Green River pano

[bjnicholls]

http://users.sisna.com/bjnicholls/greenriverpano.jpg

Assembled from 8 tiled images from the S2. The Green River at sunrise at Mineral Bottom, near Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Here's a link to other images from the trip if you're interested:

http://users.sisna.com/bjnicholls/labyrinththumbs.htm

[pappapratt]

bj,

Great image! Do you use a panorama head on the tripod for precise positioning? If so, which one? I am looking at buying the Novoflex, any recommendations?

Also, please excuse my ignorance, would you mind explaining the tiling process?

Again, fantasic image!

Michael

[bjnicholls]

My Markins ballhead has a panning base so I just had to level the tripod and then level the camera. I shot the series with plenty of overlap (30-50% of the image area) between tiles. I didn't use fixed intervals, I just made sure that key points in the viewfinder were visible in overlapping frames.

I do have a center column with a leveling base that I used on this shot. It's faster than fiddling with leg lengths to get the tripod level. Manfrotto/Bogen has a relatively new series of tripods with this feature and you can get the center columns separately for three standard tripod models via B&H. My column is the model 554.

I use PT Assembler with the shareware Panorama Tools to stitch images. PT Assembler is more complex to use than some of the popular stitching programs or the Adobe Elements wizard, but it's more powerful. Most important, it generates a layered Photoshop file so you can manually edit the transitions for a seamless image that doesn't have the vertical gradients that often come with an automated stitch.

To my knowledge, the Novoflex platform doesn't have indexed detents, it's just a panning base with degree marks and a bubble level. If you want to do panning with detents that fix the pan intervals, look at these products:

http://www.stereoscopy.com/jasper/panorama.html

http://www.kaidan.com/Detail.bok?no=52

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/product/146228/BO3414/REG/2610