Stitching - An Advanced Approach

[dchew]

Very nice article Bernard, and nice selection of images that challenge traditional limitations on "stitch-able" scenes.

One point that is obvious but not brought out in the article is that stitching allows one to do more with fewer lenses. This is a real benefit in MF. I recently took two lenses with me into the mountains, a 60mm and 90mm. Although I stitch differently than you by sliding the back in my Alpa, stitching with the back vertical gives me virtually a 28-60mm range (in equivalent 135 format).

So it increases the versatility of what you carry, in effect lightening your load. In your case, the Otus is a relatively heavy 55mm lens, but your creative use of that lens turns it into a svelt 15-55mm wonder-zoom.

Dave

[BernardLanguillier]

Thanks Dave, very kind of you.

It is indeed a very good point that I should have mentioned.

That's exactly how I look at the weight and cost of the Otus and it does indeed also apply to other forms of stitching.

Cheers,
Bernard

[MarkL]

I have enjoyed both the stitching articles which mentions some techniques I might not have attempted with it.

Stitching is a lot more flexible than many people realise; I have stitched multi row landscape images handheld with different focus points and exposures since the D700 was released without any advanced use of specialist software or anything other than a tripod levelling base. I often use different exposures in the same stitch and occasionally aperture priority when the light is fleeting. I do usually take a one frame 'safe' shot first if I plan to do anything a bit risky though.

I'd also much rather stitch a few more frames deciding the crop in my own time in post when relaxed than kick myself later/lose too much res. Maybe I'm nuts because while people are complaining about 36MP files I still stitch with my D800E.

[vjbelle]

Thanks for a very informative article.  I have stitched for years with PTGui and appreciate its workflow.  I've tried Auto Pano but never achieved the easy results that I could get with PTGui.  Your comparison between the two was very helpful and, once again, I'll give Auto Pano a try.  Also I've never tried changing the focus from near to far.... that's something for sure I'm going to experiment with. 

Victor

[Alan Smallbone]

Thanks a lot Bernard, wonderful article.

Alan

[Tilman Paulin]

very informative article, thank you Bernard! I'm sure I'll try a few of your suggestions!

One challenge for me with panorama-stitching is sometimes to previsualize the exact composition (since I can't see the final image until I'm back at my computer).

To help with that I sometimes do "previs" with my smartphone's auto-pano-mode.
The image quality of my phone is terrible but it's a quick way for me to help with finding an interesting composition (camera position/height/angle, include foreground elements or not, etc.)

cheers,
Tilman

[David Mantripp]

Thanks very much Bernard, very interesting and very timely.  And your Flickr stream is very, very enjoyable.

[Isaac]

Stitching is a lot more flexible than many people realise; I have stitched multi row landscape images handheld with different focus points and exposures … without any advanced use of specialist software or anything other than a tripod levelling base.

Me too, but sometimes being able to attempt such a thing feels more like a curse than a blessing :-)

Currently I'm struggling to put together about 20 exposures (selected from about 120). The upper part was easy enough, 6 exposures put together with stitching software and exposure blending. The lower part is a mass of lupin and paintbrush; in-focus and out, from exposure to exposure as the breeze rippled across the hillside. The stitching software had problems with that, so I've been hand-blending the larger blooms.

I'll be happy when I finish this one, it's taken far too long!

But being able to put together a 60MP picture, with just a Sony A35, will feel like a blessing once it's done ;-)

[BernardLanguillier]

Thank you for the nice words my friends.

Glad the article could be of some help.

Cheers,
Bernard

[dreed]

The desire to stitch (for me) is driven by a desire to get more data with which to do a larger 300dpi print.

Camera	MP	X Pixels	Y Pixels	Width "	Height "
Canon 5D3	22	5760	3840	19	12
Nikon D810	36	7360	4912	24	16
Pentaz 645Z	51	8256	6192	27	20
Phase One IQ260	60	8984	6732	30	22
Phase One IQ280	80	10328	7760	34	25

If I'm putting something up on the wall, my goal is to have the image be at least 36" wide. The IQ280 is close enough that I'd probably be happy with that but as an amateur, such equipment is not in my hands. That then leaves stitching which works most of the time. When it doesn't work is when there's too much motion - waves in water are the worst, following by quickly moving clouds and trees. Which reminds me of something I'd like to see in LR...

[kers]

Hello bernard,
Thank you for the interesting article...

I use  ptGui at the moment for making a panorama that is really time consuming...
It is based on 72 D800 images made with a 85mm lens - sharp over the full range 85cm-infinity...
I use helicon focus as you do but i have plenty of photoshop handwork to do..afterwards....still..
I try to get a hyperrealistic image of a few meters wide at 300dpi...

