I had to put together a submission to a client the other day on New Mexico, and I realized I had some images I had not full processed. More specifically, I had some images that I had shot in parts, so they could be pieced together into a larger panoramic image.
I love doing these kinds of images, often at extremely wide and narrow dimensions.
There are plenty of tutorials on the inter-web for how to do these, and someday I will give my detailed step-by-step instructions. But for now, I will give some simple shooting tips:
- The longer the lens you use, the easier the images fit together.
- Try to rotate the camera around the “nodal point” (center point between front of lens and the sensor) as you shoot. Using a tripod and a 70-200mm lens with lens collar makes this easy.
- Do NOT crop too tight in the camera.
- Shoot on manual, using the same color temperature (either in camera or when processing for output to the panorama software).
- Overlap images by at least a third. I usually overlap by ½, just to be safe.
Panorama of snow geese in pond in early morning light, Bosque del Apache, National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA. Canon 1Dx. 200mm. ISO 2000. f/14@1/60 second. 11 images stitched together into one huge 100 megapixel image. What about all the moving birds? Be quick when you shoot and let the software sort it out.
