Panorama Fail - help please

[DibblyDobbler]

Gents - can anybody help me please. I got these two shots last night with a view to stitching them in Photoshop to make a panorama but it's failing to do it - I presume due to the amount of distortion (shot at wide angle - probably a mistake)

Couple of questions:

1. Anybody got any idea how to stitch them - or should I just give up and try again another night?
2. Next time - what should I do? More shots and less wide angle I guess?

Cheers for any advice - this is by far the best spot and it doesn't all fit even at 10mm (on a crop) so I need to get this worked out!


Pano Fail 1 by Mike Smith, on Flickr


Pano Fail 2 by Mike Smith, on Flickr

ps - I know they need a bit of editing but I'm not bothered about that, it's just the stitching

[V8LM]

Easiest to stitch along one of the supports. The more photographs the better - three would be good here with the two support.

stitch by v8lemon, on Flickr

To stitch properly one would need to use the perspective tool to remove the perspective from each photograph, then stitch, then add perspective back.

[Beggarall]

Well you can see how photoshop is having difficulty joining these - the perspective on the two looks completely different and I guess it has difficulty matching enough points to join. I don't know if any other programmes would be any better. I have used hugin and I think it does a smarter job than PS. I also think you are right that the problem comes from distortion at the edges due to wide angle. Probably more shots at tighter crop will be the answer. Bit of trial and error I suspect.

[DibblyDobbler]

Thanks both very much!

V8L - great idea... I am off to try it

[The_Jackal]

Isn't one of the standard ways to hold the camera in portrait orientation and take more slices and the stitch them. I think you cut down a bit on distortion too?

[Digitalize]

Wide angle shouldn't be a huge issue, but you need at least 5 images in this scenario to get a good stitch. Think of it sort of like bricks, each photo needs to overlap half way with the one before and after it, if not more really. You can't have too many images.

[DibblyDobbler]

The_Jackal said:

Isn't one of the standard ways to hold the camera in portrait orientation and take more slices and the stitch them. I think you cut down a bit on distortion too?

Yes I believe you are correct - thanks

[DibblyDobbler]

Digitalize said:

Wide angle shouldn't be a huge issue, but you need at least 5 images in this scenario to get a good stitch. Think of it sort of like bricks, each photo needs to overlap half way with the one before and after it, if not more really. You can't have too many images.

Thanks - I will try that next time!

[trackdemon]

The_Jackal said:

Isn't one of the standard ways to hold the camera in portrait orientation and take more slices and the stitch them. I think you cut down a bit on distortion too?

This. Shoot portrait, 50mm, lots of layers. Jobbed

[DibblyDobbler]

trackdemon said:

The_Jackal said:

Isn't one of the standard ways to hold the camera in portrait orientation and take more slices and the stitch them. I think you cut down a bit on distortion too?

This. Shoot portrait, 50mm, lots of layers. Jobbed

Thanks

[FurtiveFreddy]

What lens did you use?

Hugin uses PT Tools, but without EXIF data you can't accurately correct the distortion. If you posted the original images with EXIF data it might be able to do a reasonable job, but much better to do as suggested and take multiple portrait shots using a longer lens.

Edited by FurtiveFreddy on Saturday 2nd September 17:21

[DibblyDobbler]

FurtiveFreddy said:

What lens did you use?

Hugin uses PT Tools, but without EXIF data you can't accurately correct the distortion. If you posted the original images with EXIF data it might be able to do a reasonable job, but much better to do as suggested and take multiple portrait shots using a longer lens.

Edited by FurtiveFreddy on Saturday 2nd September 17:21

Thanks Freddy - it was shot with a Fuji 10-24. I have bodged the shots I had together as below and have learned my lesson for next time

[DibblyDobbler]

Not perfect but the best I could do with what I had! Thanks for the help all - I will do it properly next time.


Queensferry Crossing by Mike Smith, on Flickr

[FurtiveFreddy]

Also, be aware that if you have any foreground objects in shot, ideally you should be rotating the camera around the 'no-parallax point' of the lens to eliminate any parallax in the scene, which will hamper a good stitch.

[ExPat2B]

Bridge_Stitched by Nature Ist, on Flickr

Used DXO optics perspective correction, then manually stitched in Photoshop.

For this scene, as you are going to have to combat the fisheye effect of a wide lens, turn the camera to portrait mode and take shots that way. It gives you more pixels and a wider vertical to play with in post production.

[SCEtoAUX]

My effort. Hard to keep the bridge and the horizon straight...

[DibblyDobbler]

^^^ Thanks Gents for your input