Panoramic Photographs
by
Peter Loud


A couple of weeks ago, (June '06), a friend in the US sent me a link to a panorama that he shot of a place I know in Eleuthera in The Bahamas. It was stunning. I was so impressed I decided that I must have a try at creating a panorama, after all most digitial cameras come with the software to stitch together images, it must be easy ;-).

Joining two or three photos together is easy. Making a full 360° panorama, which shows the full spherical scene around you, above and below too, is not easy. It helps if you have expensive specialist equipment, a good camera with an ultra-wide or fisheye lens, a panoramic head which allows you to position and rotate your camera precisely and the appropriate software. Before deciding whether I wanted to spend a great deal of money on this specialist area of photography I thought that I must learn the art with my cheap little camera, the camera at the top of the page, a 3 Megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3100. It has been a fascinating challenge. I'll not bore you with all of the technical problems, many of which I could not overcome, but here are my results.


These panoramas are displayed as QuickTime .mov files.
Your computer must have a .mov viewer/player installed.
To download the free QuickTime .mov player visit QT Free Download


The Grand Union Canal in front of my house.

This was my first attempt. This is over 40 images stiched together. The big problem here was shooting into the sun. My images didn't fit together well so I had to fill areas of sky which I missed. By the standards of the other panos I've seen on internet this is terrible, but I feel that the experts will not be too harsh on me considering it was my first attempt and the camera I used.




My sitting room at home in UK.

My second panorama, also from the Coolpix 3100, was made by stitching together over 60 separate images. An interior panorama in a small room like this is tricky unless you have a fisheye lens. It has many problem areas, mostly focussing and exposure about which I could do little. At the end I screwed up when I had to take the camera off the tripod to shoot the the zone around the tripod. I did not hold the camera in exactly the right place and introduced a bad parallax error :-) In the end I was delighted just being able to produce it, even with its faults.

Be patient, it takes a little while to download and start :-(


I have subsequently returned to this pano. taken the same original images and using PTGui 7.8 have added more control points, restitched and let PTGui sort out exposure problems. I end up with a much better panorama with hardly any broken lines. I resisted the temptation to switch panos as I wanted to show what was achieved with very basic equipment and very basic skills. I am tempted to reshoot the pano with the same Coolpix 3100 and show what can be done with very basic equipment and more advanced software & skills but stitching 60+ images automatically then adding extra control points is a tedious job. With my current equipment, Canon 350D & Sigma 8mm lens, I can do the pano. easily with 5 shots, perhaps less if I planned it carefully.


Technical Skill
Effort 		3 out of 10 :-(
9 out of 10 :-)
It was a tricky operation. In addition to my lack of knowledge, my camera wasn't suitable. It is important to use a fixed exposure throughout all of the shots, I could not do this with my camera. When I take a shot it has automatic exposure and auto-focusing. This automatic focusing was a big problem on interior shots, although not a problem on the outdoor pano.

The lens on my camera is equivalent to a 38mm lens on a 35mm camera. This meant a full pano took over 60 shots and required a great deal of stitching images. This was made worse because lenses distort the image and are less sharp at the edges, especially on very cheap cameras therefore matching up for stitching was inaccurate. I made a special adaptor, a pano-head, to fit on my tripod so that I could rotate the camera without parallax errors. I was pleased with that bit of kit :-)


There are several ways to display panoramas, alas no single standard technique. For these panos I converted the stitched panorama .jpg image into a QuickTime .mov file. I used this as I thought it more likely that people would have QuickTime on their computer than Java or other specialist software. On my first attempt QT turned a relatively crisp sharp pano image into a fuzzy movie. On my second attempt I used different conversion software and it was better. For comparison purposes here is a section cut from the actual stitched panorama .jpg before turning into a .mov file. As you can clearly see, the original sharp image was made fuzzy in the conversion. As my skills develop I'm sure I'll be able to improve on this.


Second Attempt, - Using Java to display the panoramas.
Here the panorama .jpg files are displayed using Java and an applet PTViewer. If you have Java installed click on the thumbnail.
You can download and instal Java from www.javasoft.com
This seems to give a better quality image.
Don't regard that as an expert assessment, I'm just trying out different techniques, trying to learn about it.



