Wide Lens vs. Stitching Multiples

With all the talk about the need for wide to super wide lenses for landscapes, why not just make more than one exposure, ala, panorama, and stitch together. With the many software programs for this, could this be equally as good as having a wide lens?

Depends.

I personally like panoramics. The edge distortion in fisheye lenses, albeit cool looking, is different from how my eye naturally sees the world. When I do photography, one of my goals is to reproduce what my eye sees.

I have to admit, though, it is nice to be able to encompass 120-180 degrees in one shot. I just know that it's not going to look realistic. One more reason that photography is an art.

John

Well, I tend to stitch multiple photos because I like the aspect ratio of a panorama. Wide is great (IMHO) to get dramatic shots where the foreground is more important than the background. What I look in panoramas is... everything!

if you go to my blog (see the signature), you will know what I mean, I have plenty of panoramas there.

Cheers

I was actually thinking more like a standard format by using both vertical and horizontal captures. Think of the megapixel possibilities!

What a great idea. I never thought of stitching as an alternative to a wide angle lens!

Are there any glaring downsides to stitching opposed to using a true wide angle lens (thinking mostly landscapes or architecture here)? Obviously the image size is going to be reduced considerably, but that doesn't seem like a huge problem.

I don't know what wide angle lens I want yet, but I could use one much sooner than I'm capable of making decision on one.

Welcome to POTN.

Kinda -- When you stitch, if you want it to look good, it will consume quite a bit of your time to make it look really good.

S.Horton wrote in post #7704360
Welcome to POTN.

Kinda -- When you stitch, if you want it to look good, it will consume quite a bit of your time to make it look really good.

You can say that again

I prefer to stitch several (mostly vertical) images together. Doing so often requires you use a longer focal length, thus reaching into the scene more to capture even better details. This has worked much better for me than shooting the same image with a wide lens. (both are fine, but the large print option of a stitched image and capturing more details work better for me than one, wider shot)