Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

I'm really enjoying learning about panoramas and have been doing a lot of web searching and making a few to tests. Most of what I have been reading is that you don't want to change your focus, setting it manually and using a sufficient aperture to control the depth of field. That may be fine for many panoramas, but if you want to include subjects that do not fall within the range of focus of your particular lens and associated aperture, ie, close up objects, you run into a focus issue. Of coarse, you could go to a wider lens, but in many cases, that changes the whole perspective of the photograph. IE, you could go from a 50mm to a 24mm. Also, on a side note, considering you are trying to get the sharpest image you can, one would want to be shooting at an aperture that gives you that. My 50mm Sigma tested out to be sharpest at F/9, but if I want more DOF than F/9 provides, I need to go to a higher f/stop. Doing that however defeats the purpose to a degree, because smaller aperture is less sharp. So that drives one to want to change the focus as you make the panorama while maintaining the aperture sweet spot. I know there is software out there that deals with this issue, creating a dof that exceeds the capability of the lens, but that's an added step that if possible I would like to avoid. So my question: Can you change focus during the shooting of the panorama, just slightly as you rotate through the scene, or will that create a stitching problem. One video I watch about making a multi-row pano, the photographer made a slight focusing change as he began a new row, but said it was not good to change focus much. How "much" is "much"? I think this therefore is a question of degree. I can experiment in the field of coarse, and I will. But if any of you would like to throw in comments, it would be appreciated.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Paragraphs. Please, give us paragraphs.

alandg46 Loc: Boerne, Texas

Going to F14 or 16 won't hurt much. Higher maybe you will be able to see it. Personally, I used whatever I need for the shot. If you don't print you probably won't be able to see it anyway and if you do, I'll bet it's acceptable.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

Sorry. My wife makes the same complaints. She edits all of my reports.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

Sorry. My wife makes the same complaints. She edits all of my reports.

TLCarney Loc: Englewood, Florida

I can think of two possible approaches. If you have the resources/access to a tilt/shift lens (think renting), tilting the front element can increase the DOF for some subjects. It would be fun to experiment.

The other approach could be focus stacking the subject which is closer to the camera and using a post editor to blend the sharp elements into the image before applying the stitching process.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

It all depends on what quality you want for the finished product AND how much time and effort you are willing to give. The ultimate is to do your pano using a focus stack with maybe 3 shots at different focus distances. Then combine each triplet in PS or some focus stacking software. When complete then merge the results to a pano.

New paragraph... Of course you could go one step further by creating a 3 shot HDR for each of the focus stacks. You are retired right? :lol:

redhogbill Loc: antelope, calif

:thumbup:

ptcanon3ti Loc: NJ

I've done panos of all sorts. single row, multi row etc.

Your focus change will probably NOT cause stitching issues...It MIGHT cause a visual disturbance in your image. Only YOUR eye can decide.

How close is your intended "near" focus point? How far is your "main" subject. I've never run into a situation, when doing a pano, where DOF is a problem.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

So the process would be to take the necessary number of shots to get the foreground focused, focus stack them, then stitch.

TLCarney Loc: Englewood, Florida

That would be my approach. Best to use a tripod when you take the pictures if possible. Then make small incremental changes to the focus. Take lots of shots, the more you have the smoother the finished image. just watch the edge of the image used for stitching and not let it get too modified in the process. This will require some patience and practice but may give you the result you're looking for.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

My wife won't let me retire. She says I'm redirected.

Bob Yankle Loc: Burlington, NC

Most panoramas should be shot in vertical mode, with the camera set to Manual for everything BUT focus. Autofocus works well, and the stitching software will handle the differences in focus quite well.

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

That's what I was curious about. Thank you foryour response.

johnmowry Loc: Northern Indiana, USA

You could try doing several exposures of each segment at slightly different focus &/or DOF, then experiment with the stitching to see what works for you (and how much change is too much).