November Theme - Panoramics

This months theme is Panoramic images. I was thinking about making it fall colors but since we have the contest going on right now I thought people would probably want to submit thier finest over there . Guess that doesn't help the people with fall colors panoramics.

I am really looking forward to seeing what all of you come up with for this.

Let see em!

I'll start things off here! Here's one from a few years back, taken along the McClure Pass road. Cropped from a 4"x5" trans. Looking forward to seeing lots of great panos!

Antelope Canyon/Winter

Rocky Mountain National Park, 11/12/2006
The picture is a composite of 10 photographs that I stitched together using PTGui.

I'll see your 10 stitched images and raise you two This isn't my best pano, but it's definitely my widest. It's about 12 images stitched together. It's way too small at 720 pixels, but I think it might look okay printed really big.

EDIT: It's refusing to post my image. Here's a link to a larger one that looks a little better anyway http://www.gcollier.com/pano1.jpg

Only twelve? Ive just started working on my 256 image stitch, should be ready by the end of November. Cool theme, great photos!

Grant, those are the funniest looking aspens I've ever seen. I love the nearly endless view of that shot.

Brent, nice vertical pano. Can I get a poster for my locker?

Whenever someone asks me what's go great about Colorado, I show them this photo: http://www.jefflawson.net/blog/photo/071706_large.jpg

Usually, they get the message. My thanks to the couple sitting on the rock and the sun for peeking out of the clouds at just the right moment.

Brent...that is one nice shot, my friend.

Here is one taken using only three shots and a 90 TS-E on recent hike this fall in Zion.

Zion near checkerboard mesa taken about three weeks ago above both tunnels.

Pano using two 30 meg images from a phase one digital back.

This is a personal favorite of mine. Three images stitched together.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/72/172999488_6647ea4a41_o.jpg

Lizard Lake a few years back.

My latest pano

My favorite pano

Great stuff so far.

Ed - So you used all the colors in the upper canyon from us in Zion! Thankfully you left us some great color in the main canyon.

Grant - That is a monster. You printed that one?

Scott B- very pretty suff

Scott F- I was in Lower antelope on Saturady. Love that place!

Jimmy - I need to see the rest of your Zion stuff. Shoot me a link when you get a chance.


I am going to give you a fall colors one since it is from last year. This image was shot near Ashcroft on that magical snowy weekend last year.

Wisner 4x5 Traditional
Nikon 210mm W
Fuji Velvia 100

I've made a few panoramic photos, but am wondering what it takes to make really great ones such as are posted here. How do you all take/make these images? Is it necessary to use a panoramic tripod head, or only when you are going to have a lot of foreground in the photo? Do you just use a regular tripod? Is it better to use a tilt-shift lens with a regular tripod? Then do you process in Photoshop CS3 or is there better stitching software. Thanks for your help!

Carol,

When I do use my Canon 5D I usually just use a tripod and level it out and shoot. I use Autopano software which seems to work very well.

Most of the time, however, I am shooting 4x5 and simply take a picture with the intent on only using 1/2 of the sheet of film. The shot above is from 4x5 film and the original scan is 50" long at 300dpi with lots and lots of detail.

When I'm doing panos (not terribly frequently), I just use a level and a tripod. I'm sure a pano head works better, but I don't make a living out of it so I just haven't invested in that kind of gear.

Photoshop CS3 does a fine job for the few panos that I've stitched together so far. This image was stitched together from three shots on my D2X, with CS3 doing a perspective stitch job.

PS - Grant, where did you find a shoreline that long and straight? Looks like a New York lake. (Lake George or one of the Finger Lakes?)

Half-slide pano, Ebony RW45 and some lens I don't remember.

Gorgeous images all around!

Rich, no I haven't printed the tree shot yet. I'll probably just hope someone buys it so I can see it big. Les, yes this was in the Adirondacks - Round Pound. The frustrating thing was that the two people I passed on the short hike up said there was a great reflection. Of course, by the time I got up there, it was gone and there was no reflection for the 2 hours I was there waiting for it.

Carol, you generally need a lens >50mm for stitched images to avoid distortion. A bubble level is important on the tripod to make sure each shot is level. And leave plenty of overlap between each image. Also, you need the same exposure for each shot, so put the exposure dial on Manual. And use the same settings for each RAW conversion. CS3 works pretty well, especially for smaller stitches, though I may try some of the trial versions on the other software.

