Stiching 4x5? Can I skip 8x10?

[snaggs]

This forum is the only one in the world where you hang your head in shame for shooting something as small as 4x5.

But, given I peope stitch a 10mp digital camera to decent results, surely a 2 or 3 shot 4x5 pano can look decent.

Im wanting to do a large 1 x 4 metre print.

Daniel

[Greg Lockrey]

Stitching is a dirty word here too.. ;) The issue you may have is how much curl the edges of the film will have in the holder. This may lead to the images not lining up. The neat thing about large format is that with camera shift movements you don't need to worry about rotating on the nodal point as is needed with small format.

[snaggs]

I have a tachihara, im not sure it has left and right shift. Unless I turn it on the side and use the vertical. Is this enough to get two shots?

[Greg Lockrey]

I have a tachihara, im not sure it has left and right shift. Unless I turn it on the side and use the vertical. Is this enough to get two shots?

Depends on the amount of lateral shift.... starting from one extreme and go to the opposite should get you in the ball park. Does the rear have a shift? That will change your perspective some what though. Another way is to use a pan head and rotate on the nodal point (at the shutter should be close enough).

[ic-racer]

This forum is the only one in the world where you hang your head in shame for shooting something as small as 4x5.

But, given I peope stitch a 10mp digital camera to decent results, surely a 2 or 3 shot 4x5 pano can look decent.

Im wanting to do a large 1 x 4 metre print.

Daniel

Where are you going to get a 4x5 digital back? I'd stay with the "10mp digital camera" if I were in to computer graphics.

[Lenny Eiger]

This forum is the only one in the world where you hang your head in shame for shooting something as small as 4x5.

But, given I peope stitch a 10mp digital camera to decent results, surely a 2 or 3 shot 4x5 pano can look decent.

Im wanting to do a large 1 x 4 metre print.

Daniel

There are two things you can do. The first is scan the image on a drum scanner at 8000 dpi. That will give you (for one 4x5) 40,000 pixels on the long edge. 40K pixels divided by 300 is just a hair under 4 metres...

There is no problem stitching 2 4x5's either. Provided you have the computer memory to do it..

I have done many of these types of things, made a number of 20 foot long prints for folks, etc...

Lenny

[Brian Ellis]

I have a tachihara, im not sure it has left and right shift. Unless I turn it on the side and use the vertical. Is this enough to get two shots?

Tachiharas don't have shift on the front or the back unless they've come out with a different model than the two I owned. Since there's no provision for mounting the camera on its side on the tripod you'd have trouble turning it on its side and using front rise and fall.

If you really wanted to use shift you could accomplish pretty much the same thing just by moving the tripod a couple inches in either direction. But you're better off rotating on the nodal point (or as close to it as you can get) anyhow. Using shift (or moving the tripod) can result in giving an unnatural perspective to the photograph.

[Lon Overacker]

First of all, no shame in 4x5 land as far as I'm concerned... :)

Stitching can be done and can turn out quite well. I agree with Lenny's points. the trouble is in the curvature of the film - and for that a drum scan would certainly make the stitching easier. But I've done it from flatbed scans as well.

The key is to have plenty of overlap when you move the position from frame to frame. I'd say at least a 15% overlap. I think that gives the little number crunchers in PS a better chance.

Here's a 3-image 4x5:
http://www.lonoveracker.com/images2/39245ph.jpg

[snaggs]

Lovely. so did you use 3 vertical shots here? or 3 horizontal shots?

Daniel.

[Lon Overacker]

Thanks! It's 3 vertical images using a 210. Here's the unprocessed stitch. So actually when I said overlap, not only do you need overlap between the frames, you need extra space above and below to account for perspective transformations after the stitch. That is a result of course of the pivot point, nodal point, etc. when capturing the three images. I simply try to get the camera bed and tripod as level as possible and then simply rotate the head (3-way pan/tilt head.) I pre set the degree markers on the base of head so I know where to position the camera without having to open the shutter each time and check.

http://www.lonoveracker.com/temp/39245PH_3xstich_orig%20copy.jpg

[Daniel Stone]

get a 4x10 camera :)

[adam satushek]

I have done this too. I think its a great alternative especially for traveling, when you might not want to bring an 8x10. I did my scans on an Imacon and printed up to 40x80 inches, which was fine for me because thats as large as my printer will go. But if you can get higher resolution drum scans im sure you would get great results. I have mostly shot the panos with the camera back in the vertical position. Using front shift, or rise is certainly preferable, however, not all my lenses have enough coverage to do this so I have just rotated the whole camera before. It works but takes more fiddling in PS. I have had very mixed results with the photo stitch function in PS, sometimes its great, but usually just gives a good starting point. I tend to prefer about 30-40% overlap, but I tend to overdo things. And yes when you get 3-5 4x5 scans on one canvas, and add layers...you get big files...often 10+ gigs.

