Single Row Panos - Are there advantages of using a T/S Lens?

[Panopeeper]

I made a panohead that is good but not a joy to use

It does not have to be expensive. Here is my pano bracket:



It is very light, it allows for adjustment of the rotation point within 1mm, which is good enough for me, for multirow panos as well (but the camera has to be always in portrait orientation, which is not a serious restriction). This one requires machinery (I am a hobby mechanics), but I saw one from profiled aluminium tubes, it requires only a press drill. I saw one made out of wood, working excellently, though somewhat heavier.

[elf]

It does not have to be expensive. Here is my pano bracket:

  Here's my pano head :

And a few more shots of it: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v649/etf...mview=slideshow

[Panopeeper]

OK, you made me do it   Here's my pano head

This was the one I meant with the tubular aluminium (I remembered this from PTA). I think you further developed/expanded it; I don't remember to have seen the "leg" on the side, apparently for giving more strength because of the heavy gear. The base too appears more complex than what I remember (as much as I remember from having seen the picture). Is this setup for macros?

[elf]

This was the one I meant with the tubular aluminium (I remembered this from PTA). I think you further developed/expanded it; I don't remember to have seen the "leg" on the side, apparently for giving more strength because of the heavy gear. The base too appears more complex than what I remember (as much as I remember from having seen the picture). Is this setup for macros?

Here's the original: http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=3508.  It used an inverted ballhead for slewing and only required simple tools to build.

The next iteration: http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=4731.  Added more precise controls for macro work.

Current iteration: Front and back movements added.

[fike]

I am always interested in seeing what people have to say about the practicalities of shooting panoramics.  This discussion seems to have fallen into a more purist, technique centric view (panopeeper and friends) and a more free-form dynamic method.

Both Work Well!!!

I use both handheld methods, and tripod mounted with a spherical head setup.  I have gotten excellent results with both, but here are few observations from my field experience:

1) Handheld frequently drifts from level and ends up requiring more aggressive cropping than you might hope, as panopeeper demonstrated
2) Double-row using handheld methods is difficult to do with high-quality particularly with more than about 2x4 images
3) Well-done foreground in a panoramic makes a fantastic element of composition, so careful calibration is very useful
4) Using a tripod doesn't eliminate mistakes http://www.trailpixie.net/panoramics_go_b.htm
5) Panoramic images that project well below or well above the horizon demand a spherical head setup to get reliable results.

I have never worked with tilt-shift lenses, though I have considered it.  Related to this topic, one thing that hasn't been discussed is the focal length of the lens you choose for panoramic images.  If you plan to do substantial corrections for parallel straight lines, in building perhaps, a longer lens allows you to take more images resulting in a higher resolution and less impact from the dreaded pixel-stretching.  

I haven't met very many people who routinely shoot panoramics at 70mm, 100mm, or even 400mm.  There are some pretty cool perspectives that can be achieved with these longer lenses, and the stretching and warping that you may end up doing doesn't have as deleterious an effect as it would if you shot fewer frames at a wide angle.  

So, proper spherical tripod head technique, with longer focal lengths substantially reduces the necessity of tilt shift lenses, as long as you are willing to deal with the reduced spontaneity.  

As for working quickly and spontaneously, I don't find that panoramic photography is highly compatible with that kind of work (though I have experienced notable exceptions http://www.trailpixie.net/general/sand_water_sky.htm ).  this doesn't diminish it power as a creative technique.  I see a great image and I know it can't be captured by a wide angle lens because the resolution won't be high enough.  I shoot the image in panoramic form and then get back to my computer and am excited to see the image take form--I am only pleased when the image is printed 24"x48" on my viewing table.  That is when the composition is realized.  Like old-times, eh.

[stever]

i like prime lenses in the range of 50-100mm for panoramas.  not necessarily extra wide panos unless you've got a tripod and patience, but to acheive the field of view of a wide angle lens with much greater resolution, minimal distortion, and CA.  you may have to shoot 2 vertical rows, but the Canon 100 macro delivers wonderful results.  much longer than 100mm, depth of field and diffraction limits become a problem for many subjects.

[Dick Roadnight]

I haven't met very many people who routinely shoot panoramics at 70mm, 100mm, or even 400mm.  There are some pretty cool perspectives that can be achieved with these longer lenses, and the stretching and warping that you may end up doing doesn't have as deleterious an effect as it would if you shot fewer frames at a wide angle.

