Is stitching the future of photography?

[Oren Grad]

Although digital cameras facilitate stitching, digital vs analog cameras is really a separate issue because you can make multiple negatives on the same principle, scan and stitch those.

I think the interesting question is what is the impact on both the experience of working in the field and on the final result, of forcing the "image acquisition" to be an elaborately choreographed set of exposures rather than a single one.

I can't imagine that such an elaborate process could ever become "the future of photography", as opposed to a specialized technique that will be used somewhat more widely than in the past because the necessary tools are now more powerful and acccessible.

Beyond that, it's a matter of personal taste, and of what your purposes are in making pictures. It doesn't happen to be anything that I'm interested in doing. On the other hand, given the direction Chris's work was already moving, exploring this particular set of tools seems like a logical step for him.

[Doug Dolde]

Isn't stitching being considered only becaise there aren't high enough resolution sensors ? If so there is the upcoming Seitz D3 digital scan back which will (eventually) be adapted to view cameras.

http://www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/intern.../d925/f931.cfm

[Dave Parker]

wholly Moses...

Almost 30K bucks for the back, I know I will be holding off for just a bit!

[GPS]

[QUOTE=chris jordan;216451]For me, stitching definitely is the future. It offers unlimited image quality (and it doesn't take 400 images equal 8x10 film, it takes about sixteen to twenty).
...
My own system is to use a fairly telephoto lens and take a bunch of exposures that all add up to the equivalent of having used a "normal" lens. But instead of being one exposure with a normal lens, it is a grid of twenty exposures with a telephoto, with twenty times the detail. [QUOTE]

Wow, you really believe in it. Nothing bad with that, even better for you...

There is a highway I often take. It goes through rather a flat plain that has some kind of a field on it. There is also a small house, hidden at a distance and a railway going along way. Flat, wide, empty but photogenic. A very impressive panoramic picture. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that this railroad is used by a super speed train, long about a fifth of the field. When the whole train unit passes, it comes with a spirit of its own, rushing through the plain like a messenger from a different world.
I was often planning to take this picture on my 6x24cm panoramic camera. The peace of the plain is like cut by the speeding train in a simple moment. Could you take the picture with your stitching camera? I doubt it.
As I often drive on this highway, I noticed that there are plenty of birds of prey, hovering over the field, waiting for their prey. The fact that the plain is of interest for them and their constant movement contrasts with the almost boring peacefulness of the large panoramic field. I thought it could be a good picture too, as the number of the hovering birds is quite impressive. There is something in the field that the human eye doesn't see yet the birds presence is all about it. Could you take the picture with your stitching camera without making a mess from the flying birds? I doubt it.
In some parts of the year, depending on the season, the field, all green, is so high that it covers the view of the railway - the train then flies through it like detached from the earth. With some wind the green field has its own motion, with great moving waves on it - so different when compared with the fast moving of the passing train. Again, as if the train came there with its own dimension, from a different world. I was thinking that a correct shutter speed would let the train with the right amount of motion in the picture while the field waves would be frozen thus showing the shock of the two different worlds together. Now, could you take that picture with your stitching procedure? I doubt it again.
What I want to say is that the stitching method is surely limited in its use. Would I exchange the LF camera (yes, I count the 6x24 as a LF) for the stitching device? No way. Which doesn't exclude your own personal taste with your own personal tools. But it does exclude the stitching as the future of the LF photography.

[Marko]

Seen the recent thread on Chris Jordan's garage sale and the debate thereof, a simple question came to my mind. Is stitching the future way of photography? Finally, we have a way to get the LF resolution without the LF gear, some say! Better color control, they add! No chemistry to bother with, to pollute the world! Much better than even 8x10 in terms of resolution... Heck - am I missing something? Is the LF just a question of resolution? Is stitching the future way to see a picture I want to take? Don't I miss something when I see the scene just in terms of stitched pieces of a greater mosaic?

These are very valid and very interesting questions. It is, IMO, much more intelligent to discuss questions like these than bicker and snicker about whose equipment is better.

Stitching is definitely not THE future way of photography, but it is one of the techniques that digital made easy and efficient. Aside from it being a particular technique for those with an interest in specialized applications such as panoramics, it is also becoming a pretty viable, economical substitute for real LF digital sensors until they come down in price.

As for the other questions you raise here, most of those are completely subjective to which each of us could have a very different but still valid answer. Whatever enables you to express yourself or do your work the best, fastest and easiest is the best thing to do.

Which brings me, Piano, other questions to my mind - what exactly is it, that is lost from the art of photography, when one sits for hours and manipulates the image to one's own liking? It's not entirely the same as working in a darkroom to get the image I want, no. There is some difference which is deeper than just the amount of time or the tools used. There is some specific element that cannot be taken away from photography without loosing its inner soul.

But you see, it is not the computer nor the camera nor the enlarger that makes the image, just as it is not the computer nor the typewriter nor the fountain pen that writes the book. It is you who does it. Saying that a particular workflow or set of tools has more soul as opposed to the other makes no sense. Those are all just inannimate objects, chemicals and electrons included. They have no soul of their own, they can only reflect the soul their user. If the user doesn't invest his/her soul in the process, the process will have nothing to reflect.

To answer your question more direcly - the real connection between you and your work is the amount of time and effort you devote to it. If you love it, it will turn lovely, if you hate it it will look it too.

[naturephoto1]

wholly Moses...

Almost 30K bucks for the back, I know I will be holding off for just a bit!

And more like $40,000 for the Mobile Maxi Version.

Rich

[Marko]

"with far greater depth of field"

Chris, it is not possible (with current technology) to secure a sharp foreground and acceptable sharp background by using a DSLR in a stitched image.

Yes it is, although it may not be too obvious. The macro guys have been using it for a while now.

Stitching by its very nature is a technique for crossing the physical limitations of the equipment. Once started on it, why constrain stitching to only two dimensions? Adding a third dimension, depth, is even more dependent on digital, but that simply fits into this whole discussion.

[Stephen Willard]

I was just at a show which exhibited about 20 digital images of flowers. The images were made from a 12 mgp camera. The imager that made these images is very good at his craft. None of the images were even close to the images made by my 4x5 camera much less my 5x7 camera. The images lacked brilliance, dynamic range with blown out highlights in high contrast scenes, and tonal range. Stitching will not help you with these attributes. Overall they appeared flat and dull to me. Of course, if you had nothing to benchmark them against then they would seem very good.

I shoot color negative film and use traditional photographic methods. I have challenged imagers in my area to produce a simple 16x20 that is "better or equal to" one of my 16x20's. I have had three imagers who have rose to the challenge including the imager of this show. In each case when you placed my photograph next to a digital image the difference were striking. Was my photograph any better? I would say no, but the photograph had very rich creamy tones and colors, and the dynamic range of my photograph far exceeded the dynamic range of the digital image. The photograph had full luminous shadows with delicate passages of tone in the highlights of the billowing cumulous nimbus clouds. None of this was present in the digital images.

In my biassed opinion, I would say that the digital images were more like water color paintings while my photograph was more like an oil painting. Neither is better than the other, but they were definitely different. Some people love water colors while others love the feel of oil paintings. Will stitching make water colors more like oil paintings? In my opinion, I would say no. For now, I am very much a photographer based on what I have seen, but perhaps someday I may become a digital imager for lack of materials.

Ansel Adams started out as an "impressionistic photographer", and switched to the simple dignity of the glossy print. Only then was he able to exploit the true power of photography. Perhaps digital imagers need to stop calling themselves photographers and start exploiting the true power of their digital medium. Some have already started doing this, and I find their work to be distinctive and impressive.

[Gordon Moat]

It seems more likely to me that some amateurs and fine art photographers are discovering what graphic designers were doing in the past (like when PhotoShop 3.0 introduced layers). Sure the tools get faster, which I suppose might be described as easier, or if nothing else less tedious. Stitching is just a variation on doing composite images, something very common in graphic design, advertising, and commercial photography. Really, there is nothing new here in concept, only slightly faster and easier to use tools. The first commercially done composite images I created was for a music CD package in 1995.

I come from a traditional art background of drawing and painting. Using smaller cameras (SLRs usually) can be more flexible in some situations, and the approach is often different than using large format; that alone can sometimes work better to allow expressing a creative vision. Large format for me requires more thought and planning, and seems to me more like drawing. I could just as easily take a sketchpad to a location, and produce some illustration work, even cleaning it up on a computer. The ground glass for me works like a sketchpad, even if I later did post processing with the resulting images in a computer, or took several shots to create a composite.

Everytime I read about ultimate resolution, I remember when I went to MOPA and saw the images from the GigaPXL Project. They even had magnifying glasses on loan in case anyone wanted to see all that detail that their unaided eyes could not resolve. This was easily the most boring display of museum images I have ever seen, and by the looks of the other people in the museum that day, and the fast flow of people through that area, I got the feeling that resolution alone will not hold one's attention. The funny thing was the other side of MOPA had a display of Steve McCurry images, including some large prints from 35mm. We all know how inferior 35mm is as a technology, yet the people were so packed into that section of MOPA that it was tough to view the images.

Nothing wrong with having a more design like approach to fine art. In fact, there have been several museums that displayed the work of David Carson, someone well known in graphic design and not a photographer. There is nothing wrong with chasing ultimate resolution either, as long as one understands why that might be important to them.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[GPS]

GPS, if what you say is true, then you should be able to walk through a show of 100 photographs and know which images were made with digital cameras and which ones were made with film (and which ones were printed in darkrooms versus processed digitally).~cj

Of course not. There is no visible sign on a picture that it was taken with a deep inner experience or without it like a snapshot. The difference is in you. Yet it makes a big difference for your pictures if you take them with your heart or just with your camera ;-) That is not the point. That kind of logic is from the digital v. analog laboratory and I'm not working there. What I'm speaking about is if the digital stitching can replace the LF photography - without altering its soul, that is.
So there is no war in me between the digital Muslims and the analog Christians (exchange it freely if you like) - what is interesting to me is if the stitching vision doesn't alter without damage the photographic eye. I think Oren understood it better.