Monument Valley Pano Uncovered
OK, the headline makes it sound more dramatic than it really was; I was searching through Lightoom for a shot I took out in Utah’s Monument Valley (Click for a much larger version). The only reason I found this pano at all was that I use a little trick so I can spot panos while searching through hundreds of thumbnails:
Right before I start shooting my pano, I hold my index finger up in front of the lens and I crank off a shot (that lets me know where the pano starts). Then I shoot the pano (this one was made up of 10 shots), and after the last shot, I hold two fingers up in the front of the lens and crank off another, to let me know that I’ve reached the end of my pano. That way, when scrolling through hundreds of thumbnails, these “fingers” jump out at you, and that’s exactly what happened yesterday. I saw my outstretched finger and said, “Hey, I must have shot a pano!” and the images in the pano are the ones which appear between the two finger photos.
The photo itself isn’t particularly remarkable, but it does give a nice reference for the size and scale of Monument Valley, but beyond that what is remarkable is CS3’s Photomerge feature for stitching together panos. I didn’t do anything “right” when taking this pano. I just held up the camera, and cranked off 10 shots—no special tripod, I didn’t turn off Auto Focus, I didn’t do an exposure lock, the only rule I followed was that I let the photos overlap by about 20%, and son of gun if Photomerge didn’t perfectly align and balance the tone for all 10 photos automatically. If you shoot panos (or thought you’d ever want to), the Photomerge feature in CS3 is worth the entire upgrade price.
Funny, when I was in Sedona this year I started using the trick of photographing my left thumb to indicate the left edge of the pano, and my right thumb for the right edge. Isn’t it great that digital allows us to “waste” shots to help us out later?
Hi Paulie:
Totally! I probably wouldn’t have wasted film like that back in the “film” days.
-Scott
Oh I don’t know Scott, I think all panos of this kind ARE remarkable, simply because it gives us viewers a remarkable vista to look at!
Good idea about the fingers too…I shall certainly remember that one…now then…where should I go for my pano..?
I have to agree with your comments about both the quality of the CS3 PhotoMerge, and the usefulness of giving yourself finger signals before and after panos.
I’ve been shooting digital panos for five years. I’ve always assembled them manually in PhotoShop. I typically take about 20 minutes to stitch each pair of images together. I thought I was pretty hot stuff. Then I saw CS3’s PhotoMerge. I honestly can’t find any fault with the quality of the stitching, and it does it automatically. Since I installed CS3, I’ve probably assembled ten panos (up to 1×10 and 2×3), and they all stitched together flawlessly.
And once you get yourself hooked on shooting panos, you’ll quickly realize the importance of the finger signals. Otherwise you’ll be scanning through your thumbnails wondering “What did I take that one for? And that one? And that one? And… oh, wait…. that was supposed to be a pano…. I think.”
Andy Frazer
http://gorillasites.blogspot.com
Nice photo Scott. I’m wondering what an HDR pano of the area would look like? Stunning.
Quick question: did you have a problem with sand and your tripod on the trip? It looks like you used Gitzo Traveler, which has the twist style leg locks. I heard those don’t play well with sand.
Thanks,
Kim
Scott – perhaps you can tell us what lens you used for this pano. I recently tried a pano using an 11-18mm at 18mm on a Nikon D200 (so the 18mm was really 27mm) and CS3 left some transparent regions in the final image. I am assuming these were caused by CS3 stretching the individual shots to line up elements in the images.