Help with panoramas using Photostitch

[Chrisku13]

Hey everyone, I'm trying to do some panoramic photos, but I'm not quite getting the results I want. I'm using a point and shoot (Powershot A630) for right now, but I'd like to be able to do this with a dSLR in the future. I've read a few things on how to make this work, so I used a tripod and zoomed in a little bit to minimize on the vignetting from the lens. These photos were taken on "manual" mode, so the exposure and aperture is the same throughout. I get similar results if I use the photostitch mode in the camera. It's not the best subject or quality, but I just wanted to put something together for practice. Anyways, I just put them together using Photostitch. Perhaps I should be using another program? You can tell in a couple of spots where the seams were made (road lines on the right, for example). Here's the picture:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143/Chrisku13/street2web2.jpg

[John_Reed]

Hey everyone, I'm trying to do some panoramic photos, but I'm not quite getting the results I want. I'm using a point and shoot (Powershot A630) for right now, but I'd like to be able to do this with a dSLR in the future. I've read a few things on how to make this work, so I used a tripod and zoomed in a little bit to minimize on the vignetting from the lens. These photos were taken on "manual" mode, so the exposure and aperture is the same throughout. I get similar results if I use the photostitch mode in the camera. It's not the best subject or quality, but I just wanted to put something together for practice. Anyways, I just put them together using Photostitch. Perhaps I should be using another program? You can tell in a couple of spots where the seams were made (road lines on the right, for example). Here's the picture:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143/Chrisku13/street2web2.jpgYour pano isn't so bad. You say the "road lines on the right" show lines, but on the other hand, that line only shows in the nearest part of the photo, not in the sky directly above the road jaggies. I don't think any pano can be perfect, especially on close-in parts of the scene. If you have things moving across stitch lines, like cars or people, forget it! In this case, if you wanted to eliminate those few visible artifacts, I'd clone them out with Photoshop, easily done.

Much of it has to do with choosing the "right" focal length for panos. I usually try to hit somewhere around the "normal" focal length, which would be ~50mm for a standard 35mm film camera. I do that hoping to minimize lens distortions from frame to frame, which make it harder for the program to segue between frames. If you can keep your subject material distant, you'll have fewer problems with stitching, whatever program you use. Here's one (http://john-reed.smugmug.com/photos/88908277-O.jpg) I particularly like, taken with my FZ30 in the Brittany region of France last August. It was handheld, stitched with ArcSoft's Panorama Maker 4.0

[Pave]

If you don't like what programs like Photostitch and similar programs do, do it yourself in Photoshop. I do it myself and although the work is sometimes quite tiring (stitching more than 10 photos is really quite interesting work) the results are IMHO worth it. :)

[Karl Rove]

I thought they were both seamless until I clicked on the first one, I can see the seam you mention. Could it be a limitation of the S3 SA that doesn't allow the panoramic shot to be made up of too many single shots? In John's shot he seems to have stitched from fewer shots that Chris and in my first (and only) SA shot I find that mine also displays a seam on the last shot on the right.

Just wondering.

[Chrisku13]

I don't believe this is caused by the stitch assist mode in the camera. The manual says a sequence can contain as many as 26 shots. Upon review of the shooting information, it says that the focal length was 10.8 mm. In 35mm terms, this would be an extremely wide lens, but I'm guessing that the camera's crop factor or something plays into this. Anyways, next time I will have to try shooting vertically, picking a better subject, and possibly trying to manually set the stitch points on the program. Oh, also, I noticed that the camera wasn't level across the whole pan. I did use a tripod, but it was on a slightly slanted surface. Anyways, thank you all for your suggestions.

[mjsneddon]

I agree that it is better to use a lens with a focal length that approximates "normal". However, a 10.8mm focal length on a camera with a small sensor is not necessarily wide angle at all.

I don't have much experience doing panoramics myself but I have read or heard that you should keep the same exposure value for all of the shots to avoid seeing differences between shots.

[John_Reed]

The A630's lens has an actual focal length ranging from 7.3 to 29.2mm. So, if your EXIF indicates 10.8mm, given that the A630's "35mm equivalent" focal length with its 4X zoom ranges from 35 to 140mm, one can conclude that the small sensor camera's 10.8mm maps out to ~52mm focal length in 35mm equivalent terms, which is durn close to a "normal" focal length. Should be pretty close to perfect for shooting panoramas.

[coldrain]

You do not have to have a 50mm equivalent focal setting to make panoramas.
What you do need is software that can convert/distort images from certain focal lengths.

Panaorama stitcher is good software for simple tasks, but for perfect results from difficult scenes you need to use better more advanced software that handles distortions and stitching lines in a better way.

I have made 12mm x 1.6 = 19.2mm 35mm equivalent and 18mm x 1.6 = 29mm equivalent QTVR panorama 360 degree movies and stitched panoramas with quite some success.

[Riley]

certainly, the closer things are to the camera, the greater the risk of a less than ideal join. While you dont need a 50mm setting, it does indeed make the task easier, why then make it difficult, seems like you have learned that already.

Its really not such a bad effort, you could tidy up the apparent joins in Photoshop or equivalent editor. You wont find a dSLR makes things easier as the stitch mode in P&S Canons is pretty useful and easy. You will require better software and more intensive techniques which you could investigate right now before committing to purchase.

Just out of interest, you might like to check this out

http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/large_mosaics/index.html