jastewart

Conventional wisdom seems to be that to do a digital panoramic shot you sweep and stitch. Why? To make it harder to do? So you can't accurately frame what you are shooting? So you can blow it up to mural size? The latter is the only one that makes sense to me.

I recently came to digital after using a Hasselblad XPan, a wonderful rangefinder camera that allows you to take moderate panoramas in a single shot, with accurate framing and good resolution. I bought a Nikon D7500 after convincing myself that I could get similar results with it. I put a homemade mask over the viewing screen so I can see the framing for panoramic when I shoot. I then do a custom 1 x 2.74 crop in Lightroom. I maintain that the resolution I get is just fine for prints up to 20+ inches. Most importantly, you can previsualize the shot, which I have long believed is key for "art" photography (see Edward Weston, Minor White, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, etc.).

I look forward to your comments.

John

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

If I understand your question correctly, sometimes if you use a very wide angle to get everything in you wind up with too much sky, too little subject detail. I zoom in and stitch multiple shots to get a closer detail.

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Also using a bit longer lens can help avoid converging verticals and other lens distortion.
I have done vertical stitches on stars because my wide lenses are f2.8 and my 20mm is f1.8 and 30mm is f 1.4.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

For me it all depends how much of a field of view I want, what lens I am using and how much space I have to work with.
I can post an example with your permission.

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

In my opinion, a panorama is an image of a vista that is somewhat wider than can be captured with your widest angle, other than fisheye, lens thus two or more images are stitched together presenting the vista you wish to capture. Some think a panorama can be one wide angle image cropped so as to appear as extremely wide, thus purporting to be a panorama, I disagree but that's just me.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

There are rotating tripod ball heads that help make panoramas pretty precise and easy, if you're using a tripod.

Here's one on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/DH-55D-Panoramic-Panorama-Indexing-Rotator/dp/B013U38DV6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1530795439&sr=8-3&keywords=DH-55+Panoramic+Ball

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

"To make it harder to do? So you can't accurately frame what you are shooting? So you can blow it up to mural size?

It is not at all hard to do, either is accurate framing. Seriously those things are not a problem at all. I use multiple image stitching quite often for better resolution and minimal distortion. The plus factor is that a moderate telephoto or standard lens can be used for anything from wide angle to moderate telephoto for landscapes. (your camera bag can be lighter too because you don't carry all those extra lenses.) I (we) could try to convince you about the positive aspects but the surest way is to find out for yourself. You don't need any fancy equipment, you can hand hold more often than not so even a tripod isn't always required. It don't cost anything but time to give it a shot. There are how to posts on this forum but we are happy to answer any questions

Tim Hoover

Sounds like what you're doing is fine, provided you can get the scene entirely within the frame. To summarize, you have basically turned your 21 MP camera into a 10MP camera with a 2.74:1 aspect ratio.
Printing at 240 dpi allows for a print of roughly 22x8" at native resolution (that is, without down or upsampling). Really the only downside I see is that you have limited your reframing options later in post.

One thing your post emphasizes is the lack of understanding of many members of this forum regarding resolution. They don't seem to realize that extra resolution does absolutely no good if the print resolution times the area is less than the image size (in pixels). I can only shudder at the thought of how much money is wasted on higher resolution cameras, unneeded panos, etc. due to a basic lack of understanding of this very simple issue.

Now, before anyone slams me for not knowing what I'm talking about, please make sure you understand the claim I am making. Any time your display (computer monitor, television, etc.) is lower resolution than the input image, you are wasting that resolution. Now, there may be other reasons for having higher resolution images, like extra latitude in cropping for instance, but when all is said and done, if you have a mismatch between input and output then you are fooling yourself about any gains.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

In your comment you say "if the print resolution times the area is less than the image size (in pixels)". Print resolution is usually measured in DPI, print area is usually measured in mm or in. and the image in pixels. What do you use as a common denominator?
For the record the reason for stitching is to be able to record more of the image while limiting distortion. And, personally I would much rather have the option to waste pixels than know I can't capture all I want because I don't have enough capability.

Tim Hoover

Just make sure all the units are consistent.

DPI = dots (pixels) per inch
Area of course is actually measured in square units. But just make sure the linear measurement is consistent (in this case, inches).

