Shooting a landscape for a stitched Panorama - Horizontal (Landscape) vs Vertical (portrait) camera orientation
Many times when we shoot a panorama we do it horizontal because it is faster, after all, why not?
The issue is that we are making a mistake and we really have time.
Every lens creates a distortion.
When shooting horizontal we use the full width of the lens. One third of it is not quite right compared to the center. (use ACR to verify this using the lens corrections tab, check profile correction on/off). When horizontal stitching we use most of the distorted part to stitch, not the center. This is an issue overall.
Shoot vertically we have the same distortion. When stitching there is a difference: The stitching software uses the vertical sides. Most of the distortion is on top and on the bottom of the panorama. Crop this out and you have a much better panorama. Added benefit: If shot handheld this will help correct the horizon w/o losing too much to the crop that comes with the orientation correction.
Please note that this work with a single row panorama, not with a multi row that uses all sides of the captures used. For a stitched panorama you might want to consider shooting with the camera center and crop all the captures to a centered square. It then makes no difference as to the camera orientation - and you use the best your lens can offer.
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I’m very new to panoramas, but shooting verticals for stitching would also lend itself to the use of longer lenses—would it not? Fewer chances of wide angle distortion, parallax error, etc? For example shooting with a 35mm rather than a 24mm....
With Horizontal orientation, you get a long, skinny pano, which I feel, is not as attractive as one stitched from Vertical images.
LoneRangeFinder wrote:
I’m very new to panoramas, but shooting verticals for stitching would also lend itself to the use of longer lenses—would it not? Fewer chances of wide angle distortion, parallax error, etc? For example shooting with a 35mm rather than a 24mm....
You are correct in more ways than one way but...
Paralax error is not related to the lens. It is related to using the lens nodal point or not.
Doing so is more about shooting for details (magnification).
35 mm also has distortion.
Best lens for the average panorama is a 50mm, shot vertically.
For detail the best is multi rows panorama shot with a mid telephoto 80~150mm. Higher range will work with one caveat: then you might end-up with a mega pixel panorama.
Note that we are looking at best case scenario, not normal shooting here.
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
With Horizontal orientation, you get a long, skinny pano, which I feel, is not as attractive as one stitched from Vertical images.
This depends on how wide the panorama is.
Rongnongno wrote:
You are correct in more ways than one way but...
Paralax error is not related to the lens. It is related to using the lens nodal point or not.
Doing so is more about shooting for details (magnification).
35 mm also has distortion.
Best lens for the average panorama is a 50mm, shot vertically.
For detail the best is multi rows panorama shot with a mid telephoto 80~150mm. Higher range will work with one caveat: then you might end-up with a mega pixel panorama.
Note that we are looking at best case scenario, not normal shooting here.
You are correct in more ways than one way but... b... (
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In July I had ordered a new 85mm lens and while waiting for it curiosity got the better of me and using a zoom set at 85mm I shot this 7 Vert.image pano. You're right the original at 300 ppi was over 500M. The amount of detail is great and the lack of distortion helps the software do a fine job. The distance here is about 275 feet +/- and is a little tight got an 85mm but it serves to illustrate the benefits of a moderate telephoto versus a wide angle. I think that math will show that 7 overlapped images from a 85 in vertical approaches the angle of a 24 or 28 mm horizontal.
Gene51
Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
LoneRangeFinder wrote:
I’m very new to panoramas, but shooting verticals for stitching would also lend itself to the use of longer lenses—would it not? Fewer chances of wide angle distortion, parallax error, etc? For example shooting with a 35mm rather than a 24mm....
Correct. The distortion, volume anamorphosis and vignetting that is common to wider lenses is less of an issue with a longer lens. The other advantage of shooting with longer focal lengths is the more natural rendering of the size of elements in the foreground vs the background. My go to lens for wide sweeping panos is 85mm, but I will use anything from 24-200mm depending on the situation.
While I generally agree with vertical over horizontal framing for panoramas, a lot has to do with your subject. If you are only combining two shots (see Roundup photo) it really doesn't matter. Additionally, if your subject is the view from a mountain overlook (Fall Panorama) there is little need to capture all of the additional sky. I do a lot of panoramas that involve combining as many as 12 individual shots with each file exceeding 20 Mpx. Fortunately I have a graphics computer that can handle that kind of load. With 17 TB of memory and 2 TB of RAM the processing time is insignificant.
Lionsgate wrote:
While I generally agree with vertical over horizontal framing for panoramas, a lot has to do with your subject. If you are only combining two shots (see Roundup photo) it really doesn't matter. Additionally, if your subject is the view from a mountain overlook (Fall Panorama) there is little need to capture all of the additional sky. I do a lot of panoramas that involve combining as many as 12 individual shots with each file exceeding 20 Mpx. Fortunately I have a graphics computer that can handle that kind of load. With 17 TB of memory and 2 TB of RAM the processing time is insignificant.
While I generally agree with vertical over horizon... (
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For those images where you don't want a lot of skt, I would agree with you. Go horizontal.
That first image, would that have been somewhere around Sonita ?
Lionsgate wrote:
Correct. Empire Ranch
Thank you kind sir.
If I had taken that shot I would have stopped for a steak and a beer at the Steak Out on my way home.
LOL - I spend a lot of time in that area because I have photos displayed in Patagonia. I've sold more in the Creative Spirit Artist Gallery than the other three galleries I'm in combined.
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