Panoramic photography skills

When shooting natural scenery or urban buildings, wide-angle lenses or ultra-wide-angle lenses are often used to capture as wide a picture as possible. However, the wide-angle lens will inevitably have obvious barrel deformation, which is not consistent with what you see in front of you. How else can we make a big scene? Then try panoramic photography. Let's share some good panoramic works and talk about some tips in panoramic photography.

Now more and more camera products have their own panoramic mode. As long as the user moves horizontally according to the direction of the scene, the operation can be completed. The wide panoramic scenery is like a scroll painting.

The horizon of new york. Photography: E Palen, image source: light tracking

However, if the camera doesn't have a panoramic shooting mode, isn't it impossible to shoot such an effect? Not necessarily! Panoramic effect can be achieved through segmented shooting and post-stitching, and the length is relatively unlimited.

Ferrandia, Colombia. Photography: Pedro Szekely, image source: ray tracing.

Panorama of football field. Photography: Tom Childers, image source: ray tracing shooting skills

Amboise Castle. Photography: @ lain G, le retour! , image source: light stalking

Tripod shooting: Panoramic images, as far as banners are concerned, the most important thing is horizontal straight lines. The horizontal line can be said to be an important spiritual symbol of the panorama, and it must not be skewed. According to such shooting requirements, it is of course necessary to shoot with a tripod to ensure that the camera can shoot a successful work of the same level.

According to the width of the picture you want to capture, it is automatically divided into n segments for shooting. If possible, it is best to use a three-way pan/tilt to facilitate the horizontal or vertical displacement of the camera and get a straight scene boundary. More professional can use panoramic pan/tilt, which can better avoid the parallax problem.

Three-way pan/tilt can ensure that the camera moves horizontally on the horizontal plane.

Segmentation by linear composition: In order to minimize the distortion of corner images, it is recommended to shoot by linear composition.

Shooting with general standard focal length: When shooting at wide angle, it is inevitable that the picture barrel will be distorted, so it is safer to control the shooting focal length within the standard focal length range of 35-70 mm.

Using linear composition, segmented shooting and standard focal length shooting can better avoid the distortion of the picture. Image source: light tracking

AF before MF: When shooting the first picture, you can use autofocus to focus, and then switch to manual focusing mode to prevent the autofocus system from changing the focus when shooting the next few pictures.

Pay attention to exposure: If manual exposure is available, there will be great exposure changes during panoramic shooting. It is still recommended to shoot a "standard value" as a benchmark to obtain correct exposure.

Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. Photography: Li Siming, image source: Guangqian.

Manual white balance setting: If the automatic white balance setting is used, the white balance may be automatically changed due to scene changes, resulting in different color temperatures of the picture. It is recommended to use manual white balance.

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Photography: Kerem Tapani Gültekin, image source: light tracking

Small aperture shooting: It is easy to shoot a shallow depth of field with a large aperture, but when shooting a large scene, it is generally not necessary to create an atmosphere of shallow depth of field, but to hope that the deep depth of field can show the transparency of the scene, so small aperture shooting is often used to ensure that the near and far scenes are clearly and sharply presented.

Cape Town Stadium, South Africa. Photography: Warren Rona, image source: ray tracing

Grasp the time and finish shooting quickly: sometimes the light and shadow change quickly, and often the light and shadow in the scene changes after a few seconds of inattention or delay, and the shooting effect is different before and after the change. So it is better to finish the planned shooting as soon as possible.

Panorama of magic kingdom. Photography: Rhys A, image source: light tracking

Remember to leave a "stitching place": when shooting pictures in sections, 20-30% of the "overlapping" parts should be left between the pictures to facilitate later stitching.

Post-puzzle: Now there are many post-software that have the function of connecting pictures, such as Canon's original software Photo Stitch, or Auto Stitch and Photoshop.

Our room. Photography: Didier Gannot, image source: ray tracing.

Other tips: In order to pursue a better imaging level, you can also use a remote shutter or mirror lock to further reduce the possible vibration caused by shutter release. In addition, friends with shifting lenses can also try to shoot panoramic works with it, even if there is no convenient pan/tilt.