Stitching Panos in the Darkroom

[BLATT LAB]

Hey! Does anyone stitch panoramas in the darkroom? I plan on using a technical camera with a 6x9 back and shifting the back left / right. Does anyone tried this with success/ does it? Any tips?

[Lachlan 717]

Scan, stitch, print digital negative, print in darkroom.

Or just use a digital camera and get it tight first time.

A 36+ meg digital will outperform 6x9cm anyway, so why bother?

[GRAYnomad]

I don't follow what you want to do. What are you photographing with the 6x9? Some flat artwork?

[ic-racer]

I don't sew these together, though I have seen where a sewing machine was used (bottom image; not mine).
In my case, I glued the components together.

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[Conrad . Marvin]

If you are going to just move the back left and right you will end up with the same distortion as an extreme wide angle lens. I have done two and three part panoramas with 4x5 and a 5x7 cameras. You need to set up the camera so that it can be swiveled on your tripod without having the edges change from side to side. Usually a bit behind center for the lens. I made a special pan head with markings for different lenses so that I could make the exposures without stopping after each. So I could set up my maybe three shots and using grafmatic back and lenses with press shutters, I could make consecutive shots quickly. It’s fun to do, but the darkroom work is intensive a requires an enlarging system with pin registration. When mounting, I like the look of all shots mounted on the same board and a small space between...sort of like looking out a window. Anyway, good luck with your new project.

[Drew Wiley]

Leave stitching to Dr. Frankenstein. But it's been done clear back to glass plate days, when the only darkroom light source in existence was called window light. Vittoria Sella not only stitched wide panoramas of remote scenes in the Karakoram Range in what is now Pakistan using an early large format camera, but even dubbed in climbers from a prior shot taken thousand of miles away in the Swiss Alps. A simpler approach to the whole problem is not to directly stitch, but to subdivide a long picture frame into adjacent matching segments, each separated by a piece of intervening moulding somehow matched to the perimeter moulding itself - a fun woodworking project if you're in that too.

[GRAYnomad]

A simpler approach to the whole problem is not to directly stitch, but to subdivide a long picture frame into adjacent matching segments, each separated by a piece of intervening moulding somehow matched to the perimeter moulding itself - a fun woodworking project if you're in that too.

Yeah, do a triptych so you can't clearly see the parts that don't line up.

[Conrad . Marvin]

And do it well enough so that they look like they line up because they would if put together.

[GRAYnomad]

How would you get them to line up? There's always a small difference from what I've seen. All I can think of is to raise the easel on one side to match the neighboring print.

[Conrad . Marvin]

If you set up the camera on the tripod correctly the image will not change from side when you pivot to the next section. The tripod Must be leveled perfectly and the pivot point is in the center of the lens. With an Ebony 4x5 I was able to use lenses from 75mm- 210mm. Longer would be possible but very unstable on the tripod. The images will line up.

[Jim Jones]

When photographing for stitched panoramas, if there are elements in the subject that are both close to and far from the camera, the camera should be rotated around its entrance pupil. This is fairly close to the center of the lens except in retrofocus and telephoto lenses. With longer telephoto lenses and the camera pivoted around the entrance pupil, the tripod can be tilted towards the subject and the head leveled for improved stability.

[GRAYnomad]

If you set up the camera on the tripod correctly the image will not change from side when you pivot to the next section. The tripod Must be leveled perfectly and the pivot point is in the center of the lens. With an Ebony 4x5 I was able to use lenses from 75mm- 210mm. Longer would be possible but very unstable on the tripod. The images will line up.

Ah sorry, I thought the OP was talking about copying flat artwork. Sure a pano shot in the field should align, especially if you rotate around the lens' nodal point, or close to it.