I love my wide-angle lens. Now let's get this straight - I love the wide angle image. Back in my analogue days I was entranced by the foreground detail that was produced by my 20mm f2.8. Blown up big enough on the screen and you could almost be there. I looked lovingly through the camera store window at one of those super-wide angle cameras at one time.
So you can imagine my delight at the emergence of digital photography and of "photo-stitching" programs. The ability to take multiple photos of a subject sequentially, then join them all together had instant appeal. It wasn't long before I had 360 degree images taken from every vantage point around. It was during this process that I began seeing other ways to apply photo-stitching to create interesting images. But if you are to create a 360 degree image that you can pan and zoom using 360 deg viewers there are some basics to apply.
Always use a tripod. And make sure the tripod is completely level. A problem here is the horizon ends up in the middle of the picture and unless the camera can be set low enough you will lose foreground. The loss of foreground is exacerbated by the need to use a mid focal length. 55mm is ok; 80mm is better. An improvement is to mount the camera vertically in the tripod and gain more foreground.
It is good to overlap your edges by about 20% (1/5th) so to get a good outcome needs plenty of shots, and I do two sets, and if you want it all evenly lit then ideally it is midday. I take one set with the exposure for each shot set to the correct exposure looking north, and the other looking south. Sometimes when they are all combined one is better than the other. This is all ok if you are after a complete 360 degree view or other super-wide panorama, but good "wide but flat" wide-angle photos can be created with the camera hand-held. By "wide but flat" I mean a panoramic image without the keystone distortion of a 24mm or wider lens.
Compose the picture you want to create out of the view in front of you and divide it up into 3, 4 or 5 or however many shots you need. Pan your camera back and forth to get the edges of your picture. Remember to go vertical if you want more foreground. It means more shots but I almost always go vertical. Take the exposure for the centre of the panorama and then manually set the camera to this for all the shots. Shoot two or three sets just to be sure and always remember it is hand-held and to get as vertical as possible is essential to get good joins later. Actually it isn't necessary for the edges of each shot to be exactly vertical, or horizontal, but they need to be at the same angle as each other. This can get tricky hand-held so keeping vertical or horizontal gives a base-line.
Most photo-stitching programs as well as joining horizontally can also stitch photos vertically above each other. This can have interesting applications if you needed a tall narrow picture, for a border maybe. While playing around with vertical stitching I came across a method which allows you to use the correct exposure for both foreground and sky. This is great for a sunset that has an interesting foreground. To shoot the foreground, compose the picture you want and position the horizon at the top of the frame. I let the camera choose a speed to suit an aperture that gives a reasonable depth-of-field; f8 is good. You might need to use a tripod. Take another exposure, this time of the sky above the foreground you just shot, positioning the horizon at the bottom of the frame. Again I let the camera choose the correct exposure. Now you have two images that are correctly exposed themselves, and you can stitch them together vertically for a great outcome.
If you use the magnifying tool in any photo-editing application you can see the joins on most stitched images, but if the image you make is interesting then these imperfections can be accepted. I have a panorama of a bar where I am all six customers, and one of a kitchen with the Chef planning, preparing and putting the dinner in the oven, and even chatting with himself over the char-grill. Playing around with photo-stitching programs can lead to a whole new area of photographic enjoyment.
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