No matter whether you are a beginner or a professional photographer, there may come a time when you need to take panoramic pictures. Panoramic photography is all about taking multiple shots of a subject and then creating a single image by stitching them together. By learning how to take great panoramic photos, you can add a very effective tool to your photo toolkit. So, it is certainly worth your time to understand and learn what it takes to create awesome panoramic pictures.
Process Overview
There are two main processes when it comes to making a panoramic photo:
- Capturing Photos: You will need to take multiple photos to cover the desired field of view.
- Stitching: After taking the photos, you will need to stitch them together with the help of a photo editing software e.g. Lightroom.
Gear Needed
While you can take a panoramic picture free hand, the following gear will help you achieve a better, more consistent result:
- A camera with a mounting plate
- Ball head
- A tripod with built-in level
Capturing Photos
The goal here is to gather multiple images that a photo editing software can utilize in order to create a seamless panorama. The process of stitching images is complex so you will need to take certain things into consideration during the capture step. These include the following:
Image Overlap
When taking pictures, make sure that the photos overlap for all the edges. The photo editing software will use these overlap regions to determine how to stitch the photos together. You should have at least 20-30% overlap. Also, make sure that there are fixed sharp distinct details in the overlap areas.
Image Consistency
Keeping everything as constant and consistent as possible is extremely important when taking photos. Some of the settings you will need to keep fixed include dynamic range, image parameters, white-balance, exposure, depth-of-field, focus-distance, focal-length, and viewpoint. While you can create a panorama with virtually any digital camera, you will need to use Manual-Controls, AE-L, or Panorama Assist to keep everything consistent.
Stitching Images to Make a Panorama
Using Lightroom is recommended. If you don’t have it, you can use whatever software that you usually use for post-processing. If you are using Lightroom, then it is safe to assume that you know how to import the images and you are ready to use the tool to create some big photos of your landscape.
Follow these steps:
- Choose the pictures that you have captured in the previous step.
- Use Photo Merge > Panorama option to bring up the panorama dialog box.
- Next, select your desired Projection mode. If you don’t know which mode to choose, then select spherical as it works best in most cases.
- Adjust the Boundary warp according to your preferences.
- Then crop the white parts off the edges via the Auto Crop option.
- Finally, click on Merge to stitch the images together.
Taking awesome panoramic pictures requires a fair amount of practice. There is so much to learn, from the parameter settings that are ideal for the scene to the number of pictures required for stitching. Allow yourself sufficient failed shots and time to master the art of panoramic photography and soon you will be creating quality panoramic photos.