Oops...forgot to post an image. This is probably my favorite pano, even though it's a bit iconic. Only six images stitched (though if you do one with 256, Mel, I'm going for 300! ... of course, I'd never find a printer big enough to print it at native res )

http://www.gcollier.com/Balanced-Rock-Panoramic7.jpg

Very cool shots so far everyone. I took this off 285 between Kenosha Pass and Jefferson in May 2006. Eight portrait orientation shots with the 70-200 f 2.8L lens stitched with Panorama Factory.

Pam

This one was taken at Canyonlands as a flash flood was dousing the canyon. A awesome thing to see I think it was 5 images stitched with Panorama Factory. I always liked this one.

Pam

This one was from a few years back along Hwy 72(NW of Denver) after a massive thunderstorm passed over. I think 5 or 6 images manually stitched together... Nice shots everyone!

Great Sand Dunes NP taken on June3.

Greetings All,

I'm new to the crowd and wanted to introduce myself. My name is John Crane and I'm in Fort Collins. I saw this pano thread. I only have a couple panos. This was shot in Arches National Park last November. I'm still learning my way around this forumn so it's nice to meet everyone. This pano is a 360 degree, 11 shot stitch shot with a Manfrotto pano head.

More great stuff people.

John - that is a wild 360 shot. I guess that is where a pano head really comes in handy and is a requirement.

RV

John, welcome to the forum. The clouds add a lot of interesting perspective to your pano.

Grant, I also really like your pano with balanced rock. I would guess you were little ways back from the main road for that perspective.

Todd, I really like your shot with the aspen and the clouds in the valley. Really stunning!

A couple of panos is one of the few things I have done this year. This pano was taken with a Pentax 67ii camera, a 45mm lens and is a stich of 3 images (280mb in 8 bit). When I did this, all I had was PS Elements 3. It took about 14 hours to get it just right. Part of that is manually adjusting the perspectives in Elements, the other is the monster file size, upwards of 1.5 gigs at times. If I only had CS3 like I do now.

It's a little small and I don't have a website to link. I made a small 12" x 36" test print, but I think at least a 2' x 6', if not a 3' x 9' would be required to do it justice.

Here is one I made of Brainard Lake this year. This was also taken with a Pentax 67ii w/ a 45mm lens. It is a stich of 3 images. As I just got CS3, I decided to see what it could do with a stich. I had taken two exposures of all three images scanned in at 16 bit. Even though I knew it could make the stich difficult, I blended the two exposures for each image first. While I was going for the same feel of the blends, I didn't go out of my way to replicate the method for each blend precisely. After the 3 images were blended for maintaining the highlights and shadows, I threw in the three 560 mb images into CS3 and left it stich them together. It took the program about an hour to do it (nice since I could go off and do other things). It did an outstanding job on the stich and I had only about 30 minutes of minor corrections to the stich. I did some other editing which did get slow at the file size ran upwards of 2.5 gigs at times. I didn't see any difference in the 16 bit versus 8 bit, so I probably won't be scanning MF in 16 bit anymore as the file sizes get a little crazy.

This might be the coolest theme thread ever!

Steve, I'd suggest you still scan at 16 bit, because it gives you so many more levels to work with before any kind of banding issues arise.

Here is one from last weekend south of monument valley.

This is my latest stitched pano. I just started shooting them this year - lots of fun!

Sunset from Cottonwood Pass.

This is a superwide (10mm on a 20D) stitched pano, 5 images. This is a 180 degree view.

Upper Ice Lake Basin. A storm is blowing in.

Awesome stuff so far, everyone!

Steve,
Those two images are great! Good job on the stitches.
I agree with Todd, I'd still scan at 16-bit to have the adjustment latitude. I run into the same thing with 4x5 film. One thing I do, is flatten the file once the stitch is complete and I'm happy with it. Then use the flat file for other adjustments. Managing those files can be taxing though.

Rich, love that last one. Great sky color.

For the upcoming holidays, here's one I took of the City and County building a couple of years ago. Five images stitched together. Here's a link to a larger version if anyone is interested:

http://www.pbase.com/wildestdreams/image/54177303/original

Pam

My Pano shots. Enjoy!

Jody,

I don't recall seeing that right side formation at Monument Valley on your first pano

Pam

What, you've never heard of Deadbeat Butte?

