DSLR Stitching Again

[Kirk Gittings]

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/...opic=15605&hl=

Here is one of those forum threads in Luminous Landscape which presents DSLR stitching as a superior capture method to LF film. He does not talk about the capture time involved but states it took two months of computer time to make this image from 160 exposures. It does not seem like an image worth that kind of effort IMO. Jack Flesher and Doug Dolde, who also participate here, present some well informed rebuttal's.

While I think DSLR stitching can be a real problem solver at times with my commercial work, give me a scanned 8x10 transparency for this kind of image any day.

[Leonard Evens]

There is nothing to prevent you from stitching large format images, and there are situations where it makes sense. In fact there are advantages to doing that. The images don't suffer much from barrel or pincusion distortion, for example, so they need less massaging when stitching. In fact I Iplan to do just that. That way I will get the best of both worlds.

[Kirk Gittings]

There is nothing to prevent you from stitching large format images, and there are situations where it makes sense.

No s___? In case you didn't read my thread, I was talking about DSLR capture vs. single capture LF film.

[Walter Calahan]

Some people have too much time on their hands if it takes 2 months to do a stitch.

At least they are not on the roads adding to traffic. Grin.

[Jack Flesher]

Some people have too much time on their hands if it takes 2 months to do a stitch.

At least they are not on the roads adding to traffic. Grin.

Nor are they going to be very prolific artists! I think some folks do these things just to prove it can be done...

FWIW and IMHO only (I know Doug agrees ), the image the poster presented in the above thread is pretty ho-hum overall and certainly not worth more than a few hours of work tops (postcard status maybe). Not only that, it is poorly processed if you look at the crop area he linked to (way over-sharpened at some point in the processeing). But to be fair, had I been there with my 8x10 in that light, I would have probably burned a few sheets... More likely is I would have waited until the light on the hoodoos was more interesting. He did get a decent sky though.

Cheers,

[naturephoto1]

Hi Kirk,

I just glanced at the link. I am not sure, he initially indicates that there were 45 images stitched. Whether 45 or 160 and 2 months of time to stitch the image, that is a bit over the top. Certainly a real waste of time on the part of the photographer. How much time did it take for him to capture all of those images? Then the question is were the conditions the same for all of those images. Don't jump on me for this but, if someone needed that size and detail, wouldn't it be better for a single capture on a large enough piece of film or if need be to perhaps stitch 6??? original 4 X 5 sheets (agreeing with both Leonard and your response)???

Rich

[SAShruby]

IMHO, I'd say that spending two months to do one picture is very expensive and not very productive for profesional photographer.

Doing murals is one job, but I doubt many people can afford to do that. You need lots of money and investment to print it in that detail.

Just my thoughts...

[Michael Mutmansky]

He did get a decent sky though.

That probably the worst part of the whole image...

[David A. Goldfarb]

I agree with Doug Dolde's comment that the perspective is just unnatural and would add that the horizon looks artificially sharpened. If one had a DSLR and wanted to use it to make high-res landscapes, it would be better in my opinion to put the DSLR on the back of a 4x5" camera and use it like a digital back to create a stitched image than to do it with the DSLR's own lens on a pano head.

At PMA I saw a slick looking sliding adapter for this purpose made by Fotodiox for about $200--Canon EF mount or Nikon mount to Graflok, and they could probably make it up custom with other mounts, since they make a lot of different camera mount adapters. I checked their website, which doesn't seem to show this particular adapter (they have a Nikon/Graflok adapter, but not a sliding one), but you can find their contact info at www.fotodiox.com.

[Michael Graves]

I can hardly wait to see his first 20-stitch portrait.