Stitching and LF

[luong]

Bernard, first thank you for a valuable, and hard to find comparison of stitching methods. I have a few remarks.

If one is to stick with a purely digital workflow, besides price, I am not sure why one would want to use a device such as the LD rather than a LF camera with a scanning back. Both look equally cumbersome, and share limitations with respect to moving subjects,  but the LF gives you considerably more control and quality. The medium-range Better Light doesn't cost that much more than a 1Ds2.

I also question  the "shear simplicity" of the stitching-based digital workflow. Isn't it easier  and more enjoyable to visualize/focus the image whole on the large ground glass, capture it in a single shot, and then feed the film into the scanner, rather than going through the contorsions of making the overlapping shots and stitching them ?

Last (but not least), as a LF photographer, you know that if you were to shoot near/far subjects without tilts, you would rarely have enough DOF. However, when you are using stitching, isn't what you are doing using a virtual LF camera without movements ?

[BernardLanguillier]

Hello Luong,

Glad that at least one person found this article interesting.

I mostly agree with you, scanning back are very tempting beasts. However:

- The price you quote seems a bit optimistic to me. What I would consider buying is one of the latest USB + sensor II models, and these cost about 12.000 US$ new, and are difficult to find on ebay (plus the sellers appears to be limiting them to US buyers for some weird reason...),

- From what I read, the limitations of scanning backs are even greater than those of stitching. A subject can move when you stitch, it just shouldn't be near the overlapping area, if it is, the movement should be steady (water fall at low speed for instance). Correct me if I wrong, but any movement in the scene with scanning will result in RGB artifacts, right?

Buy yes, otherwise it is indeed much more pleasant to be able to compose an image on a LF camera GG... no doubt whatsoever!  Shooting LF film is of course something I still do, but the cost is high, and there is no histogram display built in the Provia 100F quickloads is there...

As far as DoF goes, you are totally correct. However one advantage of shooting digital is that you can do DoF stack up first (assemble 2 or 3 images shot at different focussing distance), and then stitch the resulting images... although this can become really a pain and requires a lot of rigour! Not easy to do in even slightly changing conditions, or when you are excited with this amazing scene that you might never see again...

Cheers,
Bernard

[Anon E. Mouse]

As far as DoF goes, you are totally correct. However one advantage of shooting digital is that you can do DoF stack up first (assemble 2 or 3 images shot at different focussing distance), and then stitch the resulting images... although this can become really a pain and requires a lot of rigour!

Bernard, there are programs available to do this. Combine Z is one. This technique is used a lot in photomicrography. I even believe there are free programs on the net.

[Jack Flesher]

I have been stitching for a few years and now also own a Betterlight scanning back so can offer a little insight FWIW.  

First, I built this camera from an old Horseman about a year before Horseman released theirs (Makes me wonder where they got their idea!):

[mtomalty]

Check out a relatively inexpensive stitching option that should be hitting the market quite
soon at www.camerafusion.com that will facilitate the use of Nikon and canon DSLRs on
most view cameras-using view camera lenses

I had a VERY brief demo (so I don't have answers to any questions about the product) earlier
this summer and was pretty impressed despite some limitations,at present, for all round use.

Contact them at their website for more pertinent info than I can provide other than steering you
towards them

Mark