PANO Question (Page 2): This is exactly true, as you turn outside the lighting will change because of the location of the sun / shadows etc and your "Auto" exposure will change.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

TheDman wrote:

If frames of a pano are shot at different exposures, you're going to see banding (I'm sure there's a better term for it) where the program stitches the frames together. Shooting all of the frames at the same exposure ensures invisible stitching transitions.

This is exactly true, as you turn outside the lighting will change because of the location of the sun / shadows etc and your "Auto" exposure will change. Shooting manually, you don't want to change the exposure, you want to find an average of all the shots and go with that. Another option might be to shoot in raw and then adjust all of the exposures to the same in post processing but I am not sure this would work.

dnathan

Once again, thanks for the valuable input.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Each to their own. Panorama does nothing for me. I would rather shoot several shots as I change my viewing angle, and display them side by side, but with an obvious "break" between them. Does a lot more, says a lot more, and does not confuse the viewer.

dnathan

When I'm confused, I know I'm alive. It's usually fun & always an adventure!

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

dnathan wrote:

When I'm confused, I know I'm alive. It's usually fun & always an adventure!

That is positive attitude, and I like it. But this is visual confusion, and you are the confuser? not the confused. Rather like "modern art" when only the artist fully understands his picture?
Try this, if you have any originals pre-stitching - crop and display side by side - the effect is magical - like looking through windows in a pentagonal room. But as I said - each to his own. :-)

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Delderby wrote:

Each to their own. Panorama does nothing for me. I would rather shoot several shots as I change my viewing angle, and display them side by side, but with an obvious "break" between them. Does a lot more, says a lot more, and does not confuse the viewer.

You are looking at just one kind of pano that contains distortion and confuses you.

There are numerous well-executed panos that are not like those that "do nothing for you" - here are a couple of examples, each of which have been printed to 72" widths.

There is a benefit to shooting pano over using ultrawide lenses - or having your image broken up into panels.

An image of a large group of people in one shot is one example - this details the process of assembling such a shot - https://fstoppers.com/strobe-light/how-pose-and-photograph-huge-group-shot-thousands-people-9539

Missing is the tell-tale lateral expansion of horizontal dimensions as you approach the vertical edges of the frame - everyone and everything is in perfect proportion and dimension.

Using a stitched pano is a great way to take a variety of pictures, if handled correctly - have you yourself tried to do a pano, not gotten results you were happy with, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble to learn?

(Download)

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Exposure for panoramas was explained to me like this once: When your eye sees a scene it uses the same exposure for the whole scene. When your camera sees a scene the exposure will vary as the camera adapts to give the best exposure for each piece of the scene it sees. Using manual exposure will give you the same exposure for each piece of the scene.

Of course you can and should try different aspects to decide what you like best.

Good luck with the panoramas,

Dennis

Kuzano

Many of my panos are shot with non metering cameras. (film).

However, using AF is generally NOT a problem for me, and with a camera that meters, either film or digital, I find that exposure doesn't often change that much.

Good Pano software generally blends the overlaps and exposure changes don't show. I have never seen banding in my panos, and I do a fair amount of Pano.

Homestead four frame stitch

(Download)

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

dennis2146 wrote:

Exposure for panoramas was explained to me like this once: When your eye sees a scene it uses the same exposure for the whole scene. When your camera sees a scene the exposure will vary as the camera adapts to give the best exposure for each piece of the scene it sees. Using manual exposure will give you the same exposure for each piece of the scene.

Of course you can and should try different aspects to decide what you like best.

Good luck with the panoramas,

Dennis

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Kuzano wrote:

Many of my panos are shot with non metering cameras. (film).

However, using AF is generally NOT a problem for me, and with a camera that meters, either film or digital, I find that exposure doesn't often change that much.

Good Pano software generally blends the overlaps and exposure changes don't show. I have never seen banding in my panos, and I do a fair amount of Pano.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I've done quite a few panos and many times after stitching them together I see exposure differences, especially in the blue sky areas. This is not too hard to fix, but if you have the camera settings right to begin with then you don't have to spend 5 or 10 minutes fixing anything. So I've found that putting the camera on M and fixing the W/B that I have the least amount of problems. I expose for the most interesting part of the scene and the shoot.

If you would like to experiment, put your camera in A or AV mode and put your camera on a tripod. Setup in scenic area to include some sky, clouds, mountains etc. Point your camera on the right side where you think you should start your pano and do a half press of your shutter to see exposure values in the viewfinder. Since in AV or A mode, your aperture settings won't change, but if you pan from right to left slowly, you should see the shutter speed change slightly one or two times. This is why the stitching software has problems blending multiple images together.

Now put your camera in M and expose for just a blue sky shot. Take the shot and then change your shutter speed 1/3rd of a stop one way or the other three times so that you have one neutral image and 3 others to compare. Download to your computer or just view on your LCD and you will see that the sky will lighten or darken with each shot. This is why the stitching software has problems blending multiple shots. Good luck with your experimenting.

Gobuster Loc: South Florida

dennis2146 wrote:

Exposure for panoramas was explained to me like this once: When your eye sees a scene it uses the same exposure for the whole scene. When your camera sees a scene the exposure will vary as the camera adapts to give the best exposure for each piece of the scene it sees. Using manual exposure will give you the same exposure for each piece of the scene.

Of course you can and should try different aspects to decide what you like best.

Good luck with the panoramas,

Dennis

This got me to thinking, does the eye really have the same exposure for the whole scene? In a 180 degree pano scene, you would, just like the camera, pan your head or roll your eyes to take in the whole scene. If there was a variance in lighting across the scene, would not the eye compensate by adjusting the iris opening - effectively changing exposure, just like the camera? I think it would, but the result is more like panning a video camera that adjusts exposure as the scene changes. With still shots, banding may be a problem, but then, in full manual without changing exposure, over or underexposure is a possibility, depending on the scene. I'm thinking there is no single best way to shoot panos, like so many other things in life, "it depends"!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

jeep_daddy wrote:

I've done quite a few panos and many times after s... (show quote)

Also, most lenses will have a light falloff at the edges and corners - uneven illumination is usually taken care of in raw conversion, but when it is coupled with inconsistent exposure from frame to frame, the auto-blend feature can be overwhelmed. I usually use DXO software because they have the best lens profiles, and can fix light dropoff, distortion, CA better than any other software I have used. Once I have run the raw files through DXO, then I use PT/GUI to merge the pano. If it is a simple pano, then I might do it in PHotoshop.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

Gene51 [Quote Using a stitched pano is a great way to take a variety of pictures, if handled correctly - have you yourself tried to do a pano, not gotten results you were happy with, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble to learn?]

Yes - you are spot-on. Having said that, I do like your pics and there is no apparent distortion.
However - when I need a pano type pic I tend to crop but that limits the field some, and detail can get lost. That is the great benefit of proper pano - the detail. But my own pref is for 4/3 format - just as well with my kit!

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Gene51 wrote:

Also, most lenses will have a light falloff at the... (show quote)

True, so a good lens is also recommended but not always necessary. When post processing, I've read that the first thing to do is take one of the raw images and get the W/B the way you like or want, get rid of any lens distortion on that image, and then sync all of them so they have only those two changes done to all before you stitch them using whatever software you choose. I don't always remember to do this but I can always go back and do it to the originals since I shoot and save raw files.