carstenw wrote:
Here is my first attempt. I had a lot of trouble controlling Autopano. It seems to be missing some manual control options, and anyway, I just bought it today, so I am not so used to its tools. That's 36 shots with an M8 and a 50 Summilux Asph, at f/1.4, at about 1.5m.

Yes, I'm finding that autopano doesn't take to friendly to photos that are completely out of focus. However, every other stitching program I have tried (I tried stitcher and ptgui tonight) does even worse on defocused images!

Yes, autopano does have manual control point editing. That's not the strong selling point of the software though, from what I gather. Ptgui is probably better for this? I donno, I haven't done to much control point editing in autopano. I suspect I will be in the very near future though! The only bit of editing I have done so far, is select two images (either two already 'stitched' or one stitched and one that wasn't able to stitch) select the areas of both images that overlap, then hit "add control points" so far every time I have done that it has come up with a perfect match, even on defocused points. I've never had to add individual points one point at a time like ptgui. All in all, autopano seems to be exactly like the name suggests, very automated! Even the control point editing. you just kind of hint at what it needs to do, and it does it!

I'm late to the party I see, but I just wanted to add I find the effect really interesting and I'll be trying it out myself on something or other...

I don't know what I'm looking at, but it has Super-Cool written all over it! Thank you, Daniel.

I like Carsten's image very much, too.

here is one from tonight. I have more images surrounding the car, particularly to the left of the car, and the ground below the car that is in-focus, but I just need to spend some more time stitching them. Compositionally, the in-focus ground probably wouldn't work for this image, being that the car itself would be so high in-frame, however I'm going to try and stitch it all anyway just to see what it looks like. It's quite hard to judge composition when you are shooting cropped images for a big stitch! I guess a good rule of thumb for this would be to shoot wider than you think you need, then crop in after the stitch!

I'm finding that autopano needs to be guided with these extreme stitches. This is the first one that it's really had alot of trouble with outside the car area, almost all of the images outside of the car I had to help autopano along by selecting the areas it needs to place control points in each image link for each image. I think another few hours and I'll have the remain portions of the image finished.

Daniel, Autopano does not have manual control point addition. The only thing is this select two areas and hit go workflow. This works well as long as there is some detail somewhere, but when there isn't it can completely fail. I have sent two pairs of images which clearly fit with each, but are out of focus, to the developer, so that he can take a look. I still worry about the totally out of focus stuff, but perhaps simply being able to add manual points and letting the blend take care of the rest would suffice.

Here is the rose I have been having trouble with. Even this stage was hours of work, and you can see how many connections are still missing. I can't get some of these added, and there are still clear flaws in the image. I hope that the Autopano developers add manual control point addition.

For now, whenever working with areas of little fine detail, make sure that the overlap is rather larger. Autopano will not work with details in the 20 pixels nearest the edges, for example.

This may prove difficult with such shallow DOF, in the absence of small details and sharp edges that the program can easily identify and compare.

Alexandre said that manual control point (actually clicking where you want the control points to be!) will probably be in the next version

It *is* proving *very* difficult But it does seem to work, given enough pictures to work with. Lots of overlap is the rule here, as well as lots of images around the periphery. In the rose image here, I am finding that I don't have enough around the edges for a nice crop, for example. I will have to reshoot it.

Daniel, I saw that comment on the forum too. "probably"? It *must* be.

I didn't say it was easy It's addicting though, I think! Once you get your first one done and it looks awesome, it makes you want to do another one!

I do alot of stitching though (currently, and in the past), so maybe I'm used to it a bit more that most folks. Autopano is a bit new to me, so I think once I fully understand how it works (and get completely manual control points!) it will be awesome. It's worked amazing on everything up until these defocused images (understandably!)

Yes, I am pretty impressed. I have used Canon's stitching program, and it can't do anything not linear, but does that really well. I have also, in my Windows days of yore, used Panavue ImageAssembler. Neither is anywhere near as good, and nowhere near as automated. I just wish for manual control points for hard areas, and a bit more stabillity, then I will be happy for now.

This next one probably could have probably easily been replicated with a few cut out layers in photoshop and some gradient defocussing. However the perspective is stretched (I left the stitch on a flat "planer" projection) and might be hard to replicate. Wasn't quite sure what this one would look like (about 50 images at 135mm!) Certainly makes for an odd image!

this one, with the planer projection, you can see the curved DOF on the ground, as well as the middle emblem being in focus, but the tail lights being slightly out of focus.

and on a side note, I just ordered a bunch of suspension parts for my car

My latest (100 images with Leica M8, 90 Macro):

I think that one looses a sense of scale and looks like a regular thin DOF shot like my woods shots. It's already a small object you are shooting, It seems to work best on larger objects (which is why I keep using my car, for now) I bet the resolution is amazing though

Yup, I think you are right. I love the look, but I can get something similar with a 75 Lux at f/1.4. Not quite the same, but close enough that the difference is easily lost. Hmm. Perhaps macro is not really the right place for this technique. It is 6000x6000 though, and I only exported at 1500x1000 per image, so it could be at least twice that large.

I guess what is really needed for these images to succeed is the monstrous difference between things in the distance and things up close, and the right perspective to highlight this difference. Your last shot is missing the dramatic perspective.

I tried a 19-shot panorama with the 75 Lux, and also a single shot. Both have almost the same limited depth of field, and with a 19 image panorama, it has less! With a bit of colour fiddling, I can get almost the same picture, with significantly less fuss than 100 shots with the 90 Macro. Oh well, I guess the macro lens is going to be reserved for truly macro shots. I will at some point try a macro panorama. The 75 Lux can't touch that area.

I have been away a couple of days, get back, and meet this! Thank you Daniel, and Carsten, for pictures, thoughts and ideas. I have to try something just to get the feeling of it!

Hello Jonas!

I tried another one today, free-hand, and I am having some real trouble stitching it. Make sure that the nodal point of the lens (somewhere in the middle of the lens normally) stays more or less put. I was being silly and pivoted around my waist, introducing parallax error, and even Autopano Pro does not seem happy about this.

I did the woods shots hand held, if you remember to rotate the camera around the lens or even just the body, it seems to work just fine :-) around the waist might be a bit much, especially if you are focusing close.

I look forward to seeing more of these! I won't get a chance to shoot more until probably next weekend, I work during the week :-(

A failed attempt. Too much motion away from the nodal point: