Making pictures on a photowalk or hike should be enjoyable and relatively stress-free. One way to reduce your stress is to carry less equipment. A small kit makes your body lighter and helps you keep going longer. Bring a prime lens and stretch your vision by framing with your feet instead of lazily zooming in and out to frame a shot. This go-light method is terrific until you see a wonderful picture that just doesn’t fit in the lens you brought.
Fortunately, you’ve got tools available to help you make the most of even that tough situation. Lightroom and Photoshop both do a great job of stitching together a panorama, and there are other purchasable options as well as free options. I favor Lightroom’s stitching because the final file is a DNG RAW file and it gives me full color and tonal control of the pano just like other RAW files. All you have to do is shoot at least one picture overlapping the same area as another picture. You can use only two pictures, or you can use many. You can shoot a straight line, you can shoot all the way around you for a 360-degree field of view, or you can even shoot in a grid to make a panorama that is not long and skinny. I recommend choosing a telephoto lens over a wide-angle lens because you can stitch panos to make a picture with a wide field of view, but there’s no way to make a more telephoto picture later.
The key things are to shoot with your camera perpendicular to the pano and to overlap each picture by about 25%. If you want to make a wide pano from left to right, turn your camera into portrait orientation; keep it in landscape orientation if you want to shoot a vertical pano.
Look in your viewfinder and you’ll probably see a grid line or focus point about 1/4 of the way from the left side of the frame and 1/4 of the way from the right side of the frame and you can use these as a marker to help you overlap each frame. Pay attention to whatever object is under your right side 1/4 marker when you shoot the first picture, then move your camera to the right until that object is now under the left side marker; do this for each frame and you’ll be overlapping 25%. This overlap allows your software to keep track of where each frame belongs in relation to the next.
I made this vertical panorama on a photowalk at the Out of Chicago conference. I only took one lens with me, the Leica 42.5mm Nocticron, and the Platypod Max. When I found myself on a balcony overlooking Millenium Park with a unique horizontal view of the downtown area, I was glad to know that Lightroom would help me stitch a panorama together so I could still make pictures even though I was using a telephoto lens. Next time I’ll shoot a grid so there is more context.
Go ahead and liberate yourself with a light weight kit and don’t worry about not having a wide enough lens to get the shot. Just shoot a panorama and enjoy your walk.
Thanks for the tips on using a prime for pano.
Great tips and amazing photos!
Good Tip and well written Levi !!! I need to bookmark you blogs !
Not a bad idea Levi. But there are a couple of challenges with the idea. First, there is a difference between a pano shot with a normal view that is stitched together and using a wide or ultra wide angle. The main difference than the work required is the longer lens will give you a different perspective on the scene. For instance with a wide angle distant objects become smaller relative to a normal lens. That may be good or it may be bad. The other thing to keep in mind is there is a look from wide, ultra wide… Read more »
You’re right Bob but then again wide angle lenses have their own issues including distortion that has to be corrected unless you’re using the very best (expensive) corrected glass. As you say – there are always compromises. The answer to almost every photography question is “It depends.”
Thanks, Bob. Good points, all. I generally prefer the telephoto look to the wide-angle look, especially because the background isn’t diminished. The other thing is, no matter how small and light MFT lenses are, it’s the changing of the lens that’s the real problem. It’s the effort and the stopping of workflow to change lenses that get me down.
Its real simple Levi, carry two bodies with the lenses you’re most likely to use. That’s what I’m doing tomorrow, the 12-40 on one body, and the 7-14 on the other. I’ll throw the 8 mm fisheye on my Olypmus Air. All fits in a 13″ messenger bag, and weighs very little. :) I throw my Platipod and head in the bottom of the bag, and I’m set. That’s the nice thing about the E-M1 and other MFT cameras are even smaller. It doesn’t weigh much and is nice and small.
Thanks Levi. What is not clear to me is how you used the platypod to take the 3 images since it seems they were taken at different levels?
Thanks.
Jim, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. The Platypod sits flat on the railing and has a ballhead attached (not the lighting pin shown above). In the image at the top, the top left corner is the first picture, and the bottom right image is the last picture. Lightroom stitched them together for me. All I do is tilt the camera upward after every shot.
OK, thanks that clears it up for me. Thank you.
Great tips and amazing photos!
Good Tip and well written Levi !!! I need to bookmark you blogs !
Not a bad idea Levi. But there are a couple of challenges with the idea. First, there is a difference between a pano shot with a normal view that is stitched together and using a wide or ultra wide angle. The main difference than the work required is the longer lens will give you a different perspective on the scene. For instance with a wide angle distant objects become smaller relative to a normal lens. That may be good or it may be bad. The other thing to keep in mind is there is a look from wide, ultra wide… Read more »
You’re right Bob but then again wide angle lenses have their own issues including distortion that has to be corrected unless you’re using the very best (expensive) corrected glass. As you say – there are always compromises. The answer to almost every photography question is “It depends.”
Thanks, Bob. Good points, all. I generally prefer the telephoto look to the wide-angle look, especially because the background isn’t diminished. The other thing is, no matter how small and light MFT lenses are, it’s the changing of the lens that’s the real problem. It’s the effort and the stopping of workflow to change lenses that get me down.
Its real simple Levi, carry two bodies with the lenses you’re most likely to use. That’s what I’m doing tomorrow, the 12-40 on one body, and the 7-14 on the other. I’ll throw the 8 mm fisheye on my Olypmus Air. All fits in a 13″ messenger bag, and weighs very little. :) I throw my Platipod and head in the bottom of the bag, and I’m set. That’s the nice thing about the E-M1 and other MFT cameras are even smaller. It doesn’t weigh much and is nice and small.
Thanks Levi. What is not clear to me is how you used the platypod to take the 3 images since it seems they were taken at different levels?
Thanks.
Jim, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. The Platypod sits flat on the railing and has a ballhead attached (not the lighting pin shown above). In the image at the top, the top left corner is the first picture, and the bottom right image is the last picture. Lightroom stitched them together for me. All I do is tilt the camera upward after every shot.
OK, thanks that clears it up for me. Thank you.
Thanks for the tips on using a prime for pano.