Is stitching the future of photography?

[PViapiano]

<<<Is stitching the future of photography? >>>

The answer is no. At least it's not the answer for LF photography. Stitching is a digital gimmick that has become quite viable now that the technology is here. I used to regularly make panos with my dSLR and Pano Tools, an incredibly complex German software program. The results can sometimes be amazing, as long as you take care in the processing of the image. Google "Max Lyons" and take a look at some of the most beautiful landscapes you've ever seen. He is a wizard with this type of work.

However, if someone is into LF photography just for that end result, I think they're missing the point.

The beauty of LF is in the art of the process, from finding your viewpoint, setting up the camera and fine-tuning your movements and focus, to bringing your film home to develop and print it. It slows you down, it's a way of life...it lets you smell the roses, which is so unfortunately a quality that is missing from many lives today. LF is most definitely an art that is ultimately more satisfying for me than shooting digi-panos.

Just caring about the end result is like saying, "Why should I go fly-fishing when I can go down to the market and buy a fish?"

[Brian Ellis]

My completely unscientific impression is that most commercial photography is digital even when done by photographers who formerly used LF cameras and most LF photography is amateur. I realize there are exceptions but that seems to be the general rule from what I read and observe (e.g. on ebay there are roughly 10 or 15 monorail cameras for each more or less modern field camera). The amateur LF photographers obviously aren't in it for the money or because an art director wants a particular type of photograph, they're in it because they like it. So my guess is that stitching won't change anything for today's LF photographers though other things might (e.g. availability, cost, etc. of materials).

[Mark Stahlke]

Resolution is now basically the big fish game, and matters not, as the fish are big enough these days. The older fisherman realizes its about being fishing, and being out on the lake, not the size of the fish.

Thank you. That really puts it in perspective. I can't count the number of times I've told people "The fishing was great, the catching was lousy".

Cheers,
Mark

[GPS]

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. In other words, photography cannot be (I believe) just transformed into image producing-manipulating (call it as you like) with digital tools in the digital kitchen. It's not translatable from one world to the other. Perhaps more than with tools and the time amount used it has to do with the non material elements of photography - the way an image is born in one's mind (heart, if you like), the way it is materialized. It's a bigger difference than writing your thoughts with either a fountain pen or a bill pen.
Sure, you can make a picture with either tools but they are not on the same corresponding level, somewhere in their respective spheres. It's this elusive element that makes a great difference in the art of photography, it seems to me.
(No, I have no objections against the digital world in its own sphere, it's just a tool...)

[Ken Lee]

The future never arrives. The present slips through your fingers and can never be grasped. The past is imaginary at best.

So don't worry about it.

[chris jordan]

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). And of course using stitching still requires the taking of pictures with a camera, out in the field, using all the standard photographic practices concepts of seeing, visualizing, composing, metering, smelling the roses, etc., just with a different kind of camera.

And, strangely enough, stitching can actually takes LESS time in front of the computer, and that will get even faster as the new stitching software becomes better and better and the DSLR cameras have higher and higher resolutions. The new Canon is rumored to have 22MP in 3:4 aspect ratio, which will substantially exceed the quality of the current MF backs. The quality of the digital capture is so high that Canon is having to design a new line of super-sharp EDIF lenses to keep up with the resolution the cameras can record.

But even now, stitching is already faster than procesing film, making oil-mounted drum scans and dealing with film grain issues. It also is not limited only to making wide panoramic images. 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. Hence the equivalent of a LF original, only with better color and tonal scale, no grain, no film and processing expense, no scanning expense, faster Photoshop work, and I get to use a fun, fast, lightweight SLR that weighs about the same as one of my LF lenses. And the exposures are short, with far greater depth of field, so movement is actually LESS of an issue than it is with LF. I don't get as much attention from passers-by because my camera looks more like an amateur camera instead of an Ansel Adams camera, but for me that's a plus too because it lets me do my work. The only downside is the lack of that big, beautiful image on the ground glass. Maybe Canon could make an 8x10 simulator window thing that you use with a laptop.

For B&W, however, there clearly is no substitute, because the look and feel of 8x10 B&W film is like a Steinway piano-- no amount of electronics will ever replace it. But for color I think it is the future, and like someone said, the present too for some guys.

[chris jordan]

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). Of course you can't do that, no one in the world can. The final results are indistinguishable, and blend seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital mediums. There are some exceptions (B&W contact prints for example, and gum bichromate, and other alt processes), but even then it can take an experienced eye to see the difference.

In my own opinion, the inner soul of a photograph happens at the time the image is made by the photographer, whether digital or film. From that moment forward, as long as the image quality is maintained and enhanced with good craftsmanship, the soul remains also, through chemical baths and enlargers, scanners and pixels, onto CD's, down wires, across the internet, etc. That's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it. Either way (chemical processing and darkroom printing, or digital capture and digital processing, or any mixture of those), a vital part of the human soul can be captured via a mechanical device, and stored on plastic, and projected with lights, translated into layers of emulsion, sent down wires. For me THAT is the real magic of photography.

I have always thought that all the arguing about digital versus film/darkroom is like the Muslims fighting with the Christians. If we could stop with the bickering for a moment and back up one step, we might remember that we all share the same God despite the differences in our individual practices and beliefs; and so instead of arguing about what is the "right" way to access that God, we could all join in the wonderous fact of its existence, and the joy of being able to experience it.

~cj

[Tom Westbrook]

Maybe the near term future as a workaround, but I imagine it will be seen as a quaint approach in 20 years, akin to darkrooms on wheels.

[Robert Fisher]

"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.

[Dominique Labrosse]

I agree with those who view cameras as tools. I am not an LF snob and use which ever format I think might get the image I want to make done.

I like the process of using a view camera. I love the effects I can create using a view camera. I also love the clean data, shadow detail, ease of use and flexibility offered by a digital file. I don't have room for a darkroom. Nor do I feel that I want to have one in my home anymore. I would rather get the picture on my computer for manipulation. It takes a lot less space. I can have my family around me while I work. I don't run the hot water for hours. now if I could only afford that new Epson 3800...

Resolution and making really large prints are not much of a concern to me personally, so stiching is a non issue for me. Although it might be fun to try just for the sake of trying.

What I would really like to be able to do is use a view camera with digital capture. I know this exists already with Betterlight and MF backs on view cameras, but the cost for me is prohibitive. And the ease of use for the type of photography I like to do is still questionable.

So I continue with both a 4x5 camera and a digital SLR and I long for the day where I might be able to pick up a used digital back for less than the cost of a car.