Ben Rubinstein
pro member
Hi,
I've now completely replaced my LF gear for a pano setup. I'm head over heels in love with the 6X12 format and find that I can achieve that easily with a 3 shot pano using my 5D. That gives me a native 18 megapixel file. Great. Today I tried shooting it in vertical and just shooting more frames to achieve the same ratio but with more more resolution. With a 6 shot pano I've hit 39 megapixels and the resolution is just great, more than I need technically but it's so little effort, why not?
Apart from the fact that when stitching like this you get a lot of wide angle effect due to being so much nearer to the subject (I would love to use longer lenses but DOF is a serious problem), evenso with my 50mm, the difference between the focal point used for the 'middle' frame and the subject when you are rotating to the far left and right is quite dramatic. I'm shooting at f22 anyway but diffraction is rather obvious this stopped down and to be honest with that big a shift in focus, I'd prefer to get it right rather than rely on DOF to 'see me through'.
As such, should I refocus on the subject each time I rotate making sure that each frame has the optimum focus on the subject or will I start getting problems?
I do know about programs such as Helicon but trying to avoid the need (it's useless for moving subjects such as branches anyway, autopano pro is actually very good with that), I would prefer to make the most of each frame focus wise in camera and leave helicon for territory needing a tilt lens!
I've now completely replaced my LF gear for a pano setup. I'm head over heels in love with the 6X12 format and find that I can achieve that easily with a 3 shot pano using my 5D. That gives me a native 18 megapixel file. Great. Today I tried shooting it in vertical and just shooting more frames to achieve the same ratio but with more more resolution. With a 6 shot pano I've hit 39 megapixels and the resolution is just great, more than I need technically but it's so little effort, why not?
Apart from the fact that when stitching like this you get a lot of wide angle effect due to being so much nearer to the subject (I would love to use longer lenses but DOF is a serious problem), evenso with my 50mm, the difference between the focal point used for the 'middle' frame and the subject when you are rotating to the far left and right is quite dramatic. I'm shooting at f22 anyway but diffraction is rather obvious this stopped down and to be honest with that big a shift in focus, I'd prefer to get it right rather than rely on DOF to 'see me through'.
As such, should I refocus on the subject each time I rotate making sure that each frame has the optimum focus on the subject or will I start getting problems?
I do know about programs such as Helicon but trying to avoid the need (it's useless for moving subjects such as branches anyway, autopano pro is actually very good with that), I would prefer to make the most of each frame focus wise in camera and leave helicon for territory needing a tilt lens!