14. December 2002
Making a Panorama
Combining computer technology and photography creates a wealth of new possibilities even for the amateur photographer.
In this article I will introduce you to what stitching and panorama software can do to your photography.

Stitching
Stitching software can, as the name implies, "stitch" several pictures together creating either panoramas or pictures covering a larger angle of view in all directions.
I'll show you what I mean. Many digital cameras has a "panorama mode" that helps the photographer at the scene to create images that can be stitched together with software bundled with the camera.
Here's an example:



These four separate images shot with the Canon G1 with a focal length of 73mm (35mm eq.) at full resolution, can be stitched together to form a larger image that covers a wider angle of view than is normally possible with a 73mm.



The PhotoStitch software bundled with the Canon G1 was used to create this "collage"
After upsampling this picture produces a fairly nice looking 13 x 19inch print at 240dpi with quite a lot of details.

The "Jotunheimen" panorama
For many photographers one of the most exciting possibilities of stitching software is the ability to make stunning panoramas.
In the following example I've used the Panorama Factory 2.4 software, because it has an intuitive and easy to use wizard.

Let's jump right into it.
This summer I was in Norway and managed to get a number of decent images (which I haven't shown on this site yet). At some of the scenes I shot a number of frames that I would use for panoramas.
Unfortunately I haven't brought the optimal tools, but I took the change anyway. I'll explain how to improve later on, but let's have a look at what I did.
Jotunheimen is a mountain range (and a national park) in the southern part of Norway. I was entering the park from the north an shot towards south to create the following images:



The images above covers a little bit more than 180°. These are the pictures I will like to create a panorama from - The Jotunheimen Panorama.

Techniques used at the scene
As so often before I used my Rolleiflex 2.8GX mounted on a Manfrotto ballhead.
All frames are shot with the same exposure, making the part towards the sun brighter than the rest. I used both the internal light meter and a handheld incident meter to measure the light, however I ended up simply identifying the part of the image that should have correct exposure and used that. I measured the light below the horizon towards the mountains at the right. This makes the mountains to the left a bit darker and the clouds towards the sun somewhat overexposed.
As you saw above I shot 10 frames from the north-east to the south-west. I did NOT use a spirit level to level the camera and I used a ballhead which will make the cameras turnable in all directions when you loosen it. This is NOT the proper way of producing a panorama, but that was the tools I had at the scene...
I simply judged the overlapping of each frame by looking at the groundglass letting every frame overlap the former quite a lot.
If the sky is filled with moving clouds - like here - you have to work a bit quick, so that the cloudscape won't change too much from frame to frame.

Scanning
Well, since these pictures where shot on film, I have to scan the frames.
The pictures was scanned at 2400dpi. I can scan at 3200 dpi using my Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro, but it produces too large files to handle when making a panorama. I'm only aiming for a 240dpi final print, because I know it's going to be a big file.
After scanning I resed down each pictures to 3200x3200 pixels and converted the pictures into the AdobeRGB colorspace (read about profiling a scanner here).

The Panorama Factory software
There are a number of panorama stitching software applications, but as mentioned earlier I've used the Panorama Factory 2.4 from Smoky City Design. You can download a 30 days trial version (which is no different from the registered) and if you like it you can buy it for $35 (US). It has a wizard which is easy to follow and it can handle quite big files (only limited by the amount of ram I would think).
This article is not a review of the software as such, however I will say that the software is very versatile yet easy to use and it is offered as shareware at a reasonable price and I can recommend it highly.

A step by step wizard
The wizard will first ask you to import the images you are going to use for the panorama and after that you must specify the type of camera you were using:



The software does not have a "medium format" film setting, but you can describe a film yourself. I typed in 57x57mm which is accurately the film size I use. I state that I use a 80mm lens and that I'm pretty sure of this focal length (the Rolleiflex 2.8GX is fitted with a non-removal 80mm Planar lens).
In step 3 of the wizard you select the kind of panorama you want to make (QTVR, flat panorama etc.) as well as some (recommended) settings about fine tuning and exposure matching etc. The following are my settings:



In step 4 you select the output medium for your panorama. In my case I want to prepare the image for printing and I don't want the program to alter the size of the pictures.
Then you are ready to let the program do it's work, but before I went on I noticed that there was a very big overlap on one of the frames, meaning that I perhaps could simply leave one frame out:



The highlighted frame above was removed, since the frames on each side was already overlapping enough.
After step 4 the software is ready to make the panorama.
I find the software quite fast, although in this case it has a lot of pixels to calculate on so it took a while to finish the panorama.