Todd's right, great thread!!

Another one from me. This was taken about 5 years ago up near Longmont. From what I understand, this field doesn't exist any longer. Taken with borrowed Fuji 617. Man, that's a fun camera!

My favorite from my first visit to Mesa Arch this summer.
3 stitched images with Canon 24mm TS-E @ f/22

Getting a shot of this icon is actually quite a chore.
My experience from 4 separate mornings:
1) all clouds no sun
2) haze from wildfires
3) no clouds, all blue sky
4) finally, perfect light, some clouds, the right spot staked out

A different sunrise composition from Deadhorse Point.
200 mm lens, vertical pan with 5 horizontal images.

A couple of my fall panoramas at:

http://www.pbase.com/alund/image/88167370


http://www.pbase.com/alund/image/88106231

Great theme this month everyone. I love that Mesa Arch pano Bill. Perfect conditions indeed.
Here is my contribution: Sawtooth in the Indian Peaks as seen from the Peak to Peak Byway. No stitches, just cropped. Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens.

Moraine Park in Rocky, several hundred elk although you might not see them, file reduced from 1GB to 720 pixels. By the way wonderful panos, this is what we do best of all I think.

Bill

Great work here folks! I wish I could see them all much larger, the way panos should be viewed. Here's another icon, Sunset Point in Capitol Reef. I hope it doesn't look too overblown. I tried to balance it for a white background, a tricky task for apres-sunsets, I think.

My answer to Carol's question is this: for panos I desperately scrounge through a bunch of my old images looking for something to crop down to a pano format because that's the monthly theme. This one started out as a vertical format shot and is cropped down to about 1/4 of its original 6x7cm size.

Some really nice panoramas! I made this one on my final morning in Arches recently, just didn't have good skies this trip. Nonetheless, I wanted an image that would capture the immensity of the area. It was my first trip there and I'm looking forward to another visit.

Cindy Bell

here is one of mine, with maybe another one or 2 coming

and here is Pawnee Pass

Here's mine

One more...

OK, 2 more...

...and finally...

Here's one from the San Juans that I've cropped down from a single shot.

Great stuff everybody.

Kalin, Great stuff.

Kartik, I see you have been 'hard at work'

OK. Now this one is not a 'nature photograph'. But Cinque Terre in Italy is a Unesco Site and an Italian National Park. There is a fantastic trail that connects the 5 villages. This village is Manarola. My wife and I dream of retiring to the small village 2 stops north of here in Vernazza. Anybody have any real estate for sale?

Wisner 4x5 Traditional
Nikon 210mm W
Fuji Velvia 50

RichieV

from Boreas Pass on a nice September late morning

dang Kartik you got some nice ones, well alot of people have some real nice ones

Since I was late getting anything in for the fall contest, here is a pano from down around Ridgway this fall.

Great collection of panos! Keeping with the san juan theme--my favorite vista, the Sneffels Range.

From Harrison Flat in the Collegiates:
http://www.brentmurphyphoto.com/image_pages/pa_co-1746-1762.shtml

Re-doing my whole web site, so this page isn't actually "public" yet, and a lot of the links don't work.

Monte- your pano is beautiful! makes me wish i had come out for fall colors! next year...

What kind of place would this be if I didn't post a Pano of the Garden of the Gods? The same as it is now without a pano of the Garden of the Gods.

Ok two panos of the Garden

Figured I'd throw a few more in before the end of the month. This one is from Kebler Pass back in 2006, sunset against Marcellina Mountain. Half frame dark slide on a 4x5.

Here's one from near Telluride, looking at Sunshine Mtn. and Wilson Peak.

Half frame dark slide on a 4x5.

Last one, this a crop from a full frame 4x5, taken down the road to the ghost town of Winfield.

I love those last two Brent, where is Winfield?

Here's one from Mesa Verde, December 9 of 2006, it was the last day of the 100 year centennial of the founding of the park and they lit up Cliff Palace with a bunch of Coleman lanterns. This is 3 photos stitched in PS.

Here is one from my recent trip to Lake Powell.

Another Garden of the Gods pano taken about a year ago.

And for Scott, Winfield is near the end of the road that goes to Clear Creek Res, out by Harrison Flats (Collegiate Peaks).

This is 8 vertical images stitched by hand in PS.

Here's one more. I didn't intend this to be a pano, but I decided to crop it down to one for my next book.