Anyhow, thats just my experience, hope there is something helpful in there!

.....a few examples

[drew.saunders]

The Ebony 45S, http://www.ebonycamera.com/cam/main.45S.html, is designed with 60mm l/r rear shift, which allows you to do a 4x10 from two 4x5's just by rear shift, without having to pan the tripod.

[Steve M Hostetter]

I know you can stitch images side by side to make a pano but can you stitch on top and bottom of the image to make the image taller..?

I've tried this on my Mac in cs4 with no luck

[Paul H]

I know you can stitch images side by side to make a pano but can you stitch on top and bottom of the image to make the image taller..?

I've tried this on my Mac in cs4 with no luck

Yes, you certainly can.

I prefer Autopano Pro ($) or Hugin (free) over stitching in PS.

[Greg Lockrey]

I know you can stitch images side by side to make a pano but can you stitch on top and bottom of the image to make the image taller..?

I've tried this on my Mac in cs4 with no luck

:confused: Works fine on my CS and Mac 10.4..... I do two high and three wide from vertical camera placements all the time. But Autopano Pro is ten times faster.

[Steve M Hostetter]

Thank you Greg, don't know why it won't work I greased all the buttons :D

[Greg Lockrey]

Thank you Greg, don't know why it won't work I greased all the buttons :D

I'll tell you what.... Macs are funny ducks. It's been my experience to run my printers with a Windows environment rather than Mac. I have Parallels set up on mine. On Mac many of the control buttons are greyed out but active on the Windows. Same computer. Also when the Mac crashed several months ago I had a new hard drive replaced and a lot of things I could do before are not present any longer. I used to be able to stitch 16 bit, no longer. Same program from disks were loaded. Not that that is a big deal since the printers only run 8 bit anyway but the feeling I'm getting better color control is questionable but I haven't really seen any difference. So I don't worry too much any longer. But if he Mac crashes again I'm going back to PC. The Mac for the price are over rated to my mind. Hell, my back up is a $200 notebook PC that can run the printing and editing just not as fast.

[Brian Ellis]

Yes, you certainly can.

I prefer Autopano Pro ($) or Hugin (free) over stitching in PS.

I'd be interested in knowing why you prefer those two over Photoshop. I've just become fairly serious about panos and have been happy with PS5 but I'm always interested in improvements, especially when free.

[Steve M Hostetter]

I'll tell you what.... Macs are funny ducks. It's been my experience to run my printers with a Windows environment rather than Mac. I have Parallels set up on mine. On Mac many of the control buttons are greyed out but active on the Windows. Same computer. Also when the Mac crashed several months ago I had a new hard drive replaced and a lot of things I could do before are not present any longer. I used to be able to stitch 16 bit, no longer. Same program from disks were loaded. Not that that is a big deal since the printers only run 8 bit anyway but the feeling I'm getting better color control is questionable but I haven't really seen any difference. So I don't worry too much any longer. But if he Mac crashes again I'm going back to PC. The Mac for the price are over rated to my mind. Hell, my back up is a $200 notebook PC that can run the printing and editing just not as fast.

I know exactly what you mean :o

[Paul H]

I'd be interested in knowing why you prefer those two over Photoshop. I've just become fairly serious about panos and have been happy with PS5 but I'm always interested in improvements, especially when free.

I used to use Hugin due to the control it gave, but it went through a few versions of being buggy on a Mac, the most annoying of which was it wouldn't work if the source images were in a path that had spaces in the name. I didn't have problems under Windows or Linux.

I purchased Autopano Pro when doing some 50 - 300 image digital stitches, and it found it to be far faster and more stable than Hugin or PS (CS3). It is much more forgiving when doing hand-held stitches (less of an issue with large format!), and I've always had better results with areas that are featureless or where there are moving objects (like the sea). I did some stitches for a friend as a trial stitching a couple of 4x10 (IIRC) shots, and for another with three 4x5 shots.

Hugin is definitely worth trying - it does have a guided mode, but if you want to poke around under the hood, there's a wealth of manual options.

[wentbackward]

Stitching is fine so long as what you want is just to cover that angle, but it does not replicate an 8x10 image (or 4 x 10) unless you use an 8x10 covering lens and use rear shift to create the material to stitch (without moving the lens). If you are shifting the back only, then in theory the overlap is based upon the tolerance of your system, whereas normal pano/stitching requires a large overlap.

I also use autopano. It's the most mindless way to stitch (until it gets it wrong). For scans where you've shifted the back only, set the lens to a focal length of 1000mm :).