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Pano - Farmland Landscape

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:09 am
by Alpha_7
Well while visiting me grandparents I had the opportunity to take this series of shots. I only had a roughly 2-3 minutes as we were driving through, and my gear was in the back so this is taken with the 80-200, as a result this is actually 25 shots stitched together. Anyways the family that live up this was (Halidays Point) really liked the shot, but I though I might as well upload one here for your comments and critique.

I think my PP may have done a little astray as the shot seems a lot darker then it did originally... but on a uncalibrated LCD it's hard to tell, any feedback on the exposure/brightness would be welcomed!

Here it is.

Image

Below is a big version - Warning Almost 2mb in size
http://alpha7.potatis-gallery.com/dslr/Grampsplace/brushy_pano_brush-pp.jpg

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:14 am
by wendellt
lovely craig, the tone reminds me of the windows xp vistas in Tassie, forgive the nostalgic rant, but technically excellent
although it does look a bit surreal because of the dark patch in the middle
maybe for fun clone in a house for directive interest right in the middle, it's very wide and something has to be happenign in the middle
but hey that's my opinion, it's your work be proud of it and one day i hope you can teach me how to do panos as i am interested.

1 more thing i think it's a bit dark, brighten up a little and all will be sweet as lickin apple cherry pie

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:18 am
by Hlop
Very good pano, Craig! This time I was unable to find stitches :) Did you shot in portrait or landscape mode? And what did you use to stich it? Panorama Factory?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:20 am
by Alpha_7
Wendell - Pano's are really easy to take and they are fun too. Perfecting them I'm sure if much harder but I just enjoy mucking around with them.

Image

This bright thumnail ? Is it any better on your montior Wendell ?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:25 am
by Alpha_7
Hlop wrote:Very good pano, Craig! This time I was unable to find stitches :) Did you shot in portrait or landscape mode? And what did you use to stich it? Panorama Factory?


Hi there, Thanks for the comments (although inversely I could see the stiches in the last one, but I can notice 1 or 2 in this one). This was handheld shot in portrait mode, the final full size image was the order of 22, 000 x 2900 pixels (so whooping big!).
All the shots were done in Manual mode, f8, 1/500 sec

Also apparently my memory is wrong, it was actually the Ugh! 70-300G, wonder of wonders!


Edit : And yes Panofactory v3.3

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:25 am
by wendellt
makes me want to pack up my 12-24dx leave work and play 10 rounds of golf with you, you lucky bas**rd you agree withe brightening it's sexy now right??

i am gettign a RRS pano rail but have no idea how to stictch stuff
I only did one pano in my life and i sclaed it and put it togehter manually in photoshop, so i think i have this perception that panos are hard
http://www.zeduce.org/images/venice/5.htm

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:32 am
by Alpha_7
Wendell I'd be more then happy to borrow your 12-24DX, just to check it can take alright panos :P j/k I'm not sure I get the golf reference... but I'll let that one go :)

Panofactory works a treat and so far is the only method I've used to stitch my panos, it does nearly all of it for you so couldn't be much simplier.

The pano rails would definitely make it more accurate (especially my dodgey hand held abilities). I'm actually interested in the Fisheye for some interesting Panos... from memory Gordon just posted a 2 shot pano with the fisheye (de-fished).

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:35 am
by avkomp
I think this is a well executed pano of a good subject.

I see a lot of things that I dont necessarily suit the pano treatment.

This certainly does and it looks like you have managed a good even exposure over the whole vista

the original post looks about right on my monitor although it is only calibrated with the mk1 eyeball method and adobe's rudimentary program

Also I notice you used panofactory 3.x for this.
I did some work with the new 4.x version and found it a significant improvement over the earlier product.
Might be worth a look.

Steve

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:38 am
by wendellt
Alpha_7 wrote:Wendell I'd be more then happy to borrow your 12-24DX, just to check it can take alright panos :P j/k I'm not sure I get the golf reference... but I'll let that one go :)

Panofactory works a treat and so far is the only method I've used to stitch my panos, it does nearly all of it for you so couldn't be much simplier.

The pano rails would definitely make it more accurate (especially my dodgey hand held abilities). I'm actually interested in the Fisheye for some interesting Panos... from memory Gordon just posted a 2 shot pano with the fisheye (de-fished).


craig

I meant beautiful landscape looks like we could play golf there

amazing you did that handheld, panofactory must be a dream

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:39 am
by Alpha_7
Hi Steve,

Thanks for the comments, I really should check out the new version I've just been busy and lazy (not a good combination) :) If it is better I'd like to redo a few of my panos and see how they compare, could be a fun little exercize (wish I had more RAM!).

This was taken on the side of a road, at a Lookout called Brushy something, I really had limited time, and nothing stood out in particular so I went for the 'whole vista' I wasn't expected the result to be anygood, infact I was annoyed (I now remember) that I had the 70-300G on the camera. Just to follow up on your comment
I see a lot of things that I dont necessarily suit the pano treatment.
could you elaborate on your thoughts on this ? is it the farmhouses, cows ?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:41 am
by Gordon
Alpha_7 wrote: Gordon just posted a 2 shot pano with the fisheye (de-fished).