I think ptGui is a wonderful program using all the cores of my mac pro and now even the GPU !- really fast indeed...( an example to other software engineers... adobe..? )
I never succeeded in getting the points as close as you do,  but i believe the program says for stitches below 0.5 pixels ..too good to be true... and i think it is meant serious.
what i have learned from your piece is about the vignetting- never looked into that...but i will..
I tend to straighten my pano's in an other way... numerical transform ... very simple and powerful

[kers]

+1

very fast - it takes me about 10x longewr, but from the cold you are in i can imagine you like working fast... also the sky chnging and everything....

Must say that i like the basis photoshop stitch software too.. often you get a decent panorama even if you did not work precise during the shots....
The result is never pixel exact but for a lot of pano's that is not a problem.
PT Gui is very precise but demands from the shots the same precision...

[Jeremy Roussak]

Thank you for the nice words my friends.

Glad the article could be of some help.

It's very interesting, Bernard. Could you perhaps give a short critique of the pros and cons of PTGui and Autopano? I use the latter, mainly because I came across it first; are there situations in which PTGui does a better job?

Jeremy

[tsjanik]

Thanks for a informative article Bernard.  I often stitch to get a wider angle of view, which as Dave mentioned, gives me the equivalent of a lens I don't have.

Like dreed, I also like to print at the native resolution of my printer (360 ppi in my case).  So for me the 40 MP can be printed at a maximum paper size of 17x22; stitching allows me much larger prints when desired and possible.  Speaking of possible, below is an image I would love to have stitched for a wider view.  The water I have learned to deal with in many cases, but the clouds were moving so fast that multiple exposures were not successful.

Tom

[BernardLanguillier]

+1

very fast - it takes me about 10x longewr, but from the cold you are in i can imagine you like working fast... also the sky chnging and everything....

Must say that i like the basis photoshop stitch software too.. often you get a decent panorama even if you did not work precise during the shots....
The result is never pixel exact but for a lot of pano's that is not a problem.
PT Gui is very precise but demands from the shots the same precision...

The RRS PG-02 head helps working fast. I control it with my right hand and have the cable release in my left hand. 2-3 sec per frame is pretty typical.

It can be even faster when doing DoF stacking when I tune focus with one hand and release with the other too.

Cold helps stay focused.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

It's very interesting, Bernard. Could you perhaps give a short critique of the pros and cons of PTGui and Autopano? I use the latter, mainly because I came across it first; are there situations in which PTGui does a better job?

Jeremy

Jeremy,

I am bit reluctant to do so because I see them as complemntary, plus I cannot claim to have in depth expertise with every single feature of both apps.

But as a rule of thumb, here are IMHO the strong points of each app:
- PTgui: great control of control points, multi-layer output is ideal to tune blending masks in OS, best interpolation algos result in highest image quality, amazingly fast output with fast GPUs, ability to position automatically featureless frames on a grid (great for high res panos with large portions of featureless skies), great light fall of correction,
- Autopano: best totally automatic experience, best automatic adjustement of horizon/verticals, best pattern matching for subjects with low contrast features.

Cheers,
Bernard

[MarkL]

Must say that i like the basis photoshop stitch software too.. often you get a decent panorama even if you did not work precise during the shots....
The result is never pixel exact but for a lot of pano's that is not a problem.
PT Gui is very precise but demands from the shots the same precision...

I tried the other two maybe 5 years ago (so earlier versions) and PS seemed to do best with exposure and focus point changes with landscapes so I stuck with it. Microsoft ICE was also excellent but couldn't deal with 16bit files.

[Isaac]

Microsoft ICE was also excellent but couldn't deal with 16bit files.

Support for input images with 8 or 16 bits per component 2011

[Torbjörn Tapani]

Thank you Bernard. Many good tips that I were unaware of.

I have stayed away from getting a proper GPU before but may be getting into more video and when stitching also can benefit I might have to upgrade the computer. Any recommendations on GPUs? What to look for?

[thompsonkirk]

Yet another enthusiastic thanks.  I guess it's time for me to start using PTGUI. But first a maybe-dumb question:

Most of my stitches are rather simple: they're from Monochrom files of landscapes, with no critical verticals as in architectural work.  And most are three or four files.  So I wonder: why isn't PS CC 2014 Photomerge the basic or first-try starting point?  It seems to handle all but the most difficult cases and has  become pretty sophisticated in the way it blends adjacent frames.

Kirk