Panoramic Photography

[Bret Lucas]

I see a lot of people recommending shooting raw but really I can't see a need for it in panoramas.
Most of my shooting is panoramas - often big ones with 20+ images.
The .jpg files aren't that bad at all but the delay shooting raw is.
I've tried Raw but can't see that it's worth it.
The distorted horizon was corrected out several firmware versions ago.
Here's a 3 shot panorama done in jpg - like all of mine are.

This is a great image, imagine now capturing all the detail in the sky by exposing for the sky. And then raising the darks in post. You can really stretch a RAW image. Try the same technique with a jpeg, and you're likely to get banding and a lot of noise. When you have limited shades of grey to push and pull, you get yourself stuck. A 12 bit image has a lot more potential pixel weight over an 8 bit image.

 

[Bret Lucas]

Yes .. I know Raw has more/is better .. but my testing shows that the jpg files are all I need and the time to shoot 20 Raw files is unacceptable.
Have a look at the panoramas in my gallery and see if they are lacking anything.
There are 45 individual images stitched in this one. My batteries don't last long enough to shoot Raw.

Nice image, would be interesting to get two large prints done and see the difference. It works for you so no problem. I'm doing commercial work and like to open up my options in post. Granted time could be an issue if you are shooting 45 images. I'm getting up around 25 images with plenty of time to get home and I'm sure I could get to 35-40 with no problems if needed. Anyway difference strokes for different folks.

 

[apsphoto]

I see a lot of people recommending shooting raw but really I can't see a need for it in panoramas.
Most of my shooting is panoramas - often big ones with 20+ images.
The .jpg files aren't that bad at all but the delay shooting raw is.
I've tried Raw but can't see that it's worth it.
The distorted horizon was corrected out several firmware versions ago.
Here's a 3 shot panorama done in jpg - like all of mine are.

You have some great work, and that is great you have your standards. I prefer having the headroom to edit back in the lost highlights and being able to bracket the shot to get the full dynamic range. Then you might be able to deal with the blown highlights that you in the clouds. Just personal choices. And who knows, I am still working on my workflow for some things the jpgs might make more sense like the ocean waves above the speed is needed. But then I might will still there go and bracket for the sky and mask it back in after getting the waves.

The lens distortion is in the dng so it is correcting it during processing.

Great thread.

 

[Scott7161]

You guys have posted some great panos. Here's one from Oahu Hawaii

https://flic.kr/p/xdtaus

 

[JohnK]

Just curious as to why you would use 45 shots with a lens that has a 94 degree view ...

 

[Meta4]

Just curious as to why you would use 45 shots with a lens that has a 94 degree view ...

It's all about getting the big picture.
It's 15 photos but I was bracketing so took 3 of each and used them all in the blend to get detail. It's a big picture taking in a huge area, shot from fairly close so it took 15 shots to get full coverage.
A single frame shows only a small part of the whole image.

 

[JohnK]

Ah yes I hadn't considered the bracketing. I still haven't tried this, but thanks a lot for the great info. Can't wait to do one of my whole neighborhood ... including using this program:
https://www.ptgui.com/

 

[chapsrlz]

anyone tried vertical panoramas?
a skyscraper for example.

 

[mick]

Can I ask, I have the pro, and this is all completely new to me, so say I wanted a photo of a town, would i take a shot, move the bird 10 ft horizontal take another and repeat this process 10 or 20 times, also I take it you have to be at the same height all the time.

 

[dkyacht]

Can I ask, I have the pro, and this is all completely new to me, so say I wanted a photo of a town, would i take a shot, move the bird 10 ft horizontal take another and repeat this process 10 or 20 times, also I take it you have to be at the same height all the time.

Same height yes definitely. You can do it that way or depending on how big the town is just rotate it slightly for every pic. Both ways will work, I usually use the stationary position slight rotation method. This pic is with that technique, only 6 or 7 photos I think.

Dave

 

[apsphoto]

You guys have posted some great panos. Here's one from Oahu Hawaii

https://flic.kr/p/xdtaus

Wow this is great, bet it was windy at that altitude. Do you remember what the altitude and distance you were? I assume you were on shore or on a boat? Nice shots on your flickr page too. Well done.

