Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

I don't know how useful this may be, but thought it might be worth mentioning nonetheless.

I shoot a lot of panos (multiple images shot with the intent that they be merged together in Lr), and I shoot a lot of focus stacked landscapes (to emphasize a 'near/far' perspective, and to use the 'sweet spot aperture' of a given lens). Over the past year or two, there have been any number of instances when I've shot with the intent of blending those two techniques --panos and stacking-- together, but only recently have I stumbled onto the apparent fact that it apparently isn't necessary to first do one (say, the pano) and then apply the other (the stack). In effect, what I've found is that its not only possible, it may likewise be preferable, to let Lr (and no doubt, any number of other software packages capable of performing these tasks) do a simultaneous 'pano-stack' as a single procedure.

The accompanying images may illustrate what I mean. The first image is the complete compilation of each of the parts. It consists of a total of 60 separate exposures/images, arranged in a 20 across - 3 high sequence. The lower 'foreground' area images were shot with the focus placed on the near ground rocks and bushes, and 20 exposures were made. The camera angle was raised slightly, the focus was placed on the middle ground, slightly more distant (30'-40') cliff edges and trees, and another 20 images were shot left to right as before. Leaving the camera angle constant, the final 20 images were shot, but each of those focused on the far distant land, mountains, and sky. All images were shot hand-held (manual exposure, manual focus), and considerable 'overlap' (50% or more) was used, and only the right side/left side starting/ending points were used as guides.

After downloading the results of the evening's take, I imported everything into Lr. After making several extremely minor adjustments to the first of the 60 image sequence, those same adjustments were applied to the remaining 59, and Lr's 'Merge' 'panorama' function was employed. I did so because I've found in the past -- with other, less complicated, images, typically with vertical panos--, that Lr appears to properly interpolate the sharpness ranges from near to far. Prior to making the accompanying image, I'd always proceeded by producing either the stack first and then the panorama afterward, but never attempted to try it as a single process. Best I can say is that it worked considerably better than I'd expected.

All images were shot as raw files on a 36Mp ff Nikon. My computer is relatively beefy, and sports a liquid-cooled 5.4 Gh 8-core processor with several tons of RAM (yada-yada-yada). It took quite a lot of time --maybe 5 minutes?-- for Lr to complete the task of merging all these images, and absolutely NO remedial work (its not uncommon for stacks not to perfectly blend, for example) was required. My 'final' image measures slightly under 31" x 59" @ 300 ppi, and comes in at 940.6 Mb. Needless to say, it has been greatly reduced and re-formatted as a .jpg. Attached also is a small-ish portion of the upper center of the pano-stack.

As first mentioned, I don't know how helpful this may be for most. But regardless, I thought it worth mentioning.

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(Download)

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Excellent set and tutorial, Jim! Did you use your tripod on these shots?

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

No, Mike. As mentioned in the write-up, all hand-held.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Quite amazing. It'll take me three readings to absorb the technical data. Thanks for sharing this, Jim!

pquiggle Loc: Monterey Bay California

Thank you for the information. I have been wanting to try focus stacked panoramas for a while now. I'll give this method a try.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Really good.
Now what as a retired teacher I do really well - give some "home work". Do the same with HDR in the mix, so 20 x 3 times 3 different exposures for each should keep you busy for a while. The article I read by a guy who did it recommended blending the HDR first, then one complete strip horz or vetical and then blend into the final pano. He said unless he got all the shots just right the blending of the pano first and then blending the full image as HDR layers was a bit harder to get even results.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

There've only been a hand full of times I've bothered shooting separate exposures with the specific intent of loading those into software to produce an HDR image, and then only when the range in a scene/subject has been in excess of 15 stops or more, and I wanted detail or texture or whatever at the outer ends of the upper and lower ranges. Consequently, I have little/no experience with that method so what I'm going to say won't be based on much other than hunch. Depending on whatever the overall, final image, was going to be, it would seem to me that there'd be a stronger likelihood for consistency from image -to- image by first making the 2 or 3 or however many panos first, and then performing the blend of those panos via HDR. Again, depending on the particular image/scene, it would seem that one HRD'ed pre-pano-ed image could/might have a different set of tonalities than its adjacent neighbor, or one still further to another side. Like I said, though, that's just a guess/hunch on my part.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Go for it! (And don't forget to show us your results.)

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

That is about what the articles I have read said. But hey! Keeps you busy and off the streets - besides right now we get in a lot of trouble if we go on the streets with the Covid thing. I even saw a news blurb about some busybody that reported a guy for being out without a mask. The man was on a tractor plowing a very large field and the closest he came to anyone else was at the end of each row at the fence 10 yards from the highway.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

And at times, that's precisely the problem with 'articles' somebody might write or read. Because somebody writes --or says-- something, that doesn't make that 'something' factual in a real, actual, verifiable world.

But hey! Sometimes the drunk at the end of the bar is an actual genius. At something. Like digging ditches or the price of tea in China, whether or not the something he's blithering on about is --or is not-- related to the thing he's espousing.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

You are a true Artist, Jim. Fantastic.

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

Thanks for the heads up tutorial. I too do hand held panos but not even close to the steps on what you did to produce your final results.

Wilderness Images Loc: Apache Junction, AZ.

Nice photos Caney, that's something I've been meaning to do for a couple of years now. I have a 100-shot set of photos taken from a tripod that has focus stacking and panorama combined but wasn't sure about the sequence for processing.

I especially like the first shot with the clouds, I always have trouble with clouds when shooting a set for focus stacking due to movement of the clouds during the time it takes to get the photoset.

Not sure if my hotrod laptop will handle the job, but now I'm going to have to see what happens.

Jack Olson

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

I performed this feat over 10 years ago although with not as may shots as you.

I pointed somewhat down in the landscape to cutoff most of the sky and shot in the middle of the day to avoid shifting shadows.

It created just such a huge pano file although it took me considerable time in Photoshop to stitch it together. I ended up with one shot with everything sharp and great details in the shadows. I made a 16 x 20 print and that was it. It now sits unremarkable among my other shots and no one appreciates it for what I see in it.

I'm glad I did it as an experiment and that is what I learned from it.

charlienow Loc: Hershey, PA

Very nice. I have done some panos, but would never have the patience to do this. Amazing.

Chuck