When I first discovered photography, I was immediately drawn to landscape photography. From day one, I started scouring photography-related sites and seeing how other photographers captured the world. However, when my photography college lecturer brought the Fujifilm GX617 to class one day I was introduced to picturesque landscapes. When I saw what it could produce, I was amazed. Despite being unable to purchase a GX617, I wanted to replicate the look and feel of photos made with my camera. So, I researched whatever was available on the internet at that time and started experimenting with my camera.
Nowadays, it’s easy to replicate the GX617’s aspect ratio on any camera using a sturdy tripod, possibly an L-bracket, and a good structure. Unlike the GX617, I can use my camera on a tripod and take a series of images to stitch them together in Photoshop. You have the option of investing in expensive gear to get a perfectly level and distortion-free tripod. Nevertheless, you can also use the tools you have at your disposal to create an excellent panoramic image.
Why shoot panoramic images?
Traditionally, horizontal landscapes using wide angle lenses are used to achieve that wider perspective, but stitching together a series of images will expand not only the field of view but also the resolution of your final image. Will increase. This is great news if you love to print your own photos, meaning you can get larger-sized prints for potential clients or fill that empty wall space you’ve been eyeing for ages. It is also unnecessary to shoot all your panoramas using a wide angle lens. If you have a telephoto lens, such as the Canon 135mm f/2, you can still use it to shoot panoramas and stitch images together to get a wider field of view. An additional benefit of using telephoto lenses is that they eliminate any distortion that occurs from using wide angle lenses. Telephoto lenses also bring a lot of compression to your image, meaning anything far away suddenly appears closer. So, if you have a beautiful forest in the foreground, but you’re struggling to capture the majestic mountains in the background, swap out your wide angle lens for your telephoto lens before stitching together a series of images.
how to shoot panoramic
To successfully capture a panorama, you must mount your camera vertically on your tripod. If you mount it horizontally, you’ll capture a thin image strip, losing any foreground and sky detail. Mounting the camera vertically captures the image using the longer side of your sensor, thus capturing more detail at the top and bottom of your frame.
Best practice is to use L bracket Center the camera sensor in this scenario tripodThis means that the pivot point of your camera is aligned with the center of the tripod, which will help eliminate any stitching problems. It also helps level your camera when moving between shots. Let’s say you use something like a three-way head to rotate your camera horizontally. In that case, the camera is off the center axis of the tripod, which can affect the level of your final image. If you have some money, a nodal head is ideal for your tripod, as it is a useful tool for any panoramic photographer. If you don’t have $400+ to spend on a special panoramic tripod head then a ball head that allows you to rotate around the center point and L-bracket will suffice. Next, use the spirit level built into the tripod base and head to make sure your tripod and head are perfectly level. Move the head around to check that it is level all the way around. If not, some adjustments are needed.
Make sure to set your camera’s settings to manual mode. Using aperture or shutter priority can cause inconsistencies in exposure, causing frames in your stitched panorama to be under or overexposed. Move your camera around to the brightest part of the image and expose for it making sure you don’t blow out any highlights before resetting your camera position. Alternatively, if you’re shooting a high-contrast scene like a sunset, you can make things more complicated and bracket your images to create an HDR panorama. Switching your lens to manual focus will also ensure that the focal plane doesn’t jump between frames.
Once you’ve set the exposure and focus, it’s time to start shooting. To ensure that Photoshop or your panoramic stitching software of choice sees the similarities between the frames and creates the correct stitch, it is important to overlap your images by about 25% when shooting.
Stitching Your Images in Photoshop
Now when it’s time to process the images, I usually load them into Adobe Camera Raw, select all the photos, and make some basic global adjustments. If you’re using Lightroom, you should be able to follow along, as most of the settings are the same. Once I’ve made my global adjustments, with all my images selected, I right-click on the first image and choose “Merge to Panorama”. Select “Merge to HDR Panorama” if you bracketed your exposures. A dialog box will pop up, showing a preview of your panorama, and you’ll see several options on the right side of the dialog box. “Spherical,” “Cylindrical,” and “Perspective” are different projection modes. These are different ways of interpolating panoramas.
Spherical mode will be as if the image is projected inside a sphere, cylindrical mode will be projected inside a cylinder, and perspective will be projected onto a flat plane, which is helpful for architectural images where you want to draw straight lines. Needed. However, the latter is only suitable for landscapes, as it distorts the image and attempts to keep it flat. In most cases the circular setting works best for landscape. Once you’re happy with the preview, click “Merge” to begin processing your panorama using Photoshop or Lightroom Stitch. Once the stitching process is complete, Photoshop will create a DNG file to use to make your local adjustments. I load this file into Adobe Camera Raw and review my original settings again before creating the mask to adjust small areas in my image, often called local adjustments.
At the beginning of this article, I talked about my love for the Fujifilm GX617. As a result, I like to crop my panoramic images to a 6×17 crop ratio to mimic the camera’s style. I often overshoot my panoramas to be safe and then always crop them to 6×17 format for aesthetic reasons.
Ultimately, it really is that simple. There’s no fancy gear or tricks, which proves that you don’t need to invest in the most expensive gear to get the shot. This is shooting a series of images on a level tripod and simply enjoying photography. Have you tried shooting panoramas yet? If yes, please share your images in the comments below. I would love to hear your thoughts on your process.
