How to make a panorama easily?

The easy panorama in three steps by Ouiouiphoto.fr

Introduction of YES-YES

In this article I will explain how to make a panorama easily. The objective is to make you understand a certain number of things which will then be useful for you to adapt the method to what you really want to do.

Situation. You are walking in the middle of the day and come across a landscape that you find pleasant.

You take out the device and you put yourself in landscape mode. You put yourself at the smallest focal length possible to see the maximum and you take your picture. The photo is clear, correctly exposed but you have the impression that it is missing.

As you are already at the minimum focal length of your lens, you only have the solution of the panorama.Before you start what do you need?

This method is for an SLR camera with an APS-C sensor, a basic 18-55 lens. In short, a basic SLR with its basic lens. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the majority of reflexes sold in the world. You will not need a tripod for this exercise.

You will also need to know how to turn your wheel to go to A(Av) and M mode. Then you will need to know how to adjust the sensitivity (ISO), aperture and speed. You may also need to know how to make exposure compensation. You will also need to know how to remove the autofocus on your lens. In short, a little tour through the documentation of your device will be necessary if you do not know how to do all this.

Step 1 – Preparation and settings

We turn on our camera, we go to Mode A(Av), Iso Auto and F/8. Do not leave the white balance on automatic. If the weather is nice put it on sunny and if it’s bad on cloudy. We put the focal length between 25mm and 30mm. We check that the lens is in autofocus (AF and not MF). We aim at the main subject of the panorama and focus. No need to take a picture at this stage, the focus is sufficient. Once the development is done, the autofocus is removed. (switch the button on the lens from AF to MF). And we don’t touch the zoom ring or the focus ring until the end. If you touch the zoom ring you have to start over

Then we aim for the clearest part of the panorama and take a picture. The clearest part if there are a few clouds in the sky is often in the sky on the side where the sun is. So if the sun is at your back rather to the left, the brightest part is rather to the left of the panorama.

We check that there are no burnt areas or that the photo is not too dark. If this is the case, we correct the exposure and we take a photo. When the photo is well exposed, we note the settings used by the camera (speed and Iso. The aperture is at F/8). Often you have to press a “disp” button when you are viewing the photo to see these settings. You can also look at them through the viewfinder when taking the photo. We switch the camera to M mode and set F/8 for the aperture and the speed and ISO found in “A mode” just before.

Step 2 – Shooting

I advise you to make 3 strips. One or the main subject of the panorama is rather at the top of the image. A second or the main subject of the image is in the center of the strip and the last or the main subject is at the bottom of the image. Portrait or landscape, it’s up to you. I prefer portrait.

Also try to systematically have 1/3 overlap between each image as shown in the drawing above. This overlap is important for a good assembly afterwards. As all settings have been done before, you can concentrate on shooting only. You have to try to be fairly specific.

For this a tip: Spread your legs slightly by putting yourself in front of the subject. Aim the subject so that it is in the center. Now aim a little lower so that the subject is at the top of the photo, then turn your chest to the right. That’s it you are ready to start your series. Turn only your bust. The feet should not move during the entire shot. If you move your feet I advise you to start again.

Step 3 – Assembly

To assemble your panorama you will need software. There are plenty more or less efficient. By paying we can quote Autopano of Kolor and in Free Hugin. In this article, I am not going to give you a tutorial of the different existing software. They change too often. But the principle is almost always the same

1) You have to upload the images

2) You have to align the images by choosing a type of projection (linear, cylindrical, spherical). This alignment is done automatically. The software reloads the common points (hence the importance of having 1/3 recovery each time)

3) You have to “render” the panorama. That is, turn all photos into one

Hulahup! Barbatruc! And here’s the result

Now that you have played well, here are some explanations

Why a focal length between 25 and 30mm?

The smaller the focal length, the more there are perspective distortions that can annoy the stitching software. On the contrary, at 50mm your lens does not have its best sharpness and you will have to take more photos. Between 25 and 30 I think it’s a good compromise.

Why F/8?

AF/8 your lens generally gives good results. In addition if you are between 25mm and 30mm focal length you can have everything clear from 3m to infinity (focusing at around 5m). And if you focus further (on the castle for example) everything from 5m to infinity will be sharp. In short, it’s a good compromise too. AF/8 in addition you will have much less vignetting which will also help your stitching software.

Why not leave the white balance on automatic?

If you leave the white balance on automatic, your camera will choose the best white balance for each photo. There is therefore a risk of having a photo in the series that is more pink or greener than the others. That’s why I advise you to set it to “sunny” or “cloudy”.

Why switch to MF after the first focus?

If you leave the autofocus on, your camera risks focusing differently with each photo and therefore sharp areas on one photo risk being more blurred on the next photo and your stitching software does not like it. that. In addition, when you are in the sky, for example, your camera may have trouble focusing on a solid blue sky.

Why M mode and not A mode?

You can do everything in A mode if your software is good enough to correct exposure on its own. In A mode, each photo in the panorama will have a different exposure. The camera measures the light each time and therefore changes the parameters to have the best exposure on each photo.

Let’s imagine that the sun is on your right. On each photo the right side will be lighter than the left side. And as you are in mode A we can say that all the right sides will be exposed the same and that all the left sides too. And so a left side of a photo will be darker than the right side of the next photo. Fortunately most assembly software fixes this. But not all. This is why personally I prefer to put myself in M.

Why three bands?

It’s because I like billiards. But it is not the only reason. When we make a panorama we often underestimate what is below and above the subject. By making 3 bands we ensure the blow. This will give a lot more cropping latitude afterwards. In addition, as we are aiming by hand, the framing between each photo is quite approximate. Here is for example the same panorama but with 5 photos taken in landscape. The castle breathes less

Conclusion

You see it’s not very complicated. Up to you. If you want to go further later a tripod is a useful utensil. This will allow you to take photos that are well aligned with each other. It will even then be preferable to invest in a nodal head. Thanks to this accessory you can easily include the near foreground. But beware, it is no longer the same budget.

Freehand if you include the near foreground in your photo, your software may not succeed in stitching the photos correctly. But if your foreground remains at an acceptable distance of 5m, freehand works very well.

By the way, don’t forget to set the switch back to AF on your lens now.

Thanks to the author of this article Ouiouiphoto (www.ouiouiphoto.fr)

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.ouiouiphoto.fr.

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