Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Gigapans

I just bought me a Gigapan Epic Pro and created a first stitch of a Panorama as seen from my bedroom window with 21 pics (3 rows x 7 columns). Used the 100mm Canon macro lens, a 5D Mark II body, and I post processed the images in Lightroom first. I then stitched them inside the Gigapan Stitching app and uploaded the result to their hosted galleries. It's not much of a Pan, other than the workflow worked just fine first time, and the output seems technically correct (that is, no vignette effects and no stitching artefacts). It was only a 100mm tele and a bare 21 pictures (child-play), so you wouldn't expect to find bees and butterflies on flowers and leaves from a 200m distance, would you? I'm still learning, you see... Next project, using my 70-200mm 2.8 zoom with a 2x extender (if my math is right, that would yield 400mm focal equivalent) and a few hundred high res raw frames for stitching. I am quite curious about the result... Only problem, I have no idea what to shoot!! Forrests and trees? My next door neighbour's house and garden? Climb the MAS and shoot the Metropole? The Atomium? The hills of the Flemish Ardennes? The Belfort in Ghent? The botanic gardens in Meise? Brugge die schone? Het Zwin? If you got any suggestions, you are welcome...


Update: Here's a brand new from this morning (4/6/14). Done with 120 frames in 15 columns and 8 rows. Not too bad but some problems with autofocusing. Some stitching artefacts here and there too. For instance, a ghost car at the far end of Aalststraat as it happened to pass by in the wrong moment. Can you spot a flying black bird somewhere? This time I used the 400mm focal. The shots were too overexposed, and the atmosphere was rainy. Overexposure was justified by the necessary dynamic range to capture detail in the shadow parts of the surrounding trees of the Liefmans Brewery.

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