Summary
It has been a fascinating learning exercise, as a result I shall upgrade my camera in the near future. I shan't rush off and buy a full pano system costing thousands of $$, but I shall put the emphasis on a camera with a wide lens and the ability to take a fisheye lens later. In the mean time I shall continue to develop my skills.


Update, (Post Penang).
I spent much of the British winter, 2006/7, taking some panos. of Penang in Malaysia. On my way out to Penang I bought a second-hand camera in Singapore, a Canon 350D with a standard 18-55mm lens, and a cheap tripod. I then made a very simple bracket, from scraps of steel strip, to fit to the panoramic head of the tripod so that I could rotate the camera around it's nodal point, and into town I went ;-)

I have had a most interesting, challenging, and satisfying winter. Panorama photography is serious stuff. Many people have commented on how impressed they were with my panoramas. They are impressive if you are new to them, but I know my limitations. I appreciate what a specialist art it is. I now know how good the panoramas from the experts can be :-( When I search the web and see what the real experts have done I squirm at my feeble attempts. However, they might have better panoramic photographic skills than I do, but I'm not a photographer who is interested in the sharpness of images. I am interested in social history. I want to show how fascinating is the culture of Penang, (and Seahouses before that), and that is not about the technical aspects of photography. Photography should come from the soul.

My message is simple,
  • Panorama photography is a very powerful way of immersing the viewer in the surroundings.
  • It is a very complex subject with a difficult learning curve,
  • The effect of the image is more important than the technical quality of the image.


    • My Advice
    If you find panoramic images have impact, go for it! We are in a transition phase. Until now people showed their photographs on pieces of paper. In the future people will display their photographs on computers and over internet, not on bits of paper. This opens up all sorts of new creative opportunities. Here's your chance to produce the next generation of photographs.

    I wish you success.

    Cheers,

    Pete

    Latest Update, (June 2007)
    Out in Penang I didn't have internet, all I had was an 8 year old notebook computer which struggled with 16 colour VGA never mind panoramics. I was not in a position to investigate information on internet etc. etc. Since getting back to UK I have been able to chase up lots of websites about pano techniques, software, and hardware, (although I am too mean to spend my money on hardware ;-)

    So for the past few weeks I have been investigating techniques through internet and have been trying out these techniques on the local churches. Churches, like Chinese temples, are superb subjects for panos. You can be surrounded by subject matter, in 3 dimensions, the places are quiet, have challenging light conditions and as a bonus they are fascinating places to visit. I now have my basic photographic techniques under my belt, almost, my main problem has been how to display the pano images on internet. I haven't yet come up with the optimum solution :-( Panography is in the state that micro-computers were before IBM and Microsoft set the standards. There are lots of different techniques, each have experienced, skilled proponents. I don't know which way to go. So at the moment I am wasting my time trying out a variety of techniques. I have successes and failures, check them out at http://www.peterloud.co.uk/photos/MK_Churches/MK_Churches.html Even tho' I have technical problems now and again I'm sure you'll find the churches as fascinating as the Chinese temples.


    Canal pano. 11 months later.
    Almost a year after first trying panoramic photography I had another try at the canal in front of my house. This time I was using a much better camera, a Canon 350D with a Sigma 10-20mm lens. Technically the picture was much better, but compositionally just the same.



    . . . . . and for completeness here is a partial panorama at the other side of my house. This is a simple pano with 5 images stitched together.



    Here are my latest panoramas from around Milton Keynes.

    Click on the image to see the full-screen panorama.

    All Saints Church,
    Milton Keynes Village.


    St. Thomas's Church,
    Simpson.


    St. Mary Magdalene Church,
    Willen.



    Stoke Bruerne,
    Grand Union Canal.


    . . . or try the Java version.


    ... and from Northumberland


    Northumbrian Churches.




    Pete's Cheapo Homemade Pano Heads

    I have had so many people who have Googled for "Homemade Pano Head" linked to my website
    that I thought it better to create a separate webpage for my homemade pano head brackets.

    To get there click on the photo below.






    Images Copyright Peter Loud, 1997-2007