With my current kit, a Fuji 680III & a P45, I don't have quite as much wide angle, even with the 50mm as I'd sometimes like. I've been experimenting with manual stitiching of horizontally shifted shots in portrait orientation (typically 3) in PS, changing the blending mode to Difference and using the arrow keys to dial in registration, and then using the Eraser tool, at various opacities to clean up the seams. It's working adequately- not more. The weakness seems to be correct registration of the seams up and down the full length of the seam- if I get an element in the middle of a seam perfectly registered, elements at the top and bottom of that seam are slightly out of reg. The Erase tool can pretty much deal with this in most of my stuff- architectural interiors- which is to say that I've not had complaints- I've not yet been "caught." I am wondering whether or not significantly better results could be had with a true pano set up, dealing with the nodal point of lens properly. I'm told that rigging the Fuji for pano can be a pain- my fall back would be to mount the P45 on my Contax 645, with the 45mm. I'd appreciate any thoughts.
Regards,
Jed Wormhoudt

I do my panos without a pano head, but they are all landscapes/cityscapes, ie. I don't have to worry about parallax error as I avoid foreground objects.

Parallax error is a real issue especially with interiors, so a good panohead is definitely a worthy investment. For your rig you'll have to get a pretty expensive one (Manfrotto makes one which has good reviews) which works with such heavy equipment, but it appears money is not an issue for you.

But before going that road, I'd recommend trying a real pano software. There are packages out there that do panos automagically - and I mean the magical part. I've used Autopano to make a 330 megapixel pano (56 D30 exposures) and my "work" required was dragging all the files to the program window and deciding on projection, pano size and bit depth - and waiting a few hours. I was flabbergasted at how easy it is to use and how good the results are. The pano is amazing and there're very few registration errors (nothing worth mentioning). There are other programs which are just as good or better. I believe there's a free trial for Autopano.

These programs might be just enough so you don't have to invest in a pano head and lug the beast around. Even with a pano head, an automated program will make your life much easier as it frees you to spend your time on non-routine tasks. Especially for architectural work where you need verticals parallel pano software creates much better (correct) results compared to manual stitching.

With this back you could get somthing like an alpa or horseman SWD2 and use a wider lense - v expensive

Or for stitching the best is to keep the lense absolutely still

This can be acheived by using a view camera with a sliding back (or moving the rear standard)

Or by using a rise fall liense and doing an 'up shot' and a 'down shot' and moving the camera (on a RRS thingy) so that the lense didnt move - if you see what I mean

The best stitchers will come from a large image circle lense with the back moved across it

Probably the cheapest would be a sinar F or a cambo with a 68 shcneider lense

You can just about get a sinar to work with a 47 lense

Wider than 47 and you are losing image circle and the camera will become expensive

I would experiment with a Ebay $300 54 camera a 68 lense $150

SMM

Are you shifting the back or the lens? If you shift the back and keep the lens stationary, you should be able to generate near perfect stitches. If you are shifting the lens, you are inducing parallax error and the stitches will be far more obvious.

Next, try using a mask between the two layer and blend using a soft brush -- this allows a bit more control than the eraser tool and is non-destructive to the image layer.

Lastly, make sure your exposure and WB remain equal for all exposures.

Cheers,

Thanks to all for your thoughtful replies to my inquiry. Yes, I have just been shifting the lens, and indeed parallax is an issue. Using a mask between the layers sounds a very good idea. Shifting the back (not possible with my existing kit) clearly is going to render better results than shifting the lens itself. What is still uncertain for me is whether or not a good pano rig (using the Contax 645/45mm/P45), pivoting on the nodal point of the lens, would produce as good a set of files for stitching as a sliding back set up.
Thanks,
Jed Wormhoudt

Actually it is possible, you just need to think outside the box If you use an Arca-style base rail you can counter-shift the camera by the same amount you shift your lens. In this fashion, the lens remains stationary from a relative point while the back moves.

More details on this procedure here -- I wrote and illustrated the article using my Canon body and Canon shift lens, but the technique will work for any camera: http://www.getdpi.com/stitch.html

Cheers,

The poster could save hundreds or thousands of dollars in shift lenses by buying a stitching program - some of them are even free. Results are significantly better than most (all?) manual stitching techniques can produce, and certainly less time-consuming.

Generally speaking yes, that is correct. Now, I would personnally be concerned by the weight of the OP's kit when used with a spherical panorama kit. I am happy about my RRS stuff, but I don't think that it would be able to handle readily the Fuji + lens + P45.

Regards,
Bernard

Maybe on a pano stitch or when the frames are *NOT* properly captured in a flat stich... However, when the stitch frames are properly captured, lining them up is a breeze. Perhaps the dedicated programs are less time consuming, but on a properly captured flat stitch, it only takes me a few minutes to line-up my three frames of stitch and then another few minutes to execute the two blend masks. The stitches I get using this method are so perfect that I can't find the seams at actual pixel view when I'm done.

Cheers,

Has anyone mentioned a sliding back for the GX680 itself? Shifting the back is possible with your kit, just using the Kapture group adapter. I have used one that slides in one orientation and has pins which click into place to lock the sliding mechanism at either end of travel. You can do either a vertical stitch or horizontal. Most Phase backs can also be mounted onto their adapters turned sideways as well. I have shot stitches with this setup, and it works very well. Layer the two images together in photoshop and make a black&white mask with the gradation tool.

