Before I start, the only reason I didn't just say "nice" and move on, is that I think the shot is very close to something great, but not quite there.
I feel there is a lot of potential here, especially in the second position, but something stops me from thinking it is perfect, something makes me wish for more. I think that at the same time, it is not uniform enough and too uniform, there is too much or too little in the shot. The tree on the left is too close, and thus at a larger scale than most of the trees, and it also somehow divides the photo in two bits. The tree on the right looks different than the rest, and decreases the uniformity, and another half tree leans in from the right. I think if you could find a slightly different position in the same place, where all trees are more similar and at the same distance, roughly, and no trees are cut in half, it may gain a lot more power.
On the other hand, if you were able to somehow step back and get more, if there were a clearing or something like that, and you were able to include the treetops with an interesting sky and maybe clouds, then the same scenes could again be more interesting, even if it is less uniform. A wider lens might help.
FWIW, I attempted a similar shot some years ago, and went too close, and as a result, the shot was uninteresting, much less interesting than yours.
carstenw,
I agree, I just couldn't find the shot. This was a very small park by my parents home in Brick, NJ down the shore and I was standing on the road for these because from inside the park there wasn't enough room. I left there feeling like I missed it and when I got home and played with the stitching I knew it was off a bit, something just not there. I also had my Contax G1 with a 28/2.8 and I just processed the film and I missed it on those frames as well. I'll be back again to visit and I'll look for a different view, I know there is something there I just have to find it. Thanks for the run down.
I had a little gig the other night to cover an event/reception where I was requested to do so spontaneous showroom shots. I had no tripod, and after taking some individual stills at ISO 800 (kind of unsatisfying), I decided to surprise the client by trying some low-ISO, off-the-cuff panos of the showroom, propping and rotating the camera on any semi-flat surface (including one held from behind pressed onto a round pillar!). Most of these showroom shots worked out to the range of 1/5 to 1/13 sec exposure in the showroom. The reception/party area was much simpler, and done simply to capture an impression of the room, and shot hand held at higher ISO and shutter speed.
Canon 60D with 15-85 IS @ 15mm horizontal (24mm equiv.), PP in LR3 and stitching in PSE8.
Camera pulled backward against pillar for support while rotating. I see one little alignment goober in this one of an overhead beam, but not bad at all considering the impromptu nature of the shots. http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/gunzorro/Gracepano3-2-2.jpg
gambaphoto wrote:
I'll be back again to visit and I'll look for a different view, I know there is something there I just have to find it.
That is exactly how I approach difficult places. I go there, do my best, come home and look at the results, and feel that I somehow missed something. Then I go back and go back and go back, and at some point, the really good shots start to come.
Have you ever spent sleepless nights wondering what images from a 20mm f/0.5* lens would look like? Well, ehm..no, neither have I, but here it is anyway:
* = The 20/0.5 is the best estimate I can give. It's a bit complicated to calculate it as the stitching software overlaps parts of the images, stretches them etc. Just going by final pixel count (1 gigapixel total with a resolution of ~33,000 x 33,000 pixels) gives roughly an 8 by 8 inches virtual sensor size. Using that calculation would result in a 35mm equivalent of ~15mm. However I get roughly the same AOV at 20mm when using an ultrawide zoom on the 5DII. So it's more like a 6x6 inch sensor equivalent. That gives a CoC of ~0.15 mm which combined with the AOV equivalence gives roughly a 20mm f/0.5 lens for 35mm.
Hehe - I assure you, there's method to my madness. I've been obsessing about getting a large format camera for a while but I've been able to resist it. The gigapan allows me to do sort of the same thing and at the same time provides a reality check - that I'm quite unwilling to carry around something as heavy. The Gigapan Epic Pro + DSLR is about the size and weight of a classic large format camera.
There is a third option - getting the smaller Gigapan 100 and use it with the M9, although I'm not sure that would improve things a lot as it's still bulky.
in keeping with the silliness, here's what it would look like if the rokkor 58/1.2 could cover a medium format image circle (actually 60mm x 38mm sensor). i'm to lazy to transform that into FF terms: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6037671962_6fbed53980_o.jpg
sebboh wrote:
in keeping with the silliness, here's what it would look like if the rokkor 58/1.2 could cover a medium format image circle (actually 60mm x 38mm sensor). i'm to lazy to transform that into FF terms: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6037671962_6fbed53980_o.jpg
Out of curiosity, why do you letterbox your panos?
obik wrote:
Out of curiosity, why do you letterbox your panos?
i letterbox all the photos that i upload to flickr now, but i started doing it for panos so they wouldn't look as ridiculous on the standard flickr display format. later i started doing it to all photos just cause i decided i like the look.
Great panos guys!
Out of curiosity, do you have any problems stitching the images with thin DOF? I always get errors with PTGui unable to detect points thus ruining panoramas.
Here are two from yesterday - 4 image each, since the 8 image stitch failed again..
Krosavcheg wrote:
Great panos guys!
Out of curiosity, do you have any problems stitching the images with thin DOF? I always get errors with PTGui unable to detect points thus ruining panoramas.
Here are two from yesterday - 4 image each, since the 8 image stitch failed again..
great shots, also i really liked your mountainous one from a few back.
since i shoot handheld both photoshop and hugin have a lot of trouble with narrow dof stitches. photoshop is a little better but much slower while hugin allows me to manually assign the same points across images, which is what i had to do for a number of photos in that last tree shot. i'm sure the luka's gigapan allows him to do it pretty seamlessly though. in general i find the longer the lenses focal length the easier it is to do a narrow dof stitch.
Yes, I have problems with narrow DOF stitches as well on occasion. Usually the software (Autopano Giga) does pretty well but on occasion it fails. Then I try with the more primitive Gigapan Stitch which usually has less problems. The thing is though that you shouldn't really shoot such panoramas wide open as the lens rendering at max aperture is uneven. You've got vignetting, bokeh distortions etc
I should add that I'm not following that advice myself as I can't resist the temptation of shooting at max aperture, but I've seen over and over again that it's problematic. My biggest problem though are geometrical distortions and projections. I don't know the exact nodal points (i.e exit pupil position) for the lenses I use which becomes problematic when you shoot close ups. Furthermore when doing close up shots (as part of wide angle panos) the fact that you have spherical geometry rather than a planar focal plane becomes obvious. I've been thinking about if one could perhaps motorize a tilt/shift lens and hook it up to to the gigapan to get correction for the non-planar focal "plane".
I also need to shoot stuff at larger distances. I've noticed that I can't resist the temptation of shoving the camera as close to the object as possible to minimize DOF.
