I have GOT to learn how to do panos... it's done through PS, right?

 

there's at least two great free pano programs out there:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...s/ivm/ice.html
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

what you have to do is take your panned frames, and then all you do is dump them into the program and it stitches for you. give it a shot!

 

how would you compare those 2 to autopano pro? i know autopano pro is not free cause it's what i use...the reason i ask is cause it hasn't been doing a great job stitching lately...i dunno whats going on...every frame is not lined up..iv'e been doing the same thing since iv'e had it...at first all i did was load up the pics i want stitched and it would do an awesome job..now..not so much

 

I used to use Autopano but found these free programs have a better success rate. But, it depends on your photos. Some work well with one program, some don't. And obviously the more tools you have in your arsenal, the better your chances are.

 

ahhhh damn, now I gotta try that lol....

so with doing HDR panos... which process would you do first?

 

true...downloading Hugin now
is there a file size limit when loading in autopano? i just realized that when i was having better luck with it..i was using my 40D and now with the 7D the file size is almost double...

 

i do it the quickest/lazy way(for me)...stitch the pano then make 3-5 exposures with it then throw it in photomatix pro

 

careful, it's addicting.... :-/

with HDR panos I've always done the HDR merges first, and then the stitch. I would have to say this is the "best" way just because panoramic files can be so huge, and working with single-frame HDR shots can be slow enough as it is, even on a fast computer. I mean I've run out of ram on 8GB machines doing panoramic stitches before (sucks). 8gb is not a LOT but its not little either.
I'm sure theres a limit, but Ive never run into one in terms of panoramic file size, in all the pano's I've done. how many frames did you feed it?

 

oh, okay... thanks


edit: wait, you guys said the opposite

 

usually anywhere from 5-15 frames...i meant for each individual file size..for example the 40D would be 10-13mb vs the 7D 20+ mb

lol...iv'e never tried any other way...maybe i need to

 

oh - yeah, 7D files are considerably larger. I think I've had close to 32mb, for high ISO's.
are you doing your HDR's by taking a single RAW and then doing multiple exposures from it?

 

yes...that's how iv'e been doing them lately...wether it's a regular shot or pano..i know it's not the best way especially for noise but iv'e gotten so used to doing them that way...

 

all about workflow and personal preference, there's more than one way to do it. if you get the final product you want, that's all the matters.

 

that's very true...it's just so much easier especially when shooting moving subjects...i'm gonna start to do the bracketing from the camera on non-moving subjects and see if i can get better results

 

btw...i'll be in chitown the last week of July...looking forward to shooting downtown,navy pier,millenia park,etc...

 

oh yeah definitely single exposures increase your possibilities. I do about half and half these days (single / multiple).

 

nice man we should meet somewhere and do a photo tour, if you are up for it.

 

better add some pics in here
here's a perfect example of a moving subject hdr...also an older shot from my 40D...this was again with the 10-22...i was about 4 feet from her and panned as she rode by...

 

thought you'd never ask
would love to...i'll hit you up when the time gets closer

 

sounds good, great horse hdr.

that's you in your avatar?

 

hahaha

 

damn, the girl on the horse almost look 3D-ish!

 

yeah..i think it's from the background blur caused by the panning

 

man I've been meaning to do some horse panning, just haven't got around to it. now seeing your shot, I'm a bit

 

I stitch first and then HDR merge. I always worried that I could never get the same look out of each frame or that the HDR would make it harder to stitch. I guess not.

drigo - that horse shot is awesome!


Microsoft also has a free pano stitcher:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...roups/ivm/ICE/

I just installed it and am going to see how it does. It doesn't have any support for RAW files that I saw, however.

 

you have to do your HDR settings for your first shot, and then save those settings as a preset, then you apply that same preset to the rest of your frames, generate the HDR's, and then stitch. After stitching, you can pull that completed shot into Photoshop or Lightroom and do additional fine-tuning.

 

Gotcha. I can see doing it this way for a max 6 shot pano, but any more seems like a lot of time when you could just process it once.

<---not very patient

 

can anyone photoshop this pic into hdr for me??

 

Okay, quick question before I go out and shoot some pics for my first pano attempt... is it harder to stitch together with wide angle shots? (17mm on FF)

 

excellent question, it IS more challenging for the program to stitch wide shots. and 17mm is quite wide on a FF. not saying you can't do it, just saying that it's going to be tougher to get good results from that.

 

I wouldn't use something that wide if you want to pano stitch, could have too much distortion in the corners. Use something closer to 35 or 50mm and just take more images for stitching.

 

also I take all of my panos as portrait (vs landscape) when I'm doing a landscape shot, that way you have a lot more vertical pixels to work with. I shoot mostly handheld panos.

 

okay, so ALL the pictures I took earlier for this attempt were NOT usable. I didn't overlap them enough. So, I just took some pics off the balcony... then the file was too big... so, I just did a screen shot of the monitor

 

looks like the clouds are about to just dump some water all over the place...

 

that's Vancouver for ya

but seriously, it WAS probably raining down there... with the sun behind me... the sunset was epic today too

 

That's a good idea, but instead of taken say four or five shots across a scene, you can take eight or ten closer into subject in landscape mode, with one over another and four or five across as,

_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _

instead of

l l l l l

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5682509747/http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5682509747/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/delobbo/, on Flickr

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5688714272/http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5688714272/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/delobbo/, on Flickr

 

Haven't had much time to shoot lately. I took these couple while at a job I just finished up up in Cape Cod. This was at my clients home.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5688968821/http://www.flickr.com/photos/delobbo/5688968821/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/delobbo/, on Flickr