The lens I want for panoramics is the Schneider Fine art Gold 1100... I think that is 1 or 2 degrees on 36 * 48mm. ...and I would use a P3 shift Tilt/Shift camera... you do not need a rail to balance the camera, or to get the entrance pupil in the right place, you use the rail that is part of the camera (using two rail clamps). You compose vertically with rise and fall, so you do not move the entrance pupil by tilting the tripod head. I have a fully geared Manfrotto  #400 tripod head - it would be nice to get a pano swivel to mount on it to save levelling the tripod. ( but the camera might weigh 10Kg!

[luong]

This is completely off-base. The orientation of the finished pano has nothing to do with the orientation of the camera.

The point is just that: rotating the camera on a level base, even though the camera itself may not be level. This is a must in many if not most situations; typical, when shooting from higher elevation downwards, like the following examples (some of those were shot hand-held, but the principle is the same, I try to do it hand-held as if I would do it from tripod):

Did you mean even though the base itself may not be level ? That is you are rotating using a pano-head, but the rotation axis is not vertical ?

[elf]

Did you mean even though the base itself may not be level ? That is you are rotating using a pano-head, but the rotation axis is not vertical ?

That sounds about right.  It's nice (but not essential) to have the camera level left to right.  It is not necessary and usually isn't possible to have the camera level front to back.  In the end, the only thing that matters is that all of the elements in your composition have been captured in an image.   One of my favorites is this handheld 67 image pano of a waterfall where I kept adding more images around the edges because it continued to get more interesting as I shot :

[Panopeeper]

Did you mean even though the base itself may not be level ? That is you are rotating using a pano-head, but the rotation axis is not vertical ?

Think of the following experiment: you are on the top of a highrise and shooting a pano, which is supposed to include part of the area close to your own building, down below. Obviously the camera can not be horizontal. Start out at the left edge of the envisioned pano frame, shoot and rotate to the right. If the plane of rotation is level, then the frames cover a roughly horizontal strip of the sceenery. Otherwise, as it would be natural in this setting, the frames would cover an area along a segment of a circle, with the center much lower than the edges.

When stitching, you can cheat and request the pano be aligned in a line (a decent sticher will screem from pain); you can rape a landscape to almost any shape. However, if the scenery is a city, then it is expected that the buildings are straight. In order to get straight buildings, your pano will have to be like the bottom segment of a circle, i.e. large part of it has to be cropped.

I do realize that this is not a good description of the subject; I will make a demonstration of it as soon as I can; I need to find someone in a highrise letting me on top of the building in order to shoot a pano the wrong way.

[Panopeeper]

I kept adding more images around the edges because it continued to get more interesting as I shot

Back to a previous post about framing: the "conventional" method is looking through the viewfinder and making a frame. In my world this is raping the framing. That's what I mean previously with

One of the advantages of stitching is, that the framing is not limited/determined by the viewfinder (in fact not even by the camera), but by the position of the camera. I envision the pano frame, find the best accessible position for that and make enough frames to cover that and more (sometimes I misjudge it). Not only that I don't need the viewfinder, but it is totally useless

In other words: envision the frame and shoot as much as you need to, as opposed to frame as you can with your current lens.

It may be due to having shot too many panos, but I feel almost physical pain when viewing an image and realizing, that (probably) important/interesting parts have been left out, due to the limited FoV of the lens.

[Jonathan Wienke]

A few thoughts:

If there are no foreground elements, then good stitch results can be obtained even with sloppy technique--shooting handheld, or using a tripod but not bothering to find the nodal point of the lens. But if you include nearby foreground objects, then some means of adjusting for the nodal point such as the Manfrotto 3419 macro plate is needed, and if you want to do multi-row panos, then a spherical pano head is needed.

A T/S can be useful if the horizon is not the center of your composition. Not so much the shift function, but the tilt function, to make sure foreground and background objects are in focus.

Cylindrical projection is much better for wide-angle panos than rectilinear; you avoid excessive distortion in the corners.

[luong]

Think of the following experiment: you are on the top of a highrise and shooting a pano, which is supposed to include part of the area close to your own building, down below. Obviously the camera can not be horizontal.

This brings us back to the OP: the camera can be horizontal if you have a lens with shift.