For the record, I think you are likely to get MORE distortion from stitching than from a single shot, especially if you are rotating the camera.

I also prefer having more flexibility in post (and hence more pixels), but if jastewart is happy with his method and the size he is printing, then there is no reason to either increase the number of pixels or to stich images together.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

A panorama is an image that encompasses a very wide angle of view. While this can be done with a wide angle lens, there are times when you cannot position yourself in order to get the shot width you want. This is one reason for stitching multiple shots together. Another is that a wide image taken in one shot will then require a lot of cropping at top and bottom for the desired composition to be obtained. Too much sky and foreground can overwhelm the actual subject of the picture. Using a lens, whether it is a wide angle or a longer zoom, to take multiple shots gives you the ability to focus in closer to the scene itself, thereby reducing the need for cropping.

As for accurate framing, you previsualize the shot with your eyes, not the camera. Once you decide on the scope of the final image, you start at one end and take the series until you reach the other end. Adding on at either end if you want to make sure you got it all. One key to successful stitching is that each shot you take should overlap the previous one by 30-50% so the editing program can match things up more accurately. You also use the same focal length, shutter speed, and ISO for each frame. Focus can be in the middle of each frame, or if you are closer to the subject, you can choose something in each frame to focus on. Like the side of a barn... Light and focal distance will not change that much in a short period of time unless you have a situation where the sun is right at the horizon or there are clouds moving swiftly overhead that interrupt the light making it inconsistent.

I prefer to use a tripod, because once I level the tripod and then level the camera, I can simply pan across the scene and not have the image come out very uneven. I don't have any fancy equipment and am quite satisfied with how the images turn out. Even though I may not want to publish mural-size photos, the less I have to crop, the better I like how it turns out as far as resolution/detail is concerned. And I do like to be able to see as much detail as possible! I do have one panorama I took as a single image, that ended up being approximately 12" x 36" when printed! I like it a lot, but plan to go back and re-do it with multiple shots. [It is an apple orchard scene with the trees in full bloom. Looks good not very sharp, but I would like to see how it looks with more detail. Missed the blooming time this year being out of town, have to wait until next year!]

I hope this helps. A lot of how we appreciate our photos is from a very subjective perspective. And we don't always agree with each other as to what makes a very good photo. But the whole process is geared toward the same objective: To make an image that fulfills our needs, wishes, and aesthetic response.

Susan

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

Thanks for denominator clarification.
As far as "more distortion" I have not found that to be the case at all and what there is,usually keystoneing (operator failure) is a relatively simple fix.

jastewart

I do disagree with this definition of panoramic. To me, it is mostly about the aspect ratio: if it is "letterboxy," then it is panoramic. A few qualifications probably necessary, like it should be a "scene" rather than a closeup.

jastewart

Thank you for this. As I said, I'm new to digital and didn't completely understand the argument about native resolution and down/up sampling, but I get from it is that what I am doing isn't crazy and that the resolution I'm getting for the print sizes I'm doing would not be improved by more megapixels. I believed that there was a simple correlation between number of megapixels and resolution, but apparently it is far from that simple.

When I first thought about going digital, I rented a Nikon D850 (42 megapixels) and a D7500 (20.9). I shot the same scene at the same size with the same lens. I found NO difference in resolution of the images at high magnification, and of course I bought the D7500. So I tend to agree with you that many people have more megapixels than they need (and less money than they would prefer).

Tim Hoover

Glad to be of some help. If I may add to what I wrote before... When considering resolution there are really three things to consider, 1) The input resolution 2) the display resolution 3) the optics resolution.

The overall resolution is limited by the lowest resolution in this chain. So, no matter how many pixels your sensor has, if the lens can't provide the corresponding resolution, you have again wasted your money.

That said, I now shoot with a D850 (moving up from a D7100) and the improved resolution is dramatic. However, that is due to a combination of improved sensor and improved lenses. Does this show up in a reasonable sized print? Absolutely not (which you should know if you've been paying attention). However, I now have the option to make larger prints without resampling as well as cropping significantly if I need to, so there are some advantages.

And by the way, there are some very good algorithms available for upsampling (I'm thinking specifically of 'Perfect Resize') so if you want to print larger than the native resolution, you can do so with very little concern for lack of sharpness.