Beginners Equipment

[panospain]

Hi there, Whilst I am not new to photography I am hoping I might find a few words of wisdom, I am thinking of purchasing an Xpan with a 30 or 45mm lens as I want to produce a series of high quality images of Spain, I read alot that shooting on digital and stitching is popular??


I am a wedding photojournalist by trade and somewhat of a purist so I think the Xpan route might be for me but if anyone can offer an pro's and cons and any other cameras I might have overlooked I would be most grateful.


Many thanks
Jeremy.

[Deep]

Hi there, Whilst I am not new to photography I am hoping I might find a few words of wisdom, I am thinking of purchasing an Xpan with a 30 or 45mm lens as I want to produce a series of high quality images of Spain, I read alot that shooting on digital and stitching is popular??
I am a wedding photojournalist by trade and somewhat of a purist so I think the Xpan route might be for me but if anyone can offer an pro's and cons and any other cameras I might have overlooked I would be most grateful.
Many thanks
Jeremy.
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Two ways of looking at this.  One is that the price of an Xpan will get some quite decent digital gear plus good stiching software.  The other is that some pictures are very hard to stitch, especially if you have even mild vignetting and lots of blue sky or similar.  I do a lot of stitching with various types of software (one always works better than the other, depending on the picture) but my best panoramas all end up being crops of single frames (with lower resolution).

I'm not sure what scanners you can buy that handle the Xpan format - otherwise, you are at the mercy of the photolab, not always a bad thing!

Don.

[steelbird]

What Don points out is true - a lot of variables can go into stiching a photo together.  Photoshop's own Photomerge and other stand alone programs can do a lot, but there are times when you've got something beyond what these programs can handle effectively.

Do you want to go with a medium format setup, or 35MM?  Horseman makes panoramic cameras, and I think that Fuji has or had one as well.  There's also a small company ( English, I think ) called Horsley that makes them as well.  All kinds of options exist here, including going up to a 4x5, and cropping the image panoramically ( I know, some might call that cheating, but what the hell.... ).

As for a scanner, I believe that Epson has one in the Expression line that can scan up to 4x5 size negs or transparancies - so an Xpan neg would work fine on that.

[panospain]

Thanks guys, I think the Xpan is probably the route I will take, ebay here we come me thinks.

[KAP]

Thanks guys, I think the Xpan is probably the route I will take, ebay here we come me thinks.
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Better than e-bay a secondhand one here [a href=\"http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/seconds.htm#LabelMedium]http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/seconds.htm#LabelMedium[/url]
having said that I'm sitting here waiting for my Linhof 612 I bought on e-bay to turn up. Robert White is one of the better people to deal with and will ship to anywhere.
As for stitching v one shot film, I'd rather get it in one anytime and not spend hours at a computer stitching, why re-invent the wheel.

Kevin.

[BernardLanguillier]

Stitching is very easy with the right gear and software.

I have had perfect results day in day out with a D2x and a Nikkor 35 mm f2.0. Absolutely zero light fall in skies.

The same panorama shot with the best Mamiya lenses on a Mamiya ZD requires a lot more work unfortunately...

As far as the xpan goes, I would look at dedicated film scanners, still much better than the Epson.

Regards,
Bernard

[James Godman]

Hello-

If you go the x-pan route, try to get a dedicated film scanner.  Flatbeds don't yield the best results.  I'd recommend an Imacon 646, 343, or even an older Precision III (what I use).  They should have a panorama holder that will work for x-pan.  If you do get an older one, please be aware of connectivity issues.  You'll need a scsi adapter if you're using a relatively new computer.

The worst thing you could do is tons of work scanning and cleaning up etc., and then realize your scans are not great.

Good luck

Oh, and always scan and work at the highest resolution possible and highest bit.  Just yesterday I received a call from my stock agent who wanted me to re-scan an image for billboard reproduction.  Easier and better to downsize than upsize.