This tutorial is recommened for Digital Cameras only. Some of the things talked about here will work only if you have a dSLR but you can also do panoramas with compact digital cameras.

Step 1: The Shooting of the photos.
For taking the actual picture you want to be using a tripod but if you try to keep very still and the camera always at the same angle and only turn around your own axis it can also turn out very good. Make sure your tripod is 100% staight. Most tripods have these water things to look at.
<start for dSLR only>
You want to have your setting on manual for this step and define the shutter speed, aperature, iso and white balance manualy in this step. you can test diffrent settings with test shots to see how it looks best and then keep it that way when you are taking the photos for the panorama. Make sure your not taking test shots pointng the camera at the sun but also not totaly away from it or the restof the panorama will become to light or dark.
<end for dSLR only>
A good idea is also to align your camera verticly so that you get much area onto the picture when you shoot it. this way you will get more height to your picture.


Step 2: The Software
I will be using a program called PTgui [link] which you can work with pretty much stand alone but we will be using 2 plugins for it. One is called Enblend which helps smoothen the transition from each section of the picture to the next one. And the other one is called Autopano which automaticly generates control points for you. You will more about control points later on in this tutorial.


You can download Autopano here: [link]
What you get there is a zip folder which you can unzip into any directory. I would suggest making a subdirectory called autopano in your PTgui folder but it dosent really matter. Then in PTgui find the options menu(Tools -> Options) and then on the right it has a tab called Plugins and there you can define the folder that you unzipped autopano into.



You can download EnBlend here: [link]
Which installs basicly the same way as Autopano. Unzip..ect.
There is also a program for blending called Smartblend but i dont know how to use it/havent used it and i know that i get good results with enblend.

Step 3: Stichting it together.
So the first thing we gotta do is choose the photos that are going to be used for the pano. If you are getting these directly from the camera with the original sames it should be no problem but if you have more than ten and named them 1, 2... 10, 11,... your probably going to get some problems with the right order of them because for the program after 1 comes 11 not 2 like it should for your pictures. It is best to keep all your files that your goingto be using in one folder so its easy to select them. Choose your pictures by pressing "1. Select Source files" and selecting them all at once with the Shift or Ctrl key. Now you are going to get this thing with lots of info of the lens and stuff. In most cases you can choose normal lens. IF you have a compact digital camera choose normal lens!

!! Now goto the Source Images tab and check if you have the right order.

What you want to do is generate control points. These are points that are the same place geographicly so that the program know how to place the pictures and how to strech them ect. You can do this by pressing the "2.Generate Control points" button which will open a new window with your panorama. Close this window and then go to Plugins -> Autopano to create more control points. You can then press the "Align Panorama" button to see if everthing was done right and also crop it a bit so you dont get the black border thing by moring the sliders around.

If no control points could be found or you think you dont have enough you can also make them manual. There will be a Control points tab in which you can select two pics and see which areas are same. Make a new control point by clicking somewhere in one picture. And then finding the same place in the other picture. Make sure you selected pictures that are actualy next to each other. Likeif you have 2 selectedin the left window. you should have 3 or 1 selected in the right one.

Now you can optimize it in the panorama window(Project asistant tab-> align panoroma.) And your pretty much done. Just goto the create Panorama tab and choose the options that you want and your pretty much done.

Thats it from me. Hope this helped you and please feel free to ask any questions or ask for a diffrent photography tutorial.

 

 

 

Reply

Hi. I do this for a long time, just like you (I think) and I loved your tutorial. It's very complete and it teaches how to do panoramas in a simple way. Congratulations. I just wanted to say that I'll add another part of it. There are programs that transform your panoramas into VR (virtual reality). There are several formats, like Java, Flash and QTVR (Quick Time Virtual Reality). The last one is the most used. I'll do a tutorial teaching this (with your permission of course). Again, great tutorial!

Reply

Another cool tutorial. I was thinking about how people manage to have these panorama photographs on websites quite recently, but couldn't quite work it out. (I guessed that they must have just taken many photographs and connected them together).

Now I've read this tutorial, I can see that I was fairly close, but I can see that I didn't think of the clever software required.

Thanks for the tutorial, will certainly help if I ever need to use panorama photographs or if I ever need to know about them :-)

Reply

Oh yeah sure. You dont have to ask for my permission. Ive been doing some of those latly too. The shereical ones are the most intresting ones i think. But also that hardest what it comes to shooting them because you have to always be aroud the nodal point.
Anyways its cool. I'll be expecting yout tutorial.

 

 

 

Reply

sweet i wanted to do this for a long time. there arent many places out there that have information about panoramas. I actually want to make just a large picture by stitching, but my friends want me to make pano's as well. It's fun, as I'm just getting into photography

Reply

Awww thanks for this dude... I was looking for a way to do panorama photos as I just got a newer decent dslr . Im chuffed to bits with it. I was looking to expand with a fisheye lens but hey!!! thisll do the trick just nicely for me right now

mmmm... cookies - now I can have 360 degree piqqies of them :P

Reply

Jimmy:
With a fisheye lense the process is actualy prettymuch the same Except since you have a bigger field of view you dont need as many photos. with an 8 mm lens and a full frame camera you can technicly do a 360x360degree panorama with only 3 shots. but of course in real life its a lot harder. i recently made one with 6 shots which works nicely an isnt so ticky to do.

with an 8 mm lens it also eiser to shoot without a tripod

Reply

Many newer P+Ses will have "Panorama assist" or "Stich Assit" that does this for you, but since I am saving up for a Nikon D50, this is useful! Thanks alot!

Reply

I stitch my photographs using Adobe Photoshop CS2, it is very easy and i am so used to using it that I could create those panoramic pictures with ease.

Reply

Yes there is also a so called PhotoStich(or something) in Adobe's Photoshop CS2 but it is not a very good program. Ofcourse if you are good in photoshop you can smoothen and blend the tansitions yourself but its a lot of work. I think you will notice that when you stich with photoshop ofter you can see where one photo starts and where the next ends. With the enblend addon for ptgui this is a problem of the past.

Reply