at once after done save as jpg then merge in PS layer control..then proceed to tweak further...good luck!

Thank you! I noticed those weird areas as soon as I post it...I'm not sure if that was what was actually in the scene or if it is a stitching error. Good point on the bridge lights, I will photoshop those in next time.

Thanks again!

davidmtml wrote in post #15875619
I actually did use Hugin...

Sweet. Then you have a way to play with correcting some of this stuff.

When you have leaning verticals, one of the things you can do is to add vertical control points before optimizing and stitching. It's similar to adding a regular control point, but you put one point in one image at the top of a vertical line, and in the other image, put the other at the bottom of a vertical line, and then specify that the control point type. Similarly, you can use horizontal control points to level out the horizon.

You can also adjust the yaw/tilt/roll of the virtual camera for the pano in the GL-preview window. Just click on the GL-preview button in the toolbar. Then in the Move/Drag pane, click the Fit button,and move the edge sliders to adjust the view to give yourself a little elbow room. Then, drag the image around. Dragging vertically adjusts the tilt and will fix a bend in the horizon. Dragging left and right adjusts the yaw and can help with sideways keystoning (also great for rearranging what's in the center of the image with 360s), and right-dragging adjusts the roll so you can level a horizon (or with a 360x180 pano, straight out an S-curved horizon).

You can use it on a finished pano by simply loaded the stitched pano and specifying the lens type as the type of pano and guesstimating a FoV angle.

Ok, here is try number two. Same photos, just better different processing and stitching. I was able to add in some extra sky using content-aware-fill. Tried to take into account all the suggestions you guys gave me. Let me know what you think!

I definitely like the second version better