Here's some panoramas made using Autopano Pro, easily the best panorama maker I've found.
I fed it the 47meg TIFF's, and it produced 130meg PSD files for photoshop perfectly blended, all that was needed was to crop the edges.
Some of the shots are horizontal panoramas, but some were taken as 3 horizontal shots but with the camera in portrait orientation. It means the shots themselves are fairly similar to the single shots of the same area, but with much more resolution, so if I choose to print any out, they can be printed much larger.
These attached versions are obviously still reduced to 800px wide.. I can upload a larger version if required.
One thing that often beats most pano software is beach panos - clear sky so no alignment points available there, and the available alignment points on the ocean (i.e. waves) move between shots.
AutoPano Pro: http://www.autopano.net/
It uses the autostitch (SIFT) technology. It wasn't exactly cheap (99 euros), but the ability to be able to do the hi-res TIFs (and produce PSD file output) was the clincher for me. It can even work off the RAW's.
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One thing that often beats most pano software is beach panos
Exactly! You can see from these shots, especially #1, how it seamlessly blended the beach/waves together.
Yes I agree, they're beautiful shots Mike and your use of the pier leads the eye well into the frame.
You've done a terrific job stitching them together like Al said.
Well worth the cost of Autopano Pro.
Very nice Mike, one thing that's noticeable is the curvature in the jetty, was that there in the original image or is it a result of the combination process??
There was some curvature in the originals, due to the barrel distortion in the 18-55 stock lens. However more was introduced during the panorama making because the tripod wasn't level. It's especially noticable in the third image.
That gives me ideas of a 3x3 mosaic of the LMC at the same or better quality than the latest image. I think you would have to process with IP and Registar and then use Autopano Pro to stich the nine images together and then adjust levels and curves in PS so all colours match. mmmm....500MB+ TIFF!
Mike, if you're really interested there is quite a bit of info out there on panoramic adapters and heads for taking panoramic shots. To get accurate panoramas the Camera needs to rotate around the optical axis of the lens which is some distance forward of the tripod thread of the camera. There is a commercially available adapter called the Panosaurus from the US which is relatively inexpensive. There are also some nice links on the Panasaurus website that may be of interest. Whether the end results are that much better I can't really say because I haven't tested one.
Very nice images Mike. Have they re opened that warf yet? (good fishing spot)
I down loaded the trial version of Autopano pro and was surprised at the lack of performance!! (no sour grapes here mate )
I found that I had to manually remove all unwanted images from the group in order that it did not stich everything in sight. The blurb on their web sight led me to believe this was automatic.
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Create panoramas with only one button. You don't need to select pictures anymore, you don't need to take care about horizontal or vertical lines. Autopano finds and assembles panoramas alone.
It presents as the proverbial Paladin of Panorama S/W.......'have needle will stitch'! I selected the 4 images for a pano taken from the steamer Earnst in NZ and found a snap of the funnel stuck in there. An earlier trial in another folder just picked a few random images and rotated then, skewed them till they sort of fitted .
To add insult to injury, I found that comparing the final autopano pro image to the one produced by Autostich demonstrated a rotation of the left most frame between the two. Interesting result sinse they are both using the same routines, but which one is correct?
Of course there is the ability to handle TIF and CR formats in its favour, I just thought my experience with it is interesting at 99euros
cheers,
Doug
There is an inexpensive alternate tool called Panorama Tools Assembler which can have additional addins and will assemble images in a matrix, not just in a straight line. Some examples, (including a gigapixel stitched image) of what it can do, are shown on this site.
interesting experience, Doug. I only had 1 image where it didn't produce a good output on the default values, but I increased the number of points and it was perfect the second time around.
Thanks for the link Phil, I'll check it out.
Mike, I'm more amused that miffed with it. I have to admit that I too can get good results as have you. It was just the experience of the following images that got to me somewhat. You can see the watermark in the pano because this is just the demo version.
I have tried PIXTRA PANOSTICHER, but it is a fizzer when it comes to blending.
Cheers,
Doug
Panoramas from Coffs Harbour sunrise
perfectly blended, all that was needed was to crop the edges.
(no sour grapes here mate
