Panoramic Photos

Today I took a quick drive up to the forest in the northern edge of my town to see if any of the oak trees had fall color. Given the weird weather this year, it wasn't a surprise to see that the trees had gone from green to brown. The best trees in town are these three maple trees next to the Angeles National Forest fire station and they were at peak. