V. LARGE GROUPS CS3 Photomerge Scores again for Nik! Now, how do YOU do it?

CS3 Photomerge Scores again

I was shooting Race for The Cure in Pasadena, CA today.

There was many photoops, including a challenge to take a group shot of the groups consisting of several hundred people.

I decided to use panoramic approach and stitch the individual shots later.

Timing was very tight, so I simply took 7 handheld shots for each group in a rather quick sequence hoping that people would not move too much.

At home I decided to use two tools and compare the results:
improved CS3 Photomerge and my old trusted copy of the Panorama Factory.

To my huge surprise CS3 won 4:0 (I shot each group twice).
PF produced some ugly ghostly faces in mass amounts (I'm not even posting them).
CS3 results were much cleaner, as you can see for yourself

Group one:



Group two:



While thus far my experience with Landscapes tells me to use PF more often,
CS3 is becoming an invaluable tool for creating super hires large group shots.

Cheers!

Superb large group photograph!

Splendid Nikolai!

Who set up the groups? That's an enormous amount of organization. What were the occaisions and did you have much notice.

What lens did you use and is this portrait or landscape shots and was it all done in manual exposure?

Great job!

I'd like to know the specifics. How high were you? Did you light the group or rely on heaven?

Asher

Hi Nik,

Great job, well done! I am surprised that you can get such good results with people who tend to move around all the time. BTW, did you see the pano thread I have posted a few days ago? There I have two panos; the 1st one done with the PF and the 2nd and final one with the CS3. I too was astounded by the much better results delivered by the CS3 in comparison to PF! So the score is 5-0 to CS3 AFAIK .

Cheers,

Asher,

Splendid Nikolai!
Thank you!

Who set up the groups? That's an enormous amount of organization. What were the occaisions and did you have much notice.

They were led to this particular place in large groups by the event organizers (it was a charity Race For The Cure event). Bleachers were already there, so people mostly arrange themselves. I still had to make some final arrangements, but the bulk of the work was done by the lady with the loudspeaker
Notice was short, though - five minutes or so Basically I saw the group forming and Jumped to the opportunity.
Funny: for every OTHER part of the event they were calling me constantly to specific places. But somehow for these large group shooting they kinda forgot about me, even though I was the part of the official photo covering crew, moreover, I was THE person for this kinda job... Oh well..

What lens did you use and is this portrait or landscape shots and was it all done in manual exposure?

Canon30D + EF-S 17-85 IS USM + Speedlite 580EX.
Shot in RAW, landscape, ISO 1600, f/14, 1/400s, Aperture priority.

Great job!
Thanks again!

I'd like to know the specifics. How high were you? Did you light the group or rely on heaven?
I was on the ground. There was a ladder, but I like my position better, especially considering the fact, that the group was so large that I had to move about 30 ft from left to right while shooting.
I used the fill flash (full power, manual) in one case, and just morning sun in another.

Thank you for the feedback and questions!

Again Nikolai, this is commendable work!

This shows that the brain behond the camera is much more important than the budget for equipment. You could have spent a lot more for covering this!

Who else is taking very large groups and how do you do it?

Asher

Well, this isn't a large group of people but, a total of 7 photos taken hand held and stitched together with the improved CS3 Photomerge. I wanted to try this out for myself after seeing a tutorial on the new Photomerge in CS3.

These were taken last weekend from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles CA with a 1DMKIIn & 24-70 f/2.8L.

This took me less than 3 min to do from out of the camera to stitching in CS3, here was the result.

-Brian-

Hi Brian,

Good to see your work again. That was a great day you had at the observatory. I believe you showed architecture pictures previously and I enjoyed them. I'll have to do a search for those that missed them!

Where is the tutorial? I think there might be still much wrok to do if you have the interest to carry it further. The clouds need to be more unified as this one feature will trick the eye and join everything together like a massive Band Aid™ obfuscating any break up or lighting persperctive discontinuities in the city below.

The are plugins for that, but I haven't as yet, used them. Match tonality and hues of the sky to may is the first challenge. After that the city itself" it can be brought out and defined further; perhaps not!

None of this detracts from an already impressive and satisfying panorama, which does, I admit arouse just a tiny amount of envy, since I have not visited Griffith Park Observatory since it was renovated!

Asher

Greetings Asher,

I agree absolutely more needs to be done with the photo/s, I was only demonstrating how quickly & easily one could use the new Photomerge in CS3. I will look for the tutorial for you, I believe it was from the NAPP site.

Asher, I will take you one day soon to the Griffith Observatory, I promise. ;-)

-Brian-

Take me too!

I think we need an OPF Los Angeles Photo Outing to go out, shoot some images and have some play time afterward.

The panos are terrific - both Nik's and Brian's~

Kathy Rappaport said:

I think we need an OPF Los Angeles Photo Outing to go out, shoot some images and have some play time afterward.

The panos are terrific - both Nik's and Brian's~

Click to expand...

Kathy,

Yes that's a great idea. Lets make it Griffith Observatory and this topic will be continued in the older OPF LA thread! We'll also have a 4x5 and 8x10 sessions as well as a technical surprise or two!! Ha ha, ha!!!

Same is happening in Silicon Valley and also in Hooland it seems!!

Asher

These shots look great! They are absolutely seamless. I use CS3, and had no idea the photomerge tool even existed. Now I will have to dig on it, and play around with it. I wish I had known about this tool earlier, I can think of numerous times that it would have come in handy. Thank you very much.

I have been playing around with this tool and I think I'm starting to get it. I am really grateful that I stumbled across this thread. I can't believe I had this the whole time and had no idea. Thanks a lot.

So, Rick!

Now you know the secret, are you ready to roll your own?

Asher