Hi,

I just posted a small article about shooting "panos" on free hand. Not a recommended option but works fine when tripod is not an option.

The article is here: http://83.177.178.241/ekr/index.php/photoa...s-quick-a-dirty

I'll probably elaborate a bit more on it in the coming days.

Best regards
Erik

Good shot! Surprising how many people have told me they would like to do panos but can not because the can't afford a panohead, or the best possible camera, or this or that, etc.

Just forging ahead without the best stuff or even without the right stuff so often yields excellent results, contrary to what our intensely consumer oriented society would have us think.

Every one of my landscapes for the last 1.5 years has been shot as a pano and I have no pano gear at all. Many of them have been shot while skiing so no tripod could be used and lots using aperture priority even with clear blue skies in the frame. Almost every one has different focus points too and PS blends them with no issues.

It is amazing what software is capable of these days, no need to shell out on more gear unless you need it!

My experience is similar. I don't use a tripod for panos unless the individual shots require a tripod. If you watch your overlap and subject matter and keep the horizons absolutely level, CS4's stitching does the rest.

Similarly, CS4's "auto align layers" function will frequently, not always, eliminate the need for a tripod for HDR shooting.

Software is amazing.

My thoughts exactly, the creators of the leading pano softwares have done more to high resolution photography than anybody else in this industry by a very wide margin.

Cheers,
Bernard

I see no-one wants to take on the unpleasant job of peeing on the rug; however, someone has to, in order to eliminate some misconceptions.

1. I don't know, what a "quick and dirty" pano is good for. Quick is ok, but who wants to end up with a dirty pano? On the other hand, certain hand-held panos do not need to be dirty the least.

2. The subject of this sample is the worse imaginable for hand-held shooting from this distance. The tiles of the floor will always show the parallax error, and that is almost irreparable, because it is in two dimensions. One can repair electric cables, posts, etc. but not floor tiles; see the attached crop (if one makes the effort in PS, it will be a "slow and dirty" pano).

3. No stitching software corrects the parallax errors. The fact, that the parallax errors often remain invisible is due to the objects/scenery. I shoot most of the landscapes hand-held, and the foreground is often very close. The parallax errors are horrendeous, but invisible. Who notices parallax on grass, gravel, shrubs, water, snow and alike?

4. Lastly, one issue, which has nothing to do with hand-held or pano-bracket: the demo shows, how useless auto-stitching can be. The verticals on the right-hand side are close to ok, but at the left hand? It looks like after an earthquake. It does not need to be that dirty.

We knew you would be handling that part just fine.

Your comments are of course totally correct, but I think that the point Erik is trying to make is that hand held panos can help capture a scene like this one on those days when you left the wide angle zoom at home. Large prints would for sure reveal the issues you are pointing out, but smaller reproductions would probably hide most of them.

Cheers,
Bernard

I agree with that aspect. That reminds me of the cheapest space-age technology I learned somewhere (I think there is even a small video on the net demonstrating it).

1. Take a string with something pointed at the end of it. I wrapped the string around a heavy nail so, that the nail is more or less plum when hanging with the string.

2. Make a loop at the end of the string and throw it around the lens barrel, where you guestimate the entrance pupil. The length should be such, that the pointed end almost touches the ground, when you are holding the camera as you need to.

3. Position yourself (and the camera) so, that the location of the pointed end is obvious; in Erik_s example, it could be a corner of a tile.

4. Shoot all frames so, that the pointed end remains at that location.

It is always in my backpack, but honestly, I used it only once. Really simple, particularly if one knows the location of the entrance pupil; I recorded that for all relevant lenses, that too is in the backpack.

Hi Bernard,

Well, more like not been allowed to take my tripod into the complex. The picture was shot using a 12-24/4.5-5.6 Sigma on full format at 12 mm (in vertical orientation), I guess it's as wide you can get on a DSLR except using fisheye. I have not seen the issues on the floor tiles that Gabor points out, but I was not really expecting not to have those. Regarding the distortion it's more complex, the camera was angled slightly uppwards and there may be some distortion coming from the lens itself.

I find it an interesting example of how much software can do, but also it's limitations.

I modified the article with some of Gabor's observations. I also guess that my nodal-rail may go back in the backpack.

Best regards

This is the King's palace, isn't it?


