Stacking panoramas is painstaking and deliberate, so not all of us
enjoy this technique. Many don’t like the patience of macro or
close-up shooting. Still fewer enjoy the repetitive nature of focus
stacking. And still fewer yet will want to create stacked macro
partial- panoramas. There are times I don’t have the patience for
this either.
The above photo of a patch of Poison Ivey gives you an idea of the
scope and detail available to us with this technique. Being able to
detail a subject and at the same time embrace it with enough space
to make it pop out is interesting to me. I know how to do a close-up
or macro shot in great detail. This is not that, but rather that plus
the context in which that detail resides. This is a technique for what
I call mini- landscapes, the landscape of small worlds.
The enclosed shot is a single row panorama of several frames
created with the Nikon D3s in portrait or vertical position with the
CV-125mm lens. Multi- tiered shots (not this one) are more difficult
and require more sophisticated equipment. Modern stitching
software like PTgui is very flexible and as long as you overlap your
frames by about 20%, you can pretty much get away without even
a panoramic head. Photoshop also does a good job of blending
frames. Taking photos couldn’t be easier. Of course I suggest a
solid tripod and an actual panoramic head and lots of practice.
Just start from the left, take a photo, pan the camera to the right
being sure to overlap the preceding photo by about 20% and so on.
Of course, before you start shooting check your exposure and also
pre-pan the camera to make sure that as you pan you will get into
the frame whatever you need AND that the light levels don’t change
in the pan.
An Approach to Macro Landscapes
“Macro Landscapes,” almost an oxymoron at least in principle but I
imagine you know what I mean by the term. I have been mostly a
close-up and macro photographer for many years. In recent years I
have been learning about focus stacking and always looking for
that holy grail of... hmmm... well sharpness, and that search turned
into examining color and APO, and now another twist yet which I
will relate here.
Whatever I have been looking for I know it involves seeing things
real close up and also the quest to find the really good lenses in