Burntside Lake panoramic (17 images stitched) (image added)

[Steve Foss]

I shot this today and, true to the title, it's 17 vertically composed images stitched together using Adobe Bridge and CS2. It ended up after stitching at 398 Mb, so my older computer took quite awhile to chew through any edits, but once I cropped and flattened it, it was down around 300 Mb. Still a lot of file for my computer, but doable.

With no interpolation (adding pixels), the TIFF file is 10 feet long by 11 inches tall. I don't doubt it'd easily go to 15 feet by about 1.5 feet. I'd love to have something that long printed someday. Ya never know. There is, after all, a VERY nice high end lake home toward the left side of the pano.

This image posted here, of course, is just a very small representation. I tried to post it at 2,000 pixels across so there'd be some small inkling of the detail, but I can't find a way on flickr or photobucket to post one that big. They both autoresize it down.

So I think this one is a bit over 1,000 pixels long, which doesn't do much at all. Viewed at 100 percent, the main TIFF file has an astounding level of subtlety and detail, which is what one would expect from an excellent sensor and a tack sharp lens.

Canon 30D, Canon 100 f2.8 macro, manual exposure settings of iso100, 1/320 at f8, leveled tripod.

[finnbay]

Looks just like I envisioned it when you said you were thinking of giving this a try!

[Birdsong]

And just how long does it take to stitch 17 photos together??? I'd love to see it full size. That would be something hanging on the wall of your bird porch!

[Jim Almquist]

That is such a cool shot. Now if I owned that house I sure would be looking for a copy

[Steve Foss]

Thanks all. Fist I downloaded. Then I converted the 17 images from RAW to JPEG using Canon's DPP software and the batch process. Then I named them in numerical order. Then I launched Bridge and Photoshop tools and did Photomerge. Then I tweaked the final stitch a bit by rotating the image 1 degree to level it. Then I cropped. Then I made slight repairs to three sky seams that were visible. Then, since there were two dust spots on the sensor, I cloned those two out (times 17). Then I knocked down the image size to 2,000 pixels and did some color toning and sharpening.

From start to finish that took nearly an hour.

If I was going to have a print made from this point, and printed large (I'd use West Coast Imaging), I'd be consulting them as to how they wanted the image before I did anything at all to the large TIFF file. Some print labs want the unsharpened file so they can sharpen as per their own software and printing equipment, and those labs tend to do a great job with color matching and saturation and whatnot.

Even with a fancy new computer loaded with ram and a fast processor the overall process is labor intensive when there are this many images. In other words, you gotta really want to do it. And you really DON'T want to screw up the capture exposures or overlaps.

But considering how much I'd sell a print that size for, it's time very well spent. I should call WCI to find out what my cost would be to print it 15 feet long.

Also, stringing that many images together means if you're off level on the tripod even a little bit, you'll either be swooping up or down enough as you pan from side to side that you may lose too much of the image and have to start over. It helps to compose a bit loosely to give yourself some wiggle room.

I've just finished stitching together a 21-image stitch of the whole peninsula of Passi Road shot from the lake. About 468 Mb. Man, this old Mac G4 probably deserves a little rest now. Or at least a beer.

[MN Shutterbug]

That's amazing. But, I'd be a bit reluctant to pour a can of beer on the Mac.

[Steve Foss]

It's been through worse in the 5-6 years I've owned it.

[JulieA]

Steve,

Have you thought of using White House Custom Color down here in the TC? From the work I have seen they do a fabulous job.

JulieA

[Steve Foss]

Hi Julie. Welcome to HSO/FM and the photography board. Great to have you here.

I use WHCC for all my printing of fine art, wedding, portraiture, nature, etc., and have been pleased with the results. Good prices, excellent service, very professional. The free two-day shipping is wonderful, and since I'm close to the TC (well, speaking in a nationwide context), if I place an order right away in the morning I often have it the next day.

Last I checked, however, a 60-inch print was as large as WHCC offered, and West Coast Imaging has a great rep for those really large prints. I'll check again with White House to see if they can print something 10 or 15 feet long.

[dukhnt]

I know that would take me more than an hour to figure out how to do it. It is really quite cool though steve.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, Josh. I've been fooling with stitched panos for a couple years but didn't get serious about them until last summer. Just another technique to put in the technique bag. That's one thing that's so cool about photography -- there's always another horizon to move toward.

Here's the second one I worked on yesterday morning. Twenty-one images with the same equipment and settings as the image that started this thread. This is the peninsula where Passi Road runs, shot from the south.