# Landscape Panorama Techniques



## bgran8 (Oct 25, 2013)

A couple questions/comments:

1) Besides situations where there is something very close in the foreground, do you think a panoramic tripod head is necessary? I actually have one, but I have found that I am generally fine stitching my shots taken on a tripod in CS5. Typically everything matches up well. What am I missing?

2) I generally bracket my landscape shots so I can paint in underexposed or overexposed areas, but this becomes a problem when stitching together three different exposures of a panorama--they all seem to be stitched slightly differently in CS5. Any way around this?

Thanks.


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## Don Haines (Oct 25, 2013)

I have been using AutoPano Giga for stitching panoramas... it is far superior to photoshop.

With a bit of practise you can hand-hold panoramas... I find I only need a tripod when shooting big panos with multiple rows. My tripod head is marked in degrees rotation so I can easily move it a set amount per picture without an indexing plate.


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## bgran8 (Oct 26, 2013)

Don,

Thanks for the tips! Does anyone have suggestions on my 2nd question/comment?


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## CarlTN (Oct 26, 2013)

bgran8 said:


> Don,
> 
> Thanks for the tips! Does anyone have suggestions on my 2nd question/comment?



I think Don may have meant that the software he suggested would fix that. This is an interesting thread, btw. I need to get into pano's, myself.


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## candc (Oct 26, 2013)

I use a panosaurus head and ptgui for 360 panos which is very good at eliminating parralax and blending. If you are going to handhold try and rotate the camera around the entrance pupil (front of lens) don't swing it in front of you. Shoot manual or hold the exposure lock button to stop the camera from adjusting.


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## Don Haines (Oct 26, 2013)

CarlTN said:


> bgran8 said:
> 
> 
> > Don,
> ...


Autopano Giga is great for merging pictures of different exposures.... I will go shoot a pano tomorrow to illustrate the point.

If your Pano is of close up items, you want to be rotating the camera around the focus point. try moving the camera back and forth to get to this spot. If you have it right you will not see parallax shifting as you rotate the camera..... I'll shoot a few images tomorrow to illustrate this as well.


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## bgran8 (Oct 27, 2013)

Thanks everyone. I will check out auto pano giga. Don, it would be interesting to see the panorama example.


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