Digital Panoramas
One of the nice features of digital photography is the ability to stitch a number of images together into a panoramic image.
Large images can be created with extremely high resolution, such as demonstrated with the 2.5 gigapixel photo made by TNO in 2004.
However, it doesn't take 10 scientists and 5 computers to make your own digital panorama. You can do this with your own digital compact or SLR camera. Check the software that comes with your digital camera. There's a good chance that it contains some simple stitching software as well. Otherwise stitching can be easily done with the auto merge function of Photoshop (click on File, Automate, Photomerge).
However, most auto stitching programs do not always produce accurate results, which may result in discontinuities and colour differences.
For a better result, a more advanced program is required that provides the possibility for manual corrections of the control points (common points on two overlapping photos) and blending (to even out colour and exposure differences).
My favourite panorama software is PTGui.
The auto stitching mode is very accurate and there are a number of options for manual correction. The program is very intuitive and user friendly as well.
Tips
In order to get good results, you have to observe a number of things:
- Set your exposure and white balance to manual to avoid exposure and colour differences
- Keep your camera horizontal (better: use a properly leveled tripod)
- Allow for sufficient overlap (a minimum of 20%)
- If you shoot nearby objects, avoid parallax by turning the camera around the nodal point of the lens. This can only be achieved with a proper pano head.
Some examples
Budapest
11 vertical images stitched together with PTGui
circular projection
Nikon D1X + Nikkor AF-S 80-200
80 mm focal length
tripod mounted
stitched file size 12461 x 3617 pixels
(2.1 x 0.6 m at 150 dpi)
Sydney
13 vertical images stitched together with PTGui
circular projection
Nikon D1X + Nikkor AF-S 17-35
17 mm focal length
hand held
stitched file size 9084 x 2760 pixels
(1.5 x 0.5 m at 150 dpi)
Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chili
click on the image to enlarge
28 vertical images stitched together with PTGui
circular projection
Nikon D2X + Nikkor AF-S 24-70
36 mm focal length
tripod mounted
stitched file size 17556 x 6176 pixels
(2.9 x 1.0 m at 150 dpi)
Links
Australia panoramas by Fred Kamphues