Making Panoramas using Lens Shifts

[Bart B]

Anybody ever set up their large format camera on a tripod, shifted the lensboard to the left limits, focused on a landscape scene and took the picture, reloaded, shifted the lens to the right limits then took the second picture? And finally scanned both negatives to stitch together in a panorama using Photoshop or other software? All done with the camera remaining in a fixed position on the tripod. Only the lens gets shifted from one side to the other. Focus, shutter and aperture remain the same for both.

Thought about this today as I was learning about how things look on the ground glass as my Super Speed Graphic's lens was moved off its normal center position. Seems to me it would work pretty good.

Comments welcomed.

Bart

[John Hennessy]

I have done that with a Technikardan which, due to the way it folds up, has perhaps more shift than many cameras and its bellows is accommodating as well. But I have never seen any advantage to making a panorama this way as opposed to simply panning.

[ic-racer]

You want to shift the camera back.
Or just use a lens with a wider angle of view and take a single picture.

[Ed Kelsey]

I've done it with an Arca Swiss. Just use rear shift no problems assuming your lens has a large enough image circle.

Dont shift the lens though that wont work

[D. Bryant]

Dont shift the lens though that wont work

I beg to differ. It will work fine.

Don Bryant

[lenser]

Why not use both front and rear shift for an even wider pan perspective? So long as your camera can do both, and you have the center area intact in both images for blending, is there any reason optically (other than image circle) why this won't work?

[Bart B]

Thanks to all for your comments. But I got to thinking that shifting the lens board from side to side will change the axis reference. I believe that the lens' nodal point should remain fixed in space so there's no object image horizontal shift between the two images. There's web sites explaining this.

On large format cameras, such as my Super Speed Graphic, I think the lens node is pretty much centered on the lens. Or a point forward of the film plane equal to its focal length for objects at (or near) infinity. Which means the camera has to turn on an axis in the lens. To do this, an adapter plate would be needed on the tripod placing the lens node on the panning axis. And it might need a counterweight to balance the camera on the tripod, especially with a 5 or 6 inch lens on a 4x5 camera.

If shifting the back side to side was possible, that would be an easy solution. But my Super Speed Graphic won't do that. It, like all cameras, has some limitations.

[Joseph Dickerson]

Ed,

Don is right, shifting the lens will work. The nodal point is an issue if you are rotating the camera but not when shifting. You can use either the rear shift, front shift or both. Just be sure to to allow for adequate overlap if you're going to scan and stitch the images.

With my digital camera I regularly use a tilt/shift lens and shoot three, full left, centered, and full right. They stitch together just fine.

Joe D.

[Nathan Potter]

Bart, you have it. Shifting the lens board changes the angle of view in relation to the object. At infinity or near infinity that angle change is negligible, but as your subject gets closer to the lens that angle is more significant. It's equivalent to a stereoscopic effect where a parallax is introduced between the two shifted images. You really want to pan around a nodal point, short of rigging a split field attachment in front of the lens.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Lachlan 717]

For landscapes (not architecture), I never work with the nodal point, and never use a nodal bracket. My stitches often start with camera to the left side of me, and by the time I am completed the stitch..... I can be 2 feet over to the right from where I started (way off the nodal point), and CS3-5 handles it perfectly. Never a flaw, and I do a lot of it with my dslr, and up to 617 and 4x5. Theory and reality are 2 different things.....give it a try, and stop worrying about nodal this and that. If you're doing architecture (where I have had problems... I would shift the rear back left to right. If you're only doing landscapes, a shift of the front lens is no different then me swinging my camera in a 2 foot sweep to complete the stitch.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uIrIZAYOOg&feature=related
http://openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5745

Well put, VC. Reality once again beats theory...

[Ed Kelsey]

Ed,

Don is right, shifting the lens will work. The nodal point is an issue if you are rotating the camera but not when shifting. You can use either the rear shift, front shift or both. Just be sure to to allow for adequate overlap if you're going to scan and stitch the images.

With my digital camera I regularly use a tilt/shift lens and shoot three, full left, centered, and full right. They stitch together just fine.

Joe D.

Don't you shift the camera the opposite direction and the same displacement as the lens shift?

[Armin Seeholzer]

If you are using lens or back shift you are loosing the sarpest part of your lens, so the quality will be better with digital stittching after shooting 2 or 3 or even more pictures just with no shift of the lens or back, this is also just fact!!!!!!
Its better to use the lens on the sweat sarpest spot in the middle then loosing quality already at shooting!

Cheers Armin