Alan

 

[apsphoto]

Can I ask, I have the pro, and this is all completely new to me, so say I wanted a photo of a town, would i take a shot, move the bird 10 ft horizontal take another and repeat this process 10 or 20 times, also I take it you have to be at the same height all the time.

You can try it that way but it may be problematic. The FOV is huge 94 degrees so probably need to move more than 10 feet but then you can get parallax issues and perspective issues. You would need to use a decent stitching program, like Ptgui. Probably a lot easier to just maintain altitude and rotate in yaw and get about 50% overlap depending on how windy. There is some loss of resolution in the corners so lots of overlap is better in most cases.

Alan

 

[mick]

Would you say ptgui software is as good as any out there to create the photos, I have photoshop, but am very new to it,

 

[apsphoto]

anyone tried vertical panoramas?
a skyscraper for example.

You would be limited it how high you can point the gimbal before the props and arms get in the way. Wish they would fly pointed up on their tails! Going down is not a problem.

Alan

 

[apsphoto]

Would you say ptgui software is as good as any out there to create the photos, I have photoshop, but am very new to it,

I have used Ptgui for a long time and especially for stitching 360x180 panos for clients to do virtual tours. It is probably one of the best, but it is not exactly cheap, it has a ton of features, I use the Pro version. There are some free ones like Hugin that will work, but for me and my testing nothing beats Ptgui. They do have a trial version you can download it puts a water mark on the image. It works way better than photoshop when stitching, in my experience. I have PS CS6 and Lightroom 6 but do not have the subscription models, it is faster and more accurate.

Alan

 

[mick]

I have used Ptgui for a long time and especially for stitching 360x180 panos for clients to do virtual tours. It is probably one of the best, but it is not exactly cheap, it has a ton of features, I use the Pro version. There are some free ones like Hugin that will work, but for me and my testing nothing beats Ptgui. They do have a trial version you can download it puts a water mark on the image. It works way better than photoshop when stitching, in my experience. I have PS CS6 and Lightroom 6 but do not have the subscription models, it is faster and more accurate.

Alan

Its about £70 I think for the licence, is it beneficial to buy the pro licence over the basic, the pro licence is £140, I dont mind paying if it is going to be beneficial in the long run

 

[apsphoto]

The Pro versions gives you hdr capability inside of the program, if you do not need that or want that then you probably need just the basic licence. You can download and try it first, I highly recommend it, there is some learning curve. The Pro version gives you automated HDR and some ability to correct for vignetting etc. also if you do spherical (360x180) panos it allows you to do viewpoint correction to eliminate the tripod when looking down etc. You can always upgrade later if needed.
A basic workflow for me is I load all the raws into Lightroom. I will select one of the frames, go to develop, set the white balance if needed and turn on the lens profile if it is not on. Then go back to the library. I will thing "copy settings" of the one I changed, and then select the rest of the images and apply the settings to the rest, then export them all as tiff. If I am not doing an HDR and it is just a single frame, I will adjust the exposure as well but avoid blowing out hightlights.
Load them all in ptgui, stitch them, look at the results, usually it is done and no tweaking is needed. Tweak if needed, then output the stitched image in the desired file, usually Tif or PSD. I then load back into Lightroom and adjust contrast, clarity, vibrance, etc. as needed. Then done.

Sounds like a lot but it goes quick. If I think the pano might not work, I will just load a jpg version quickly and check it. Before doing the "final" version.

Hope this helps.
Alan

 

[apsphoto]

If you want to do an hdr version and do not have the Pro or want to use it, you can stitch the 0EV exposures and make a template with ptgui, then load the brackets and just apply the template, export all of the verisons. Load in your favorite hdr program and generate the hdr version. By using the template they will all be stitched the same and should align up with out any issues.

The Pano I posted above was done using the exposure fusion setting inside of Ptgui Pro to generate the hdr version and only minor tweaking was done later. This flight was just a test flight but the sky lit up nicely. It was 9 exposures total, 3 frames of 3 each. All shot as raw.

Alan

 

[surplussunshine]

Any blur or unevenness when taking that many photos?

 

[chapsrlz]

You would be limited it how high you can point the gimbal before the props and arms get in the way. Wish they would fly pointed up on their tails! Going down is not a problem.

Alan

the sky is the limit
at least where i fly, so i would start maybe 50 meters higher than the building height and then start going down. my p3 arrives today and maybe during the weekend ill give it a try.