I have been playing with my 24mm TS-E II for a few panos.
At first I was quite excited about the ease at which I could use the shift for a 3 image stitch. I even purchased a sliding plate adapter, so that I could keep the lens stationary for the 3 images.
Unfortunately though, I find that the far edges of shift panos leave more to be desired. Even at only 10mm of shift (it goes to 12) the edges can be soft. At 5mm they are much better, but then this is not wide enough.
So the other night I opted to give a nodal rotation pano a go. I must say that I am VERY pleased with the results and that this will be my way in future.
Until now, I have always shot my panos in portrait orientation using nodal rotation, but it has always been a lot of work setting these up. So I never found myself shooting a pano on the spur of the moment.
I liked the idea of doing shifts, as using the sliding plate as my regular camera mount meant that I was always ready, but sadly the results have let me down.
Luckily, using the plate so that it extends out below the lens gives me just enough reach to position the camera for nodal rotation.... So now I am always ready again!
Of course I am giving away vertical FoV by shooting in landscape orientation.... At the moment I find the ease worth it, but won't discount making a custom bracket to quickly swing between the two orientations.
So now a question? Are others finding the far edges of shift panos to be less than desired or are they getting better results than me.
Rusty,
The Custom brackets for either landscape or portrait are specifically made to fit various cameras are sold by Kirk or Really Right Stuff. These L plates allow counter shift of the camera body when shifting the lens, as you indicate, to keep the lens motionless during shift panos. I like the RRS plates as they have index marks on both orientations of the camera plate to line up counter shifts to marks on the tripod clamp. This index mark also serves to center the lens on a nodal rail for stitched panos. See the RRS catalogue for pictures of the L plates and use of the nodal rail.
As for the softness when shifted, all shift lenses will display some degree of vignetting and softness at extreme shifts. The Canon MTF of this lens does start to show some droop at the edges of the lens, even when not shifted. Presumably this trend will continue as the lens is shifted to larger amounts, and will show up as softness at the corners of the fully (10mm) shifted image. However, also consider that the focal plane of TSE lenses is not flat, but curved. This is a necessity in the tilt design. Thus in the crop of the pastoral scene above, the road post in the foreground is more in focus than the trees. The only way to combat this is to use f16 for more DOF. The DPReview of the lens also points this out and shows MTF at various f values. You are asking a lot of a 24mm lens (84 deg diagonal) to maintain sharpness at 10mm shift.
Mike K
Great pano. With my TSE-17 I sometimes use a (nodal ninja5) panohead with the TSE non-shifted and the camera in portrait mode as well instead of using shift to make a pano.
With the TSE-17 and Nodal Ninja 5 I have to slide towards the far end of the rail to get to turn around the nodal point. Even then it's not far enough but in practice I have find no major issues in stitching:
This technique applies only to 2-3 image stitches with shift lenses. The RRS solution to nodal pano rotations is to use the nodal rail and a rotating "pano clamp" see pano elements package on RRS catalogue. The pano clamp places the pano rotating axis above the leveling ball head. The rail has the screw clamp runing L-R when the rail is oriented F-B. Now the camera can be shifted up/down (while in either portrait or landscape) after each row of nodal rotations. Then the stitched rows can be stitched together. Of course the shift will only yield 2-3 rows of nodal pano rows, but it will yield a good 2-3 row stitched pano as wide as you want.
to give more vertical rows of shots one needs a full pano head or the RRS pro pano package if nodal alignment is an issue. With the most modern pano stitching software, nodal alignment isn't as critical as it used to be unless there are close foreground elements in the stitching area. Also the improved software can deal better with the distortions common in very wide angle lenses.
The Nodal Ninja 5/5L looks like it will replicate the function of the RRS equipment. With this full NN head, one doesn't need shift just for stitching as rotating can be had in both horizontal and vertical directions. I am sure with your use of the TSE17 you are using the shift to correct vertical perspective distortion, as your buildings are nice and straight. Thus your shift amount has already been used for perspective correction and is unavailable for shift for stitching.
Nice pano above! The TSE 17 is really impressive!
Mike K
Depending on the scene and situation, I do one or the other, or even both. A simple shift allows easy stitching and may be enough. Obviously panning offers greater angles of view and more total pixels.
