Red Rocks Pano

docbell

This is my first attempt at a panoramic shot. These were taken in the Red Rocks area near Las Vegas.
Comments and critiques are very much welcomed, as are any tips on taking panoramics. I found in pp that the skies in the different shots are very difficult to match up. These were shot with a circular polarizer - does this help or hinder on panos? :dunno Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks - Kevin.

David_S85

Kevin, if this is your first pano, then you did a great job here. Bravo!

Suggestions for the future:

• Do not use polarizer filters, especially if you shoot wide angle lenses or wider views. If you want deeper skies, this can be accomplised in PP easily enough. Polarizer effects will not usually allow for good blends.

• Use full manual mode for exposures. That means ISO, Shutter, Aperture and white balance. And of course the same focal, if you use a zoom. Don't let your camera think at all. Test shoot around the scene first (in auto, if you wish) and remember or write down the exposures and the differences in extremes. When you shoot the pano, set the camera to the average of those exposures. The dynamic range of the entire scene will more than likely exceed the camera's ability to expose it, but that's part of pano photography. If in doubt, set your camera for exposure bracketing for a better chance of nailing the full scene.

• Overlap shots from about 20 to 25%. Any less and the stitching can go badly. Any more will generate too much data if you use a stitching program.

• If you shoot wide angle, then debarrelize each shots first with software. Actually, no matter the focal length, it is best to do lens correction for best results. PTLens is a good PS or PSP plugin for that.

• If you process each shot separately prior to stitching, then remember to process each frame to exactly the same settings.

EDIT: I should add...
• If you want more height to your pano (vert. field of view), and you will, turn your camera 90º over to portrait mode. You don't give up anything, and it gives the finished shot a more wide angled feel to it. Too many panos end up being long boring stringy looking things that look way stupid, and this portrait method helps somewhat. Another reason to go portrait is that when you are midway through assembly of your pano (either manually or with a stitcher), you will begin to see the awful truth that you'll need to chop off large swaths of pixels along the top and the bottom that you originally thought would help the composition. Portrait will help by giving you that extra room to work with. More shots will be needed, but the gain is worth it, and an even larger megapizel image can result. Overlap as you would any series of shots.

If you do more of these and get really into pano photography, you would do yourself good at reading through
[URL="http://"]http://[/URL]www.panoguide.com

System

no pano expert I, but what word do you want to hear when you do panos, seamless? this is what your pano looks to me-

at this time, when I do mine, I use a duplicate layer on each panel and go to multiply or screen as needed and use the opacity slider to match them up-

in fact, I'm thinking of working on one today, so wish me luck-

thanks for sharing-

george

Antonio Correia

Information
David
Thank you for this information.
I'll try some panos one of these days...:):
Best regards

Forehead

Good! Now you're ready for some REAL red rocks--Sedona, Arizona beckons you!

docbell wrote:

This is my first attempt at a panoramic shot. These were taken in the Red Rocks area near Las Vegas.
Comments and critiques are very much welcomed, as are any tips on taking panoramics. I found in pp that the skies in the different shots are very difficult to match up. These were shot with a circular polarizer - does this help or hinder on panos? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks - Kevin.

MrBook2

For all you pano guys, you *must* check this out:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

It does a crazy good job on stitching.

--Aaron

Rohirrim

Very nice Kevin

Wheres the birds??lol4

Art Scott

Very nice indeed clap
How many frames were used to make this?
shot vertically or horizontally?
What equipment was used?

Thanks..Keep 'em coming.

docbell

David - thank you for the comments and excellent advice. I will try your suggestions on my next pano attempt. Kevin.

docbell

George - good luck on the pano you're working on, I'd like to see it once done. My 'stitching' was done in Photoshop elements 3, using the 'Photostitch' program. I think it did a pretty good job - I can't find the seams when I look at the image in it's original size (it was too large to post here, but can be seen here http://docbell.smugmug.com/photos/58266524-O.jpg

Thanx for looking - Kevin.

docbell

Steve - thanx for the comment. And by the way, if you look real close there are redtails and perregrine falcons in the cliffs.