Not de-fished, there were lots of little fish in the pool there ;) Not de-fished distortion-wise either, the 16 mm works just like a really wide wide-angle lens on the D70 since the most compressed regions around the edges are cut off with the smaller sensor.

I also just made a pano from 4 shots taken with the Coolpix5700, but at 8.9mm fl the results are not quite as sharp as I would like. The first time I used that camera I knew I was substituting convenience for image sharpness.


Gordon

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:00 am
by Slider
Excellent Pano Craig. 25 shots :shock: I think about 8 is the most I've tried. Brilliant :D

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:02 am
by avkomp
the improvements I noted in v4 were with closer range subjects.
the problem isnt as difficult to deal with in panos such as yours however.

Is still worth getting hold of and seeing what is new.

steve

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:03 pm
by nito
Craig that is one spectacular and insane levels of stiching for a really really really great pano.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:23 pm
by DStrom
Def a nice shot Craig ...

the large version of the original looked good!

how long did it take to stich the 25 shots together?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:34 pm
by Alpha_7
I ate dinner and dessert before it was finished stiching so I'd say 40-60 minutes. That's on a Centrion 1.8, 512Mb. Definitely the longest I've had to wait so far.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:24 pm
by DStrom
Alpha_7 wrote:I ate dinner and dessert before it was finished stiching so I'd say 40-60 minutes. That's on a Centrion 1.8, 512Mb. Definitely the longest I've had to wait so far.


Ouch, not sure I could wait that long, I have yet to try stiching a pano on my current system let alone a 25 image one.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:36 pm
by Alpha_7
DStrom wrote:
Alpha_7 wrote:I ate dinner and dessert before it was finished stiching so I'd say 40-60 minutes. That's on a Centrion 1.8, 512Mb. Definitely the longest I've had to wait so far.


Ouch, not sure I could wait that long, I have yet to try stiching a pano on my current system let alone a 25 image one.


Well I wasn't so much as waiting for it, as doing other stuff while it was stitching. My 3Ghz, 1Gb Ram machine at work does it much faster :)

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:09 pm
by johnd
Craig, I really like this pano. You've done an excellent job. More so considering the lens you used. I suspect there would have been some bad barrel distortion with that lens. I've been experimenting with different lenses for panos, and I find the best of my lenses for this is the 50mm 1.4. There is virtually no barrel distortion and it just stitches together brilliantly.

I'd definately recommend you upgrade to v4.2 of panofactory. It seems to do a better job of hiding stitch marks than v3 (mind you I can't see any on your pano). It now outputs in a photoshop psd file with each image as a separate layer. So if there has been any slight ghosting or not uniform light levels, it's really easy to fix in photoshop. It cost me about $25 from memory to upgrade from v3. About the only beef I have with panofactory is you have to convert your NEFs into TIFFs first to input them.


Cheers
John

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:17 pm
by Alpha_7
Thanks for the info John. I have yet to use the TIFF option and rather use the Jpeg option to stitch them together. I can't imagine how long a 25 TIF shot would take to stitch on my lower speced laptop (sounds like it's time to upgrade). The fact you can open it into PSD format, with different layers is excellent and has definitely sold me on upgrading.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:21 pm
by mikephotog
This one was stitched using the PanoFactory V4.
Although in this case only 8 shots, 20mm 2.8 in portait position.

Image

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:33 pm
by PiroStitch
Dammit Wendell beat me to it. Was about to say it looks like a giant golf course. Nice stuff Craig :)

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:42 pm
by johnd
Alpha_7 wrote:Thanks for the info John. I have yet to use the TIFF option and rather use the Jpeg option to stitch them together. I can't imagine how long a 25 TIF shot would take to stitch on my lower speced laptop (sounds like it's time to upgrade). The fact you can open it into PSD format, with different layers is excellent and has definitely sold me on upgrading.


It would take forever. TIFFs are huge compared to Jpegs. I have a 2.6GHz P4 with 1 GB ram and it just chuggs away. I'd really like to have a super hot multi threaded dual Xeon, 8GB, 64bit OS box, but I think I'll just save my money for better glass or a second body.

Cheers
John

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:46 pm
by Big V
Craig, what a good job - especially for 25 images

PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:53 pm
by mudder
This looks great... It's fun playing with pano's huh and you can get some amazing resolution and detail.

I like the content and the textures in the sky and fields are terrific.

Tried a couple of pano's using the 12-24 but at 12mm found the images difficult to stitch due to distortion, I found the longer focal lengths easier to join (say the middle of the 80-400?). The 50F1.x was terrific and easy to join...

PanoFactory seems to do a very good job, tried it a few times but have been doing them in PSCS2 lately, but the lazy way using automerge etc...