Five images stitched together

[Steve Foss]

Software, as we all know, is simply wonderful these days.

I had a little time on my hands out of Burntside Lake today,

so I took five overlapping landscape images and merged them in

PhotoStitch, which is Canon software that comes bundled on a CD

with the 30D and later cameras.

It's a VERY simple process using the software, which does almost

all the thinking for you. There sometimes is a little mending and

blending to do along the stitched edges, but usually not much.

Some things to remember when capturing the images are to make

sure your tripod is level so when you swing the camera from side

to side as you progress through the images you're not going

uphill or downhill. You'll also want to shoot in manual mode.

Allowing in-camera metering will deliver slightly different

exposures with some of the frames, making it virtually impossible

to get a good-looking panorama.

You may note a blotchy appearance in portions of the sky, which

is my fault. I did this quickly. For a print I'd take more time

and care to blend and mend.

While a look at the shorelines gives the impression the horizon

is not level, it really is. The islands and shorelines are all

at different depths within the image.

So here I've of course downsized for the Web, but without even

interpolating (adding pixels) in Photoshop CS2, I could print

this to four feet across, and with a bit of interpolation (CS2

and CS3 are great at it), I could easily print this 8 feet across

or more.

[Paul]

Looks great Steve. I tired some of that once with photostich but I deceided that my photo's didn'ty match well enough.

[finnbay]

Looks great Steve. Well done. I've played with this a little and have the images line up and all, but have had trouble with consistent exposure from one frame to the next. Still some work for me to do.

[Steve Foss]

Ken, shooting manual and leaving the settings the same from image to image takes care of most inconsistencies.

[mmeyer]

Great work Steve. I haven't tried any of these yet. You make it sound simple. I know in CS3 I can make a pano but I haven't played with it.

Thanks for sharing the photo and tips!

[Steve Foss]

Mike, with the Canon PhotoStitch software it really IS pretty simple as long as the photographer follows a couple basic procedures outlined above.

I'm assuming the newer Nikon cameras have some similar software version bundled with the NEF converter and such, too.

[buzzsaw]

Thats nice, Steve. I use CS3 and it is a breeze with that software.

[Dbl]

I like it Steve. I've used the software for a few panos with pretty good success. I just shot a baseball game at the dome and did a 5 shot pano handheld that worked OK, but the roof lines because it is a dome did not match even though the field and action did.

[Steve Foss]

Dan, I've seen other stitched panos of stadiums with the same problem. I expect it's a matter of lens distortion. Even the best SLR lenses have some of it, although if I remember correctly, Canon makes some tilt-shift lenses that are widely used in architectural photography because of their lack of distortion.

[yakfisher]

I like it, looks like a fun process. You should try it with a fish and add a couple of extra sections for fun. That would make one big lake trout for sure.