Guys,

In search of the ideal lens for my Canon 5D and the best way to reproduce the appearance of the images I got with my medium format film camera, I purchased several lenses, especially some Zeiss (the latest is a Distagon 35mm 1.4, which I'm still waiting to get and I have noticed that at this forum, it is that gives the best result in this direction - IMHO).

However, browsing through a gallery of images of Rokinon on Flickr, I came across a technique called "The Branizer Method" or "Panorama Bokeh" that achieves similar results obtained with the medium-format cameras. This technique involves taking several photos and then paste them using an appropriate software for this purpose. Below is the link to the Flickr group on this subject. Is it allowed to enter some images that were posted there by others, here in the forum or that would infringe copyright?

I was amazed and is an economical alternative to reproduce the effect of MF cameras using objective alternatives. I apologize if this topic is already known to you, but I was really surprised and had to share!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/brenizermethod/

Regards.

Well friends,

I'll post some links of pictures here and if there is any problem about that, let me know and I edit the post immediately ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimcaryl/5382626612/sizes/l/in/pool-1121852@N21/

The technique is well known and has been around for a while. I am not sure why Brenizer or whatever suddenly gets the credit. I have been doing them since about 2006/2007, and I didn't invent them. They are hard to visualize and perform. You will need a stable tripod and a pano head, as well as good stitching software. The effect works though. In theory, to go from FF 135 to a MF look, you would need maybe 3-4 shots. To go to a large format look, you need more. Daniel Buck was doing these around 2006-2007 on his car, around the same time that I tried it for a portrait. You need to move very fast and accurately for moving subjects, but can take your time with the static parts.

About lenses, the two lenses which repeatedly get praised for their 3D ability are the Contax/Yashica or Rollei 35mm f/1.4 Distagon, and the C/Y 100mm f/2 Planar.

I guess I'm a little confused how this extra shallow DOF effect makes things more medium format-like. DOF of a standard 80 lens at f2.8 on 6x6 is similar to the DOF of a 50mm lens on a 5D at f1.6-ish.

This technique is not new of course. Here's a thread from 4 years ago: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/544062/

Brenizer uses it to great effect though!

That's the thread! And there was another over on the Leica forum, since I was using an M8. Here are my two best shots from back then, 36 and 100 shots stitched, respectively. Macro panos make no sense I concluded. It looks like a normal shallow DoF shot.

I imagined that some (or many) of you already know, but I think because of the difference in the name given to the technique, I could not find this topic when I did a search, sorry. Anyway, I was impressed with the technique. Even so, I still eagerly awaiting my Distagon 35mm 1.4

One more:

I must admit, looks pretty Contax 35/1.4!

Well, economical, yes, but not so practical. A cheaper 3D option than the Zeiss is to get some old Minolta glass. it has a lot of 3D but minus the high micro contrast.

Daniel Buck has posted quite a few of these over the years here of his car.
Shallow DOF doesn't equal 3-d.
Read the 3-d threads about that.

douglasf13 wrote:
I guess I'm a little confused how this extra shallow DOF effect makes things more medium format-like. DOF of a standard 80 lens at f2.8 on 6x6 is similar to the DOF of a 50mm lens on a 5D at f1.6-ish.

The main difference is that a 80/2.8 is way better corrected for spherical aberration than a ~50/1.6 at wide apertures. So, the bokeh and everything will look smoother, while the image is still much sharper, giving MF a different look even with the same DOF. Low SA also makes the DOF fall off in a "steeper" way, so the subject will look more isolated from the background.

A good way to mimic this is to use a longer-than-normal lens on 24x36, stop it down a bit and then do the stiching. But you'll always get a field curvature due to pointing the camera around, and/or bent lines because of cylindrical projection, as seen in some of the shots above.

I have been experimenting with this for a while using a Gigapan Epic Pro robotic panoramic head. I've done the following observations:

1) Too close is no good. It's not just about shallow DOF. You can get it easily enough with a macro lens on a small sensor. To make things interesting and to get a 'large format' look you need to have some distance to the subject.

2) At medium close distances you get the desired effect in terms of foreground/background relation and a unique look but field curvature and parallax is a big problem.
3) Using the lenses wide open isn't always a good solution due to vignetting. Even with lens correction profiles in lightroom it doesn't

Here are three examples of the same scene but with different lenses.

A) 100 mm (Zeiss 100 MP @ f/2), 18 images:

Here's a 'behind the scenes' video for the 200mm shot above. I suddenly got an urge to shoot some video - something that I have not done in more than a year, ever since I started with still photography.

Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the Gigapan in action:

http://vimeo.com/20405763

(view it in full screen)

denoir wrote:
Here's a 'behind the scenes' video for the 200mm shot above. I suddenly got an urge to shoot some video - something that I have not done in more than a year, ever since I started with still photography.

Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the Gigapan in action:

http://vimeo.com/20405763

(view it in full screen)

very nice!

Luka, I think you'll get an even better MF/LF look if you stop the lens(es) down a bit. Yes, DOF will increase, but the bokeh will soften and look more like MF/LF lenses render the scene.
I'm refering to the shots of the M9 on the tripod by the way. And you could also try a linear projection, if the software permits it. Photoshop is actually quite good at auto-stiching in several sorts of projections.

Have a cold beer while waiting for your lens.


coldbeer2 by johnlewis1513, on Flickr

Neat video! That device reminds me of my Gibson Darkfire.

@gpop, Bif - thanks!

@Martin, yeah I know. I shot a sequence at f/5.6 as well but didn't post it. As for Photoshop, it's ok for < 50 images but when you go above that it becomes very slow. I'm using Gigapan Sticher (primitive but usually decent results) and Autopano Giga (advanced but unreliable).

Regarding projection, yes linear is better but I'm suspecting that the nodal point in a zoom lens is not in the middle of the lens. When I use a planar projection I get broken lines showing that the parallax error is significant. This in turn means that I did not find the nodal point.

Mercator:

It isn't actually the nodal point (front or rear) that you need. From memory, it should be the entrance pupil. This place has the odd property that it is where it looks like the aperture is, looking into the lens from in front, IIRC. Anyway, the usual trick for finding it is to put two sharp pencils pointing up at different distances, and turn the lens+camera side-to-side. Move the camera forwards or backwards on its rail until the two tips stay exactly behind each other for all rotations of the camera. Takes a bit of time. We could start a thread to post values for commonly used lenses with commonly used pano equipment...

http://www.janrik.net/PanoPostings/NoParallaxPoint/TheoryOfTheNoParallaxPoint.pdf

I think the second shot above looks far better, and the easiest way to get the first shot without (so many) errors to look like the second shot is probably applying a Photoshop distortion. Not correct, but effective.

I need to go out tomorrow and see if I can make an LF-like panorama with my 200/2 VR. Could be neat, if I can find the right subject.

Hmm, I won't be able to do a 200/2 VR panorama just yet, at least if I am close enough to see parallax. My current pano kit can't move it far enough forwards, with the clamps I have, since the lens foot is oriented sideways compared to my camera.

The 100MP seems to work well at 11cm.