My World: Sarah at her computer

Thanks for looking.

George,

It's impressive that you gave yourself the challenge of stitching a subject, one you care about so dearly), using separate frames. Did you cover her face with one frame? How did you approach the complex pattern of her blouse? Was this taken as a horizontal frame?

I assume you did this to make a huge print. I'd love to know more of your thinking behind this effort.

Asher

Asher,

This is actually my second attempt at stitching a portrait, the first failed due to gaps in the frames. For this shot, I started with a close-up of the face with the focus on the left eye at f/1.8 and then, shot rows above and below. I actually made 28 images in total, but ended up only using 15 because of parallax issues. I suspect that using a tripod (Gitzo GT2541 & Acratech Ultimate Ballhead) might be a hindrance to creating this type of panorama. The further I get from the initial frame, the less likely I am to be able to stitch the outliers.

The final image is also heavily cropped from the original hugin output, resulting in a 22 mp file.

George Holroyd said:

............ended up only using 15 because of parallax issues. I suspect that using a tripod (Gitzo GT2541 & Acratech Ultimate Ballhead) might be a hindrance to creating this type of panorama. The further I get from the initial frame, the less likely I am to be able to stitch the outliers.

The final image is also heavily cropped from the original hugin output, resulting in a 22 mp file.

Click to expand...

Hi George,

Hand hold at a higher ISO. You will surprise yourself how easy it is to them orate the lens about the entrance pupil of the lens. How close are you to Sarah in this setup? You still haven't shared why you need the larger file.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Hi George,

Hand hold at a higher ISO. You will surprise yourself how easy it is to them orate the lens about the entrance pupil of the lens. How close are you to Sarah in this setup? You still haven't shared why you need the larger file.

Asher

Click to expand...

I was 5 or so feet away. This is really just an experiment, though. I have a couple ideas for new series and wanted to get familiar with the process. I'm not so much interested in generating a large file as creating a certain look. If I were to use this large aperture pano method for a series of portraits, I'd want to create a dramatic film-noir look with my (natural) lighting. The other idea I had involves creating sets and maximizing depth of field while shooting large, seemingly wide-angle shots using a low distortion lens. The latter requires more space than I have available at present.

I, perhaps wrongly, can't help but think that eliminating parallax shift would negate the effect of using a large aperture. I will attempt some more of these handheld and see how I fare.

George Holroyd said:

I'm not so much interested in generating a large file as creating a certain look. If I were to use this large aperture pano method for a series of portraits, I'd want to create a dramatic film-noir look with my (natural) lighting.

Click to expand...

The large aperture simply gives a narrower depth of field for that lens focal length and the perspective of that distance to the subject. Using overlapping fields of just the center would give you a larger area of the quality the center of the lens has, usually better corrected than the periphery.

George Holroyd said:

The other idea I had involves creating sets and maximizing depth of field while shooting large, seemingly wide-angle shots using a low distortion lens.

Click to expand...

This would have you use a smaller aperture to get that increase in DOF in usually the central best corrected area of the lens. One could get the same effect simply using a shorter focal length at that subject to lens distance.

George Holroyd said:

The latter requires more space than I have available at present.

Click to expand...

Not likely! You just need either a shorter focal length and or more overlapping fields.

George Holroyd said:

can't help but think that eliminating parallax shift would negate the effect of using a large aperture.

Click to expand...

What effect of large aperture were you looking to eliminate?

Larger aperture decreases depth of field and also reveals the the less well corrected periphery of many cheaper lenses we don't generally use wide open. A well corrected lens, opened up, would just lose DOF and let in more light. Some will be even sharper at relatively larger apertures and have more contrast.

You could use giant overlap for your pictures, just rotating say 3-5 degrees for example and then you can crop your pictures before stitching! The stitching will then add up the central axis patches to build a wider area of your subject covered with the characteristics of the center of your lens. This will result in the peripheral "Bokeh" area being shrunk somewhat. Nevertheless, the now larger central area of "best quality" would have the exact same DOF as any of the pictures before cropping. That characteristic is fixed.

Asher