kcb1dizbksfan
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2008
- Messages
- 282
Here in the Northeast between the snow and cold I am about ready for my Disney fix.
Photography is an important avocation for me and so over the past 2 plus years I have been working on learning the art of Panoramic photography. I know there are a lot of experienced and budding photogs on the boards so I figured I would share with you some of the images of the World that I shot over the past two visits and discussion of my workflow processes for those interested and if not just view the images.
Technically under the vBulletin software, it did not allow me to embed HTML with Flash for posting images on the boards and recently I tried to post the images using the new software on the boards, but it did not accept it, however, I tried again this morning and it was successful . . . so now I am new strong advocate for the software.
Because there really isn't any formal training in the panoramic creation process I pretty much ventured out on my own in understanding the technical aspects and the right workflow to create high res panos. So I think I have made every mistake that could be made in this photographic process, but I have tried not to repeat those mistakes. There are also things that are simply out of my control sometimes such as stitching errors, certain parallax issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax and ghosting problems due to moving images (e.g. people walking and capturing on portions of the person).
So when your visiting the world I would highly recommend you set your iPhone and perhaps Android device to shoot panos (I am assuming Android has that feature).
My equipment:
- A Canon 5D Mark III camera using typically a 24-105 L lens, but that focal length with vary based on the level of clarity I want. A wider angle lens will not give you the detailed clarity when you explore within the image, whereas the higher focal length telephoto will, but you will exponentially increase the number of photos that need to be stitched and that is where you run into big problems with many stitching errors.
- A GigaPan Pro Robotic Motorized Head
- A very strong Tripod
My software:
- Adobe Lightroom V5
- PTGUI stitching software
My Workflow:
- Set the Robotic Head Field of view
- Robotic Head Photographic range set (e.g. 20/30/180/360, etc.)
- Exposure settings are taken off automatic to manual which includes disabling AWB to some preset condition (e.g. sunny sky), shift from auto to manual focus and making sure your off the burst mode on your shutter release to only a single shot.
- Shoot the images (with a 20 - 105 MM ranging from 20 - 100) depending on the focal length and the range the image you are taking. The higher the focal length the higher the number of images and the greater detail within the image, the lower the focal length the smaller number of images and less detail but the greater probably of success when stitching the images together.
- Stitch / render the images together using a special software (PTGUI) and cross your fingers you don't have too many stitching errors.
- Export the stitched rendered uncompressed image (a very large TIFF file) into Lightroom or other software and adjust the exposure on the TIFF uncompressed file and save the image into .JPG and then don't touch the image again, because every time you do anything to a .JPG file you begin the quality deterioration process of that image.
- Upload the image onto the GigaPan website
- Export it into Facebook or generate the HTML with built-in flash
The "Cool-Factor":
For me there are many cool-factors in creating a pano:
1) Being able to explore within the stitched final image (again the quality of the final stitched image will be predicated partly by the focal length of your lens)
2) Post-prod, I can take a photo within a photo of either a person or image that I want capture and do that prior to posting the image onto FB or elsewhere and then annotate / tag a person, place or thing.
3) Enhanced situational awareness of the environment. When you look at a pano you feel more connected with the surroundings and affords you a better context of not only a single image, but where it fits in the overall surrounding landscape. You cannot do that when you capture a single image.
I am still on a learning curve and have gotten much better at this process over the past several months, but my learning curve still has a long ways to go to get to where I want to be in terms of success rate with the final stitched images.
When your on vacation at WDW there is no room for mistakes in taking these panos because I cannot just hop into a car and get there again. However, unless your local to the World, you don't know what you have until your back at home doing the post-prod processes.
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/155...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="385" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149823/options/hidetitle,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="385" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
Photography is an important avocation for me and so over the past 2 plus years I have been working on learning the art of Panoramic photography. I know there are a lot of experienced and budding photogs on the boards so I figured I would share with you some of the images of the World that I shot over the past two visits and discussion of my workflow processes for those interested and if not just view the images.
Technically under the vBulletin software, it did not allow me to embed HTML with Flash for posting images on the boards and recently I tried to post the images using the new software on the boards, but it did not accept it, however, I tried again this morning and it was successful . . . so now I am new strong advocate for the software.
Because there really isn't any formal training in the panoramic creation process I pretty much ventured out on my own in understanding the technical aspects and the right workflow to create high res panos. So I think I have made every mistake that could be made in this photographic process, but I have tried not to repeat those mistakes. There are also things that are simply out of my control sometimes such as stitching errors, certain parallax issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax and ghosting problems due to moving images (e.g. people walking and capturing on portions of the person).
So when your visiting the world I would highly recommend you set your iPhone and perhaps Android device to shoot panos (I am assuming Android has that feature).
My equipment:
- A Canon 5D Mark III camera using typically a 24-105 L lens, but that focal length with vary based on the level of clarity I want. A wider angle lens will not give you the detailed clarity when you explore within the image, whereas the higher focal length telephoto will, but you will exponentially increase the number of photos that need to be stitched and that is where you run into big problems with many stitching errors.
- A GigaPan Pro Robotic Motorized Head
- A very strong Tripod
My software:
- Adobe Lightroom V5
- PTGUI stitching software
My Workflow:
- Set the Robotic Head Field of view
- Robotic Head Photographic range set (e.g. 20/30/180/360, etc.)
- Exposure settings are taken off automatic to manual which includes disabling AWB to some preset condition (e.g. sunny sky), shift from auto to manual focus and making sure your off the burst mode on your shutter release to only a single shot.
- Shoot the images (with a 20 - 105 MM ranging from 20 - 100) depending on the focal length and the range the image you are taking. The higher the focal length the higher the number of images and the greater detail within the image, the lower the focal length the smaller number of images and less detail but the greater probably of success when stitching the images together.
- Stitch / render the images together using a special software (PTGUI) and cross your fingers you don't have too many stitching errors.
- Export the stitched rendered uncompressed image (a very large TIFF file) into Lightroom or other software and adjust the exposure on the TIFF uncompressed file and save the image into .JPG and then don't touch the image again, because every time you do anything to a .JPG file you begin the quality deterioration process of that image.
- Upload the image onto the GigaPan website
- Export it into Facebook or generate the HTML with built-in flash
The "Cool-Factor":
For me there are many cool-factors in creating a pano:
1) Being able to explore within the stitched final image (again the quality of the final stitched image will be predicated partly by the focal length of your lens)
2) Post-prod, I can take a photo within a photo of either a person or image that I want capture and do that prior to posting the image onto FB or elsewhere and then annotate / tag a person, place or thing.
3) Enhanced situational awareness of the environment. When you look at a pano you feel more connected with the surroundings and affords you a better context of not only a single image, but where it fits in the overall surrounding landscape. You cannot do that when you capture a single image.
I am still on a learning curve and have gotten much better at this process over the past several months, but my learning curve still has a long ways to go to get to where I want to be in terms of success rate with the final stitched images.
When your on vacation at WDW there is no room for mistakes in taking these panos because I cannot just hop into a car and get there again. However, unless your local to the World, you don't know what you have until your back at home doing the post-prod processes.
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/155...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="385" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149823/options/hidetitle,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="385" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
<iframe src="http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/149...title,fullscreen/iframe/flash.html?height=250" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" width="100%"></iframe>