"Ghosting"
Probably because I was using a ballhead that will let the camera move in all directions when you loosen it, I got a number of "ghosting" areas; areas where the two pictures that the program had stitched, weren't perfectly matched. In my case I might have tilted the camera a bit back and forth and from side to side for each frame, thereby creating pictures that can be harder for the software to match together. Here's an example of what it looks like:



You might not be able to totally cure this, but you can adjust the amount of overlap from frame to frame. Of course if two frames aren't stitched perfectly and they overlap quite a lot, then you'll end up with a large area exhibiting this "ghosting" or "double image" problem.
To adjust a bit on this, doubleclick the leftmost panorama in the project (the "stitched" image):



You can now, via the red lines, adjust the amount of overlap and thereby select areas which shows up less ghosting. But be careful. If the overlapped area are too small you will be able to see the slight change in sky-colors as a hard line. In other words, create a big overlap to smoothen the color gradient of a sky and decrease the overlap to decrease the extend of "ghosting" areas. Try it for yourself. If you are more careful shooting the frames, you're likely to have less problems with ghosting in the first place.
When you are done, simply doubleclick the right-most image of the three shown above and the program will re-calculate your final image again.

Click on the picture below to see a larger version of the final panorama (392kb):



Improving the image quality of a panorama
In the theory it is possible for software to perfectly put together a panorama without the ghosting problems we saw above. In practice, however it might be a bit difficult.
Here are a number of rules to follow that will improve the quality and make it easier for the software to combine the pictures:
First of all the camera should be level with the horizon, so a three-way head with a spirit level could be of good use.
You should also try to avoid any objects near the camera. The nearer the objects the more pronounced any misalignment will be. The things is, that if you want to make a perfect panorama that includes objects near to the camera you need to turn the camera around the nodal point of the lens. I will not dig into that here, but I will urge you to follow some of the links below to find more information about this issue.
If you do not have a tripod handy, make sure you at least try to turn the camera around itself instead of turning yourself around and thereby letting the camera move around in a circle. Yes, I agree it can be a bit difficult, but try to mimic the movement of a turning tripod.

Printing the "Jotunheimen" panorama
So, it's time to print!
Well, the panorama I made is exactly 30,78 x 174,3cm (11.99 x 68.6inch) at 240dpi. A nice, big picture.
BUT my printer, the Epson 1290 (1280 in North America) will "only" print a maximum of 13 x 44 inch(!) What to do? At 44 inches long my print will only be 19,73cm (7.76 inch) high.
ARRGH, should I really print out the panorama at that small height, when the printer is capable of more? Why can't it just print at any length?
I can't find an answer for this now, so you will have to wait until I decide on what to do. When I decide, I'll write an update!

Newsletter subscribers
If you are a subscriber to the PHOTOgraphical.NET newsletter then you'll find a download link to a high-res version of this picture:



This picture is also from the Jotunheimen National Park in Norway.
The high-res picture is a so-called "13x13x300" picture. It can be printed and framed by you.

Links
There are lots of resources on the net dealing with panoramas. I'll list a few of the sites here. Each of them contains a lot of information about software and the issue of finding the nodal point to achieve the best possible panoramas.

• Panoguide.com Panorama software comparisons, software reviews, galleries and more.
• Panorama FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions about Panoramic Photography.
• Big Ben's Panorama Tutorials - Determining the Nodal Point of a Lens.
• QTVR Introduction - Contains information about finding the nodal point and a lot more.

The software I used can be found here:
• The Panorama Factory