Panoramic with the Fuji f60

corblimey

Can anyone give me a few starter points for creating panormaic shots with my Fuji f60. There doesn't appear to be panorama or stitch mode included (unless Fuji are calling it something different). The closest I can find is a continuous mode shot, but for various reasons (it discards all but the top 3-12 or bottom 3-12 depending on size, etc) that's not really suitable.

Considing my cheap ass phone camera has a panorama mode, I'm surprised that there's nothing available here and my googling has let me down. If somebody has the same or similar camera, perhaps a few hints in teh right direction?

AnCatDubh

Panoramic images are essentially software driven so it doesn't matter whether it happens in camera or on your computer. If it does run in camera it is essentially running a bit of software. There are plenty of ways of doing it from high end photoshop to a number of free packages.

Something free like http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ will do it for you.

There is a deal of work to doing this right and it's worth a little research - here a good place to start;

http://digital-photography-school.com/8-guidelines-to-taking-panoramic-photos-with-any-camera

Have fun.

corblimey

I tried a software solution before, ancatdubh, and it did weird things, mostly cos I was guessing at the amount of overlap. It did manage to find points of corrolation between each picture, but then it some weird image manipulation which I assumed was down to the craptacular pics I took. I guess not. I guess the idea is as long as you keep it at the same height all round and take enough pics, you'll get something approaching panorama?

AnCatDubh

Before I posted I had a quick go with Hugin went to the back garden and shot about 15 frames panning across as I went and to be fair to it, with all the default settings selected, it did a great job of stitching them together - this in my opinion anyhow. I didn't pay any attention to how much overlap I had left so it wouldn't have been consistent. I'd guess it will take a little getting used to and like anything perfection would only come after time.

Keeping consistent lighting and contrast across a scene appears to be one of the biggest issues that I've seen and the most notable when two or more images get stitched - can be difficult if shooting from behind the sun to the sun starting to creep into the frame.

corblimey

Yeah, it's Hugin I used before, so I'll give it another go once I've taken some better pics.

gary82

If you have a horizontal point on the photo (eg horizon), take note how far up the screen/viewfinder it is and try maintain that position when you rotate - keep the elbows in tight, always helps!