The camera being not level is a very normal situation. The problem is the automatic stitching, which most probably assumes the horizon in the middle of the shot. A decent stitcher with correct specifications can make a perfect pano from that, except for the parallax problem. The easiest way to "right" the pano (to determine the horizon's height and angle) is by specifying vertical lines; there are planty of them here.

Here is a demo of this issue.

The lens distortion would not be an issue at all, the stitcher would correct it, if the control points were very reliable; however, that is difficult with hand-held shots (the parallax error causes mismatch even if the control points are selected perfectly).

Hi Gabor,


This is the King's palace, isn't it?

No, it's the Abbey at Melk, Austria, it's essentially a hall for royal guests. It's my second visit to Melk and I really enjoyed it, especially that it was not a very busy day. I actually had several minutes (more than one :-) that the hall was empty, before the next bus load of tourist arrived. The only issue I had was that tripods are not allowed.

The camera being not level is a very normal situation. The problem is the automatic stitching, which most probably assumes the horizon in the middle of the shot. A decent stitcher with correct specifications can make a perfect pano from that, except for the parallax problem. The easiest way to "right" the pano (to determine the horizon's height and angle) is by specifying vertical lines; there are planty of them here.

I actually tried adding like four-five vertical lines in Autopano Pro but it did not really help a lot. Your input is much helpful. I did shoot a lot of panos but no interiors yet.

By the way, the roof is actually flat, the curvature is just an intended illusion.

Best regards
Erik

Well, you could tape a small laser pointer at your camera that points on the ground in front of your foot. Just rotate around this virtual fixpoint to take your pictures.

I concur that no tripod is needed in many cases:

- Modern pano software actually does not require the horizon to be level - rotations of the camera are taken into account as one of the possible transformations to correct for.

- Hand held panos do work very well for "not too hard" subjects - they become really tricky if you need multi row or 360s where basically the pano has to stitch "at both ends" and where conflicting constraints/errors must be resolved by the software.

A standard landscape pano with a not-too-close foreground and a distant backround definitely doesn't require a tripod if the individual shots don't (i.e. if there's enough light). OTOH, try it for a 360*180 in a poorly lighted small space... good luck! There's a reason why Panoheads are still selling!

4. Lastly, one issue, which has nothing to do with hand-held or pano-bracket: the demo shows, how useless auto-stitching can be. The verticals on the right-hand side are close to ok, but at the left hand? It looks like after an earthquake. It does not need to be that dirty.
[/quote]


LOL

There are two main reasons to do a pano:

1) You want to shoot wide, and you don't have your wide angle lens.
2) You want high resolution for very large prints

This very nice image succeeds admirably on the first and fails on the second. For handheld work, I consider that image a great achievement. If you intend to print this image much larger than 11x14, then the vertical lines and the tile stitching errors will annoy the viewer, When anyone steps closer, they will think "you tried to trick me with software, but I caught you. That image is a sham." We all know this is a BS attitude, but the viewer of a good printed pano shouldn't have any clues to the magic you used to make it.

This image shows well on the net (Grade A+), but will show its flaws in print (Grade C).

Handheld pano work is worth practicing, and can have excellent results, but for a critical piece with any foreground, use a proper pano-head tripod. Heck, the tripod advice is probably true for all highly critical photo work.

Totally right,
The tripod alone doesn't make much sense without a pano head unless you are taking long exposures.
I don't see any difference between a non-pano-head tripod or hand-held pano with daytime normal exposures.

I think PtAssembler, Hugin or PtGui might correct the perspective issues in this presented pano setting vertical control points but the parallax errors won't be corrected. It is just not the right scene for a quick handheld pano...

I've been using auto pan pro software, fantasic prefer it to CS4. I use a tripod when I can but hand hold more often than not above 50mm focal length, the software also helps (mild) exposure difference...

7 shot stich of the cairngorm massif... Scotland

Click to view attachment

I'd have to add at least two more:

3) to get a wide aspect ratio image from a telephoto lens.
Many of my best panos are shot at the long end of my 70-200. Stitching these (even hand-held) is trivial as long as you align the horizons carefully.

4) to shoot even wider than your widest wide angle will allow.
Lens images are cropped to "see" wider in the horizontal direction than in the vertical. Shooting with the camera in portrait position AND stitching those portrait shots gets you wider than your widest lens.