Ok, don't strain your eyes, you can't see any, but the ranger of the Red Rocks park said there are quite a bit of raptors that hang out up in the rocks (although I didn't see any that day).

Kevin.

docbell

Art, thank you also for the comments. These were taken with a RebelXT, mounted on a Bogen/Manfrotto tripod and ballhead. The lens was the 24-105L. This is ~ 2 1/2 images that were shot horizontal. I have 5 total images taken of the scene, but I had to cut my processing short because of this little monster -I have found that a handfull of Cherrios in her crib will keep her busy for only so long

When I get time (in ~ 18 years), I'll try to go back and put all 5 images into the pano. Kevin.

jfriend

Nice pano - add some pop in post processing

docbell wrote:

This is my first attempt at a panoramic shot. These were taken in the Red Rocks area near Las Vegas.
Comments and critiques are very much welcomed

I like the subject matter - very beautiful and the pano came out really well.

The image is pretty low contrast, both in color and tone. You can spice it up pretty nicely in post processing if you are interested in that. Here's what it could look like:



Post processing consisted of the following steps (all from Margulis' LAB book):

• Remove color cast (too much blue, not enough red)
• Convert to LAB mode
• Push in ends on levels adjustment layer
• Add L-curve for increased contrast in mid-tones
• Steepen A and B curves to enhance color
• HIRALOAM USM sharpening to enhance contrast
• Smart sharpen
• Convert back to RGB

docbell

jfriend wrote:

I like the subject matter - very beautiful and the pano came out really well.

The image is pretty low contrast, both in color and tone. You can spice it up pretty nicely in post processing if you are interested in that. Here's what it could look like:



Post processing consisted of the following steps (all from Margulis' LAB book):

• Remove color cast (too much blue, not enough red)
• Convert to LAB mode
• Push in ends on levels adjustment layer
• Add L-curve for increased contrast in mid-tones
• Steepen A and B curves to enhance color
• HIRALOAM USM sharpening to enhance contrast
• Smart sharpen
• Convert back to RGB

Hey John, your processing looks good, definitely gives the image more pop. And I see what you mean that the original lacks some contrast when I look back at it. Because I don't see colors as well as others, I find that I tend to underdo the 'pop' in post processing (when I first started playing with post-processing there were many times I thought I added just the right 'pop' to a picture, only to have my wife ask, "Why is everybody green in the picture?").
I have not yet had time to jump into/learn the LAB conversion techniques (see 'little monster' above), but the raw conversion program I use (RawShooter premium) has a pretty cool adjustment tool called 'Vibrance' (which essentially brings out the colors). Here is an example where the only post processing done was:
- bring in the sliders a little in levels
- 'vibrance' tool adjustment



I think the vibrance tool does a pretty good job of adding color/pop to a photo, with many fewer steps than the LAB conversion (and there is essentially no learning curve in using the vibrance tool).
Thanx again for the comments/suggestions. Kevin.

jfriend

White balance tweak...

docbell wrote:

Hey John, your processing looks good, definitely gives the image more pop. And I see what you mean that the original lacks some contrast when I look back at it. Because I don't see colors as well as others, I find that I tend to underdo the 'pop' in post processing (when I first started playing with post-processing there were many times I thought I added just the right 'pop' to a picture, only to have my wife ask, "Why is everybody green in the picture?").
I have not yet had time to jump into/learn the LAB conversion techniques (see 'little monster' above), but the raw conversion program I use (RawShooter premium) has a pretty cool adjustment tool called 'Vibrance' (which essentially brings out the colors). Here is an example where the only post processing done was:
- bring in the sliders a little in levels
- 'vibrance' tool adjustment

I think the vibrance tool does a pretty good job of adding color/pop to a photo, with many fewer steps than the LAB conversion (and there is essentially no learning curve in using the vibrance tool).
Thanx again for the comments/suggestions. Kevin.

One other idea. You might want to do a little whilte balance tweak. If you zoom in on the snow on the mountains and check it's RGB value, you'll see that it's not very white. When you apply a whilte balance chance to whiten up the snow, it does really nice things to the color of the rocks too.