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26.01.09

Spherical and vertical panoramas

The traditional panorama, if there is such a thing, is a long thin image taking in a wide horizontal view. It’s usually taken with a specialist panoramic camera, or by stitching together any number of separate images or cropping into a 35mm film image.

Nowadays anything is possible. You’re only limited by your imagination and the willingness to experiment with your kit and software. Here are a few ideas to take your panoramas to new realms.

Round and round the hire centre

As you might expect, producing pictures of this type is much more involved than the usual single-row image. Not all subjects are suitable either. For example, shooting outdoors when clouds are scudding across the sky will make stitching difficult. Interior scenes can work well. Obviously if people are in shot, you must ensure that they stay still and not have them moving around when you’re shooting.

For this sort of panorama, you really need a panoramic head – the Panosaurus, Nodal Ninja or the Manfrotto 303 – so that you can determine the lens nodal point, or its centre. Such heads also ensure that you take pictures at set intervals or angles.

JPEGs are fine for panoramas because of the size they are used within the bigger image. However, Raw files provide a security blanket so if images need modifying and tweaking, the file is available and it’s easily done in Raw software.

Moving on up

A typical stitched panorama is horizontal but with suitable subjects, shooting a vertical set of images is worth trying. Normally you might shoot a few frames to include the top of the subject, say a tall building, but try shooting all the way above and directly behind you.

You need to think hard about the subject because not every scene will work. Outdoor scenes that involve tall subjects – buildings, trees – should work fine as will impressive interiors.

Exposure can be a challenge and much depends on the subject. A dark foreground and bright sky is a typical problem; you might be better off shooting in manual so you have control. If the contrast range is lower, like in this artificially lit interior, you’ll be fine with autoexposure and multi-segment metering.

The camera should be set up on a tripod and a digital spirit level (such as the Seculine Digital Action Level). This will ensure the camera is level. If you don’t have a spirit level handy, use the viewfinder edge or rectangular focusing windows to help.

The first shot of the scene is in front with the camera level, then the lens can be angled up a little and another shot taken and repeated again. At roughly the fourth shot, take it with the lens aimed up directly above. Then rotate the camera 180° and repeat the sequence to give the required number of shots.

When you prepare the pictures for the panoramic software to do its thing, just rotate the second set of shots 180° so it looks as if you have shot one complete arc of images.

With a ball & socket head mounted on a lateral centre column, you’ll be able to shoot the whole set in one sweep, ending with the camera upside down and aimed directly behind you.

Film frenzy

Using a camera such as a Holga 120 film camera, which has a manual knob film advance, means you can take a picture, wind the film on partway instead of the full frame and make another exposure. Repeat the process a few times, moving the camera a little between each shot so you get a long strip of overlapping images and, hopefully, a rather wacky panorama. But don’t expect instant success. You’ll need to experiment to determine how much the film should be wound on between exposures and which subjects work best.

Try it, though, because it’s fun. And the unpredictable randomness of the process means there’s a great feeling of achievement when a panorama works.

Remember that when you send the film for processing to stress that you want the film returned uncut. If you don’t do this, your film might be cut up inaccurately as far as your panoramas are concerned.

Scan in the panorama using a flatbed scanner. Even a modest one will be fine because you’re using medium-format film and and you don’t need a large file. Besides, with Holga images getting ultimate quality is not an issue. After scanning, clone and enhance as normal before printing out.

For more technical information see:

gregwired.com/pano/Pano.htm
nodalninja.com
manfrotto.com
red-door.co.uk

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