Help on creating a shot..

irlirishkev

Hi,

Looking for some advice on the best way to create a particular shot.
Basically, I want to take a picture of a row of shopfronts on a street (about the length of Parliament Street in Dublin).
I don't have a lens anywhere near wide enough, so my plan is -

- A number of shots stitched together.
- 50mm 1.8 on a tripod
- Going to shoot around 7am on a weekend, to avoid traffic (human and motorised)

Any tips on making the best of this? Am I over/under-complicating things
I also have a Nikkor 55-200 VR Zoom, and a Sigma 70-300 Zoom.. would I be better using one of these?

Ultimately I'd like to be able to print off and frame this pic, so would really like to get it right.

Thanks..

DaireQuinlan

that -should- work all right. Get as far away from the side of the street that you're photographing as possible, and make sure your camera is as orthogonal as you can get it to the shopfronts. Take more photos than you think you'll need and stitching them together ought to be relatively straightforward.

PopeBuckfastXVI

I'd imagine you'd want to move the tripod and keep the plane of the sensor parallel with the plane of the shopfronts, in other words, take a shot, move the camera right, leaving some overlap with the previous shot, all the while pointing straight at the wall. Don't rotate the tripod head.

DaireQuinlan

Oh and take a meter reading at the start and switch to manual to ensure they're all exposed the same way, work quickly enough that the light doesn't change during the exposures.

magicbastarder

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

I'd imagine you'd want to move the tripod and keep the plane of the sensor parallel with the plane of the shopfronts, in other words, take a shot, move the camera right, leaving some overlap with the previous shot, all the while pointing straight at the wall. Don't rotate the tripod head.

i think this will confuse most stitching algorithms, which expect the photos all to be taken from the same spot. AFAIK.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Well if it's not done this way you'll get pretty bad barrel distortion, maybe there's other software that would handle it this way.

irlirishkev

Thanks for the replies folks..

Yeah I'm trying to avoid the distortion I'd get from standing in one spot and rotating the camera. I generally use MS ICE for stitching.. if that's of any use.

Does it matter if my distance away from the far side of the street varies a bit over the course of the pictures taken? I imagine there'd be a few inches at least here and there..

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

i think this will confuse most stitching algorithms, which expect the photos all to be taken from the same spot. AFAIK.

Yeah but if the OP actually is reasonably careful they should be pretty easy to stitch manually*.

*in theory

magicbastarder

magicbastarder wrote: »

i think this will confuse most stitching algorithms, which expect the photos all to be taken from the same spot. AFAIK.

I reckon he'll be fine. Most programs jus tlook for the similarities in each photo, so it can overlap them. Whether you move or not isn't relevant I don't think, so long as there's an overlap of any kind (though I'm open to correction, of course).

Cameraman

I think ICE allows you to choose whether you shot from a fixed point or moved along parallel to the surface you're shooting.

I was trying to do something similar recently in a street. I found 2 problems (a) Because it was a fairly narrow street, I couldn't get back far enough to avoid distortion when I stitched the photos. (b) When I tried to take overlapping parallel shots (moving along the street) I had huge problems with objects like fences and trees on front of the buildings.

So - try to get back as far as you can - and if there are fixed objects in the way, that might mess up the result.

My best version was standing opposite the mid point of the street and as far back as possible, and just taking two shots, one pointing left and one right. I wasn't completely happy with the result, but it's the best I can do so far. If the street had been wider, then it would have been fine, as I could have got further back.

Heebie

Important things...
You should try & find a line that runs along the entire row, and if you want the storefronts evenly sized and distanced.. preferably one parallel to the line of storefronts itself. (someone else mentioned this too.. I think I'm being more wordy.)

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is.. if you can find a line that's parallel to the plane you want to shoot (the storefronts).. your zoom distance should stay the same if you're using a zoom (doesn't apply with a prime.. if you've got a wide prime you're probably better off using it.)

It's also a good idea to make sure your focus doesn't change, and as I saw someone else mention.. you want your exposures as even as possible... hopefully you'll have good steady light. Meter with a manual light meter at the wall of the building if you can. (Maybe bring a friend to keep people away from your camera while you measure the light?)

It sounds like a cool, fun project.

smelltheglove

You are best to take shots with a decent overlap so you can stitch together easily and adjust if required. Manual mode with all exposures exactly the same, use a tripod so you are taking images at even level.

If you find you need to approach like cameraman above I would be inclined to take an image of the centre shop front, then pointing in either direction rather than just pointing in both directions with 2 shots.

magicbastarder

Deleted User wrote: »

I reckon he'll be fine. Most programs jus tlook for the similarities in each photo

the problem is that the similarities break down. for example, if there's a laneway in frame 1, on the right hand side, the right hand wall will be visible. move right, so it's in the left hand side of the frame, and the common points between the two shots break down as the left hand side of the laneway is now in the frame. obviously, the further away the subject is, the better, but taking a street panorama will make that difficult.

5uspect

A lot of stitching algorithms are based on cross correlation of images usually with weighted control points since a full xcorr of megapixel images would be ridiculously slow and memory intensive.

The auto align layers in Photoshop has several options, such as the collage option which only translates and rotates images.
Any unused layers are set aside for manual placement.