essential skills: digital photography in available light
Shooting panoramas
Making wide vista pictures is a photographic activity where careful camera ‘set up’ and watchful
sequence shooting will defi nitely pay big dividends when it comes time to stitch your source
images together. Being attentive to the issues that follow will ensure that the series of photos that
you capture will be easily blended back at the desktop. A few extra minutes taken in the setting
up and shooting phases will save a lot of time later sitting in front of the computer screen fi xing
problems.- Positioning the camera
Photographers have long prided themselves in their ability to compose the various elements of
a scene so that the resultant picture is dynamic, dramatic and balanced. These aims are no less
important when creating panoramic images, but the fact that these pictures are constructed of
several separate photographs means that a little more thought needs to be given to the positioning
of the camera in the scene. For the best results the photographer needs to try and pre-visualize
how the fi nal picture will appear once the single images are combined and then select the camera’s
position.
One common mistake is to move to the centre of the environment, set up the equipment and create
a sequence of images with most of the subject detail in the mid or background of the picture. This
type of panorama provides a good overview of the whole scene but will have little of the drama
and compositional sophistication that a traditional picture with good interaction of foreground, mid
ground and background details contains.
When deciding on where to position your camera sweep the area whilst looking through the
viewfi nder. Ensure that the arc of proposed images contains objects that are close to the camera,
contrasted against those subjects that are further into the frame.
Pro tip > Extend this compositional idea further by intentionally positioning the nearest and
most dramatic objects in the scene one third (or two thirds) of the way into the sequence of
images. This will provide balance to the photograph by positioning this point of focus according
to the ‘rule of thirds’ in the fi nal panorama.Core steps in creating panoramas
Creating a panorama by stitching together a series of overlapping images is a two part process of
Shooting and Producing.
If your aim is to create high quality wide vista photographs then both phases are just as important
as each other. New panorama photographers tend to spend too little time and care in the shooting
phase assuming that any problems with capture will be easily overcome with the aid of feature
packed software in the production phase. It is true that the software has become increasingly
easier to use and more robust as this area of photography has matured but there is still no better
way to guarantee seamless blends between stitched panorama parts than by ensuring that they
are well captured in the fi rst place. For this reason the majority of this section is dedicated to
the steps that you need to take to capture your source photos with the later portion providing a
summary of the production phase.