Some days it is good to just have a fun shooting day. Yesterday was that for me, and one thing I wanted to play with was panoramic shots. There is a bit of a learning curve, but also lots of resources to make decent shots come together.
Panoramic images are a lot of fun to look at, but to do them well is often labor intensive. Of course, there are apps for phone panoramas, which is great fun. Here is my son playing in downtown Dallas, captured in the middle of an iPhone panorama shot. Click through to flickr to see the full size photo.
A few attempts with the iPhone show its limitations, but if you have a very static scene and a steady hand, it is fun.
Later in the evening I took a 4-image shot across the downtown skyline from a different spot. I had a 5D and 50mm lens with me, so the detail is good, but not great. Again, click through to flickr to see it up close. The vertical line about 1/3 in from the right is not a merging artifact, it is a light pole on the bridge where I was shooting.
This was automatically merged together quickly with Photoshop's automated photomerge option. If it were a daytime shot, the problems would be easier to spot. And there are always problems to correct.
Finally... to see how it is really done, read through this post about creating a gigapixel pano of San Francisco with amazing detail. It also highlights some good info on the how-to side of things.
Have a great Friday!
20 hours ago