Vertical Panorama? using Photo

[Gradient_Phil]

Greetings,

Using Affinity Photo...

I tried a vertical panorama (the camera is turned sideways so the long length of the image is vertical) using a group of 11 images. It took a long time to process them, but once it was done, the resulting panorama was squashed - as though the software only recognizes the images as 16x9 normal (horizontal).

Can I use vertical images for panoramas?

PS I've done a search of the site and read many posts, but I could 't find an answer to this

Thanks

 

[Old Bruce]

Is the panorama of a tall tree or building (vertical) as opposed to 202 people side by side (horizontal)? In other words taller than wide.

It should work. What are the approximate dimensions, in Units eg 3 units tall by 1 unit wide. Try a smaller one with only 3 of the pictures.

[Gradient_Phil]

Hey Bruce, Thanks for the comment.

It's an image inside a small room - so I'm trying to get the full height of the wall (which I can't with the camera turned horz.).

I'll give it a go with a smaller number of images.

Update: Seems that less images makes a difference. I can do four, but five makes it freak! It could be that the images are confusing it, as I don't have a panorama function on my camera.

Thanks for the help. Regards

 

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Gradient_Phil said:

It could be that the images are confusing it,

Do you have enough overlap on the images? I get the best results with about a quarter of the frame overlapping into the previous and again the next. Maybe 20 pictures would have been better. Also you need some variation in each frame to frame overlap, I cannot get good results when there is too much blue sky or blank wall in my attempts.

[Gradient_Phil]

Thanks.  When I get back, I'll take a whole series of different images. There isn't any blank areas (or blue sky) to worry about. Might even dig out my old S50 - which has a panorama function.

Really appreicated.

 

[Old Bruce]

12 hours ago, Gradient_Phil said:

...Might even dig out my old S50 - which has a panorama function.

I always advise against using the various in camera functions for panoramas, I believe we can get better results using software like Photo. Of course I also tell people that the best camera for any situation is the one you have with you. So have at it and do what you have to do to get the shot you want. [thoughtful musing face emoticon]

[AlejandroJ]

I erased what written here because I posted the same twice. My intended post shows below.

[AlejandroJ]

17 hours ago, Gradient_Phil said:

Greetings,

Using Affinity Photo...

I tried a vertical panorama (the camera is turned sideways so the long length of the image is vertical) using a group of 11 images. It took a long time to process them, but once it was done, the resulting panorama was squashed - as though the software only recognizes the images as 16x9 normal (horizontal).

 

 

17 hours ago, Gradient_Phil said:

Can I use vertical images for panoramas?

PS I've done a search of the site and read many posts, but I could 't find an answer to this

Thanks

 

I have tried to see if Affinity Photo was able to assemble a horizontal Panorama. When I shoot for a horizontal panorama, I normally take vertical photos (of which I will end after the panorama is assembled, cutting off the lower and expendable part of the resulting image), with the camera / frame being vertical but respecting a horizontal plane (sorry if I can’t make myself clear as English is not my native language). I tried directly using the raw files. Seven images in total covering an angle of about 170°. The program automatically assembled the panorama and the result I obtained was fine in every respect.

Therefore, I think that the answer to one of your question would be: yes, vertical photos can be used to assemble a panorama with Affinity Photo.

I also tried to see if Affinity Photo was able to assemble a vertical Panorama. For vertical panoramas, I usually take the photos with the camera in a horizontal position. For this trial I also used and loaded to the program the original raw files and to my surprise, the program automatically assembled the panorama as being a vertical one. But the result in this case was not as satisfying. Vertical panoramas are more complicated than horizontal ones because one has to deal with the “celestial vanishing point” (sorry again, I don’t know if this is the correct term in English), as very tall objects get thinner as you look /shoot upwards. This would need a correction of the perspective afterwards if the intention is to get what ought to be verticals to be vertical, and to allow to do this you would need extra space on the sides of the image that will be lost when cutting the image to a rectangle once the perspective gets corrected (which is one of the reasons for which I think it makes sense to shoot a vertical panorama with the camera being horizontal).
The resulting image I got with Affinity Photo for this panorama was OK in almost every respect, except that It was showing an exaggerated barrel distortion, much more that the one I can get to assemble the same panorama with a program I have that is specifically dedicated to make panoramas (with which I can get an easer to correct distortion, which therefore allows a better final result, at least, regarding a / or maybe this, vertical panorama), Maybe due to a different projection used ?.

I don’t know if what I have written would be of any help. Hope so.

 

[AlejandroJ]

Considering that I directly used the original raw files of the takes for the trial I did, I forgot to say and add now that I think that the more care that is taken when shooting for a panorama, the easer the assembling / stitching of the panorama will be for the program and the better the results will be.

In my case, when doing a panorama I prefer to use a lens that delivers no optical distortion or if it being a zoom-lens, using it at a focal lenght in which it does not deliver an optical distortion. I also try to take the photos using a focal length of about and no more than 35 mm for an APS-C sensor (equivalent to 50 mm in a full frame), although very often  I have settled with a much shorter focal length with good results. I think this gives an overall more natural perspective result in relation to what the human eye is used to see and makes thing easer. Although, maybe this is just a prejudice of mine. Another thing I try to do is to rotate the camera pivoting it more or less where in the lens the light rays invert / cross, not in relation to the back of the body of the camera.

Maybe taking into account things like this might help for a better result when assembling a panorama. Or maybe others have a different experience.

[John Rostron]

13 hours ago, AlejandroJ said:

Maybe taking into account things like this might help for a better result when assembling a panorama. Or maybe others have a different experience.

I find that my experience of panoramas concur with those of @AlejandroJ. I have also found that Photo will also stitch multi-rowed panoramas (three by four) effectively, although there is some resultant barrel distortion.

John

[kirkt]

It is not entirely clear to me how AP handles some issues that all panoramic image stitching apps need to handle, if the scene demands it.  For example, when shooting a set of images that one ultimately wants to stitch into a single panoramic image, the easier case is one in which the image sequence contains a scene that is far away from the camera, like a landscape.  Even with a relatively wide field of view, the image maps to a small portion of a spherical projection and there is little parallax to deal with because all of the objects in the scene are essentially at the same depth relative to the camera (far away).  Even if you shoot this sequence hand-held and rotate (not about the no-parallax point) and translate the camera, you still get a pretty decent result.

Even in this situation, there may be an issue with the EXIF data in your source images that is causing AP not to be able to read the orientation of the image.  I wonder if this might affect the result.

Once you start introducing parallax and angles of view that take up significant portions of a spherical projection, for example in a living room of a house, all bets are off, even with good image overlap.  I use PTGui to deal with challenging panoramic sequences, and shoot with a panoramic tripod head that ensures the optical system is rotating (panning and tilting) about the no-parallax point to remove parallax from the image sequence.  This permits full spherical panoramic images to be made with little intervention from the user (automatic control point generation and alignment is successful).  If you are trying to shoot a wide scene or a tall scene that can be covered in a few images, you might also get good luck with a perspective control lens or adapter that permits shift movements of the lens.

Hugin is a free version of the same tools that PTGui uses - maybe Hugin might make working with difficult scenes easier.  

Kirk

[kirkt]

Also - when working with a large sequence of images (more than 4 or 5, for example) it is a lot easier to test the waters by working first with reduced-size JPEGs of the source images to test how the stitch will go before trying to jam all of those 16bit TIFFs down the stitcher's throat.  PTGui permits the use of templates to do just this thing.  Use smaller proxy images to set up the stitch, make a template from this set up, and then swap in the full-res 16bit TIFFs and let the template render the result from those large files without having to use the large files to solve the stitch.

Kirk