LCC will cause a little trouble possibly. A blue sky might be 1 or 2 points off from one side of the stitch to the other after correcting for LCC. When this happens you can try making a much longer mask gradation in the sky across that transition line.

Here is the sliding adapter....

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Eric,
Immediately after reading your post I called Keith Hughes at Kapture Group- I am acquainted with KG as they supplied my existing non-sliding adaptor plate and control. Keith confirmed the ready availability of the sliding back for the Fuji- but it works only with Hasselblad V mount Phase backs. My back is configured for Contax 645. After chatting a bit Keith came up with a series of mods to the V mount sliding adaptor that he thinks might work- no guarantee, and the cost ends up being non-trivial.
Yesterday afternoon, just before reading Jack Flesher's suggestion re sliding the body/back counter to the lens shift, essentially leaving the lens position fixed, I spent some time playing with a macro rail- sort of works. My rail is too light and not finely enough geared. But I think Jack has the principles in hand.
I continue to wonder about the relative merits of a "flat stitch"- by sliding back or Jack's rail idea, versus, a pano or "spherical stitch."
Thanks to all of you who have responded so thoughtfully.
Jed Wormhoudt

Jed: Both are viable options. However I think the most significant difference between them is that the spherical stitch, like any swing-lens camera, induces curvature in horizontal lines. This is not always a bad thing, just something you need to realize and adjust your compositions to benefit from... By contrast, in the shift-stitch is rectilinear; straight lines remain straight.

The next issue is in the stitching of the panned captures; any lens distortions like barrel or pincushion need to corrected before the stitch or vertical edges won't line up properly at the stitch seams since they will be bowed in opposite directions. Since flat stitches merge across the total effective image circle of the lens, the lines mate perfectly.

Jack,
I am inclined to try to sort out a version of your solution. The Kirk rail that serves for your Canon might be a bit light for my behemoth Fuji, so I've ordered a Bogen/Manfrotto 3419 Micro Positioning Plate that is rated to 8 kg. I assume that connecting the rail so that the travel bed is exactly parallel to the film/sensor plane is absolutely positively essential- any error, a few hundreths, if not thousandths, will show at stitch time. Or is there a little latitude? As a check, I was imagining using a couple of registration rods, verticals lined up, one before the other, with everything centered, and confirming that with shift/counter shift, both left and right, that the forward vertical registration rod continued to hide the rear one.
Regards,
Jed Wormhoudt

I'm doing more or less the same thing as Jack, and by doing a flat stich I will almost always get a more or less perfect match of the frames, and when I'm finished I can't tell where the stich is done even at 400% when I know where the sticht is done. You can se som examples here.

Jack,

This is not always true, at least PTgui offers the possibility to correct for this for lenses that are not too wide.

On my D2x, I get perfectly linear results when using a 35 mm for instance.

As far as distorsion goes, DxO does a perfect job at correcting the distorsion of the lens for bodies/lens combos that are supported. Lower spec modules should be able to pretty much correct distorsion for non supported combos.

Finally, DX based bodies are overall better for spherical stitching since the image they deliver is more uniform.

Regards,
Bernard

If there were a Hasselblad tofuji adapter, the 30mm fisheye has wonderful capability. With Image align you can get a 90 plus degree pano, rectilinear (depends how high youcrop.

I find this quite useful compared to stitching shift OR pa.n

Hi Jed:

I don't think even 1/8th" is going to make a lot of difference in the quality of the stitch if the image focus point is beyond 10 feet. Obviously the closer you are to your subject, the more critical drfit becomes. Also, you want to set your camera's film plane as close to parallel with your image plane as is possible to begin with and this is not an easy task. I only ever eye-ball it and know I'm not perfect, but the stitches still line up very well, so a few hundreths drift in the slide assembly is not going to be critical.

The more cirtical issue is probably to make sure the camera does not torque off horizontal too far, otherwise you'll have to rotate one capture slightly to mate with the other and this can be more time consuming.

Cheers,

Whilst travelling with a lightweight, ball-head tripod, as I am currently, I have an L-bracket attached to both cameras, the 5D and 20D, and a clamp attached to the ball-head. This allows for better stability when orientating the camera in a vertical position as well as allowing the camera back to be moved in an opposite direction to a lens shift with the TS-E 24mm, which I'm also carrying.

However, taking multiple shots for stitching purposes sometimes needs to be done rapidly when the scene is changing for whatever reason. At Angkor Wat, for example, during the extra time it takes to shift the camera body and re-tighten the clamp, a group of tourists is quite likely to wander into the scene, or, when the sun appears briefly from behind the clouds, it can begin disappear again before the shooting is complete. In such circumstances, speed is of the essence, so I found myself abandoning this approach of shifting the camera back.

However, as I have a professonal stitchng program, Image Assembler, which can use up to 7 pairs of flags at each join, I have no problem getting a seamless stitch whether I shift the camera body or not, or whether there are objects in the foreground or not. However, if I'm not usng a shift lens, objects in the near foreground can be a problem.