I'm new to the forum and wondering if anyone has tried stitching multiple images together. I'm about to try this with the canon 35 F1.4 in portrait mode using 4 to 5 images stitched. I'm trying to get away from using my 4x5 and 90mm lens. I really enjoy this view, but it takes forever to get film developed and scanned now, all clients want digital quick turn around. For what its worth I have orderd the hardware from RRS.
Any advice would be appreciated.

I assume you know how to find the entrance pupil on the lens. Without that set up correctly, even if you have the pano rails etc. parallax will kill you in interior shots.

If you really want to wow your clients, there are a couple of packages that let you merge shots take with different focus points so you can get infinite dof, and still shoot at an f stop that minimizes diffraction (and still maximizes dof). The one I use is combine z http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZ5/combinez5.htm cz is free. an alternative is helicon focus http://heliconfilter.com/pages/focus_overview.html

Thanks for your reply Tim. I received my 35 F1.4 lens and pano rail today from RRs. time to play. i downloaded an article on how to locate the entrance pupil for the given lens. i know that using this method for interiors will be difficult with so many objects so near the lens.

It's certainly easier with a prime. I have a rail from Kirk, that doesn't have a ruler and it's a bit of a pain to callibrate against a zoom - I use mostly the 24-70. It's amazing how will it can come together with close foreground and having no parallax show up.

Post some of your exiprements!

I have the 24-70L also, but thought the prime might perform better plus it will be great for my wedding and editorial shoots. Yes the RRS rail is very impressive in detail!

Not sure how it is in the Canon world, but the Nikon primes that open very wide typically have an image quality stopped down that is lower than their cheaper counterpart.

Is the 35 f1.4 the best option for optimal results at f13?

Cheers,
Bernard

In addition to the RRS hardware (which is just tops) you need to condsider the "software".

Suggest you have a look at PTAssembler, written by Max Lyons. It's a graphic front end to the primordial mathematics. www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm It's very inexpensive, has a steep learning curve, is very well supported by Max, and if used in a craftsman manner yields fabulous results.

Mike Coffey

Prescott, AZ

Along the same lines, the long time PC reference PTgui, now has a universal binary Mac OS 10.3/10.4 version since V6, released a few weeks ago.

Cheers,
Bernard

Thanks Bernard, I'm on a mac and need a good software. I'll only be stitching 4 to 5 images at a time a could most likely do it by hand in CS2.

Give PTMac a try. (based on pano tools)
There is a fully working 15 days trial on the download.

I don't do that much panowork...but when I do, I use this app which I find wery good.
There's a quite good suppory forum aswell.

Patrick.

Thanks Patrick I will surely give PTMac a try.