truls
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Post by truls on Aug 10, 2014 14:35:32 GMT -5
If it is not possible to take the image, take more images and put them together. I only had 50mm, two images were used to get image of whole boat. By the help of Microsoft ICE, one image: Here, the two part images, both vertically with 50mm
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Stephen
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Post by Stephen on Aug 10, 2014 15:47:04 GMT -5
Microsoft ICE is why I do not use super wide angle lenses in M4/3, it allows the zoom lens to stay at mid range, and be able to give equivalents of 10mm shots on full frame, or more! It also allows the M4/3 to produce performance beyond a full frame digital, and at a higher resolution. The only downside are the potentially huge file sizes, and moving objects, like people, must only be in one of the shots. Moving trains for instance are completely impossible with ICE.
Stephen
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Aug 10, 2014 21:26:56 GMT -5
While it makes life easier if a moving subject/object is only in one shot of a multishot stitch, it is possible to get a result (and sometimes a good result) if something appears in more than one of the original shots. Perhaps ICE doesn't cope too well, but Photoshop can make a decent job of such a situation. The answer to file sizes is to cut down the dimensions of the the originals before starting A 3-shote stitch: About a dozen shots, taken from a moving boat, stitched using Photoshop CS5: File size will always be a problem on this sort of shot, if the vertical dimension is a reasonable size. The biggest problem is not the megabytes, but that the monitor screen is not set up for showing a photo that is eleven times as long as it is high. It needs to be printed out on roll paper: anything else, even the websites for displaying panoramas, is a poor substitute.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Aug 10, 2014 21:36:54 GMT -5
The Three Graces, Liverpool:
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Aug 10, 2014 21:58:44 GMT -5
Taken in a school corridor, moving down a few feet each time for each (vertical) exposure. It's about an 8 shot composite of the school Christmas pantomime poster - and not easy to keep all the shots level. This is the version before I filled in the white areas at the bottom where I had a slight misalignment. I didn't resize the original files before doing this panorama: its dimensions at full size are 17175x3999 pixels. I've just checked, there were actually 12 shots in total.
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truls
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Post by truls on Aug 11, 2014 12:15:36 GMT -5
I'm a little slow it seems, better late then never.. In theory one can create really high quality images by putting several shots into one. Will quality remain after rezise of image, or is there no difference?
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Post by philbirch on Aug 11, 2014 17:44:36 GMT -5
You're going to lose quality if you resize, but it will be a great image. This was taken with a NEX5 and a 28mm lens. There are thumbnails of all the photos used to make this pano and the finished article. The final image is 1.25 metres by 53cm and is 399mb at 350dpi. It used 19 images out of the 20 I shot. I put it all together using Autopano Giga. resized for the forum.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Aug 11, 2014 17:56:05 GMT -5
Truls, there was a cafe in Rhos-on-Sea, North Wales (about 50 miles from where I live) which used to have a big panorama taking up a full wall. That was more than 50 years ago (and I'm sure was not the first)- we are all late on the scene.
I did take some on film, aligning the prints side by side. The only one I can find is from about 15 years ago - a 360o. The trouble is that a couple of the gaps between shots don't have enough overlap and they won't align properly with Photoshop.
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truls
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Post by truls on Aug 12, 2014 2:11:13 GMT -5
Phil: That is an awesome panorama, I am impressed! You must have a decent speedy computer for this kind of operation.
dave: I wonder if blank overlaps can be filled with e.g. stamp clone tool in Photoshop or similar software?
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Post by philbirch on Aug 12, 2014 4:29:04 GMT -5
Phil: That is an awesome panorama, I am impressed! You must have a decent speedy computer for this kind of operation. dave: I wonder if blank overlaps can be filled with e.g. stamp clone tool in Photoshop or similar software? Thanks Truls. My laptop is nothing special, coming up to four years old. When the program is rendering I just leave it. By the time I've made a cup of coffee its finished. I use cloning to fill gaps, quite a lot of sky was missing in this photo, Autopano doesnt like blank space. These are a couple of photos taken last week both just two images, one of the top half and one of the bottom half. merged again in autopano giga then cleaned up in photoshop. If you want more details about this program - pm me. NEX5 and 17mm lens
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truls
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Post by truls on Aug 12, 2014 11:31:04 GMT -5
Really nice images and autopano seems like the right tool. I checked it out on their webpage, it cost some money. Will look around for similar software, I might try out some panoramas, this is somewhat new to me.
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Stephen
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Post by Stephen on Aug 12, 2014 11:32:20 GMT -5
ICE has some advantages over stitching, the algorithms used are pretty clever, especially with sky, which would seem easy to join, but is not in practice. It also deals with perspective, less shear and skew of building lines, and handles optical distortion at the edge of each shot, very difficult with most stitching programs. Also you get three presentation formats to suit the style of the image. Also it handles stacking with ease, shots on top of each other, which are turned in any other graphic program.
The quality grows in proportion to the image size, a 3x3 grid of M4/3 shots contains more pixels than a medium format sensor can generate, but using this vast file is another matter! If you are only showing on screen then it is wasted, or you have to find a large format printer.
But most of the time it is simply joining two shots, and cropping to taste. The M4/3 side by side is more than full frame, and still a sane file size. It will print excellently on an A4 printer, set to finest resolution printing of course, and the shot will be sharper and more detailed than a single M4/3 file.
A not so well documented job that ICE can do is give apparent greater depth of focus, say a person looking around a wall with a view in the background, take two shots, the wall and person, re-focus on the background and take the second shot, the shots combine very well.
And since a train was in the last post it is very good at taking static shots of engines, using a "standard lens" view, (wide angle will distort too much), taking say three shots of the loco. It is even better if you move the right amount across the scene to match the shots, rather than taking a panorama from one spot.
Stephen.
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Stephen
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Post by Stephen on Aug 12, 2014 11:41:33 GMT -5
A sample of three combined, (do not forget this is a greatly reduced file via photobucket), that were never intended to be joined, but ICE coped fine, with one or two minor corrections in The Gimp. To make it worse all three shots were wide angle anyway, making the ICE program work harder! The angle of view in the shot is about the same as a 9mm lens on 35mm, and 9mm lenses would have more distortion. It equates to about 170 degrees, the loss from near 200 degs is the "wasted" loss due to the complex ICE stitching process.
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Stephen
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Post by Stephen on Aug 12, 2014 12:00:12 GMT -5
The Autopano programs look fine, especially for motorised pano heads, but the cost!....especially as ICE is free and does the work just as well.
To ease ICE further, make use of the little used framing lines in most digital viewfinders, to make sure the horizon is level, and use Standard view lenses or zooms set to match. The sample shot in the last post was with zoom set to wide, so has expanded edges and barrel distortion to cope with.
ICE cleverly copes with it by adding distortion, and overlapping generously and then removes the distortion until it gets a better than 80% match. This undistorts the image quite a bit, but to make life for it easier, use a longer standard lens, then 100% match can be achieved.
Compared to just stitching along a line, ICE does "waste" more image in the overlap, but this waste is worth it!!
Stephen
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truls
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Post by truls on Aug 12, 2014 13:14:10 GMT -5
Stephen, thanks, it was a nice tutorial on panoramic images and usage of ICE. I think I will stick with Microsoft ICE for a while, as this is the only software I have used for this. I tried something called Hugin, but it did never work at all.
So, if using virtually normal focal length, snapping some images, quality will be high with small amount of distortion. This is good news for images sent for large enlargements (posters), even with micro 4/3 we can achieve very sharp high quality pictures.
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