Panorama Techniques
A digital camera is at the heart of the process. There are some compacts that have software built-in that allows the photographer to see where the camera should stop as it is moved across the scene.
For more sophisticated panoramas, a DSLR is appropriate. The camera coupled with a long lens and a tripod and head designed to capture large scenes does a magnificent job. I have also experimented using a macro lens and created flower images that can be printed 10 feet long and 8 feet wide with incredible clarity.
I use a Nikon D700 with a 70 to 200 F 2.8 VR II lens. I also use the most recent tele-extender at times if I want more detail. The tripod is strong and steady and the head is designed to allow the camera and lens to be rotated around a center of rotation called nodal rotation. I use a head made by Nodal Ninja. For long lenses over 200, the rotator is calibrated in 1 degree increments and with each exposure, I rotate the lens one degree. Each exposure overlaps about 30%. If I wish to have more than one row, I move the lens up about 30% and shoot the other way overlapping the exposures both vertically and horizontally.
Typically, I shoot 10 images across and as many as 20 and between one and five rows up. A very large mosaic can be 1.5 gigabytes in size.
Once I am finished with the camera work, I put the card into the computer, upload the images, separate out the various series of images in their own folders and computer software is used for the rest.
I use Adobe Lightroom 3.3 to adjust the images as it allows me to apply the same adjustments to each image. From that point on, I use either Adobe Photoshop CS5 or PTGui to make the stitches themselves. It does take considerable computing power and some finishing touches are needed. I sometimes slightly skew the images if they are distorted or crop uneven parts of the stitch. Curiously, I find CS5 to do wonders for flowers and PTGui to perform miracles with landscapes.
Using this method, I can create my own visions and my own images with their own shapes. It is quite exciting to see the end results.
I will write more about this.