Modified 4-Oct-09
Created 16-Sep-09
29 photos
The first group of photos in this set of ultra-wide scenes, which have filenames that begin with "Bus_FEPano", are a continuation of a series of projects where I'm combining two ultra wide angle shots to make a panoramic. The photos in this first series were shot with a Nikon D700 fitted with a AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D lens (has an angle of view of 180°). These ultra-wide shots were manually assembled in Photoshop CS4 into a single panoramic composite. Photoshop's File>Automate>Photomerge function would not combine two of these ultra-wide images into a panoramic. Autodesk's panoramic compositor, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 ($350), should combine two of these fisheye shots into a panoramic... I don't have this app and have only read about it on their site.
The shooting method was to aim the camera to the left getting a full view of one half of the bus and streetcar's interior in that direction, and then panning the camera approximately 160° to the right capturing a second wide angle view in the other direction. Because I was shooting handheld on a moving vehicle I had to overlap the two shots more than I would if I were shooting from a tripod. If you look carefully at this first group of photo composites you'll notice that the angle of coverage is over 180°. The camera's shooting modes were set to Manual for exposure and focus, and the color balance was set to daylight. The lens focus point was set to infinity with its F-stop set to about 5.6 or 8.
In all digital panoramic photography the images you are assembling must overlap each other to some degree so that you can combine parts of each photo to create the final panoramic image. In this panoramic project I've sort of thrown out the rule book, which usually dictates that anywhere from 3 or 4, or up to a dozen images need to be combined to make the final panoramic composite. Here I'm combining two ultra-wide Fisheye lens shots into a single composite. Because the center area of the two images (where the two shots overlap) each have such dramatically distorted and curved lines this made combining them difficult. These composites were made with PS Layer Masks and using the Edit>Transform>Warp and Rotate tools to shape and distort adjoining areas of the image to make all of the visual components line up. After all of the image components were adjusted the PS plug-in "Topaz Adjust" was applied. Some other examples of this type of ultra-wide panoramics can be seen in my Flickr photo set titled "PDX at Night #2".
The shooting method was to aim the camera to the left getting a full view of one half of the bus and streetcar's interior in that direction, and then panning the camera approximately 160° to the right capturing a second wide angle view in the other direction. Because I was shooting handheld on a moving vehicle I had to overlap the two shots more than I would if I were shooting from a tripod. If you look carefully at this first group of photo composites you'll notice that the angle of coverage is over 180°. The camera's shooting modes were set to Manual for exposure and focus, and the color balance was set to daylight. The lens focus point was set to infinity with its F-stop set to about 5.6 or 8.
In all digital panoramic photography the images you are assembling must overlap each other to some degree so that you can combine parts of each photo to create the final panoramic image. In this panoramic project I've sort of thrown out the rule book, which usually dictates that anywhere from 3 or 4, or up to a dozen images need to be combined to make the final panoramic composite. Here I'm combining two ultra-wide Fisheye lens shots into a single composite. Because the center area of the two images (where the two shots overlap) each have such dramatically distorted and curved lines this made combining them difficult. These composites were made with PS Layer Masks and using the Edit>Transform>Warp and Rotate tools to shape and distort adjoining areas of the image to make all of the visual components line up. After all of the image components were adjusted the PS plug-in "Topaz Adjust" was applied. Some other examples of this type of ultra-wide panoramics can be seen in my Flickr photo set titled "PDX at Night #2".
© John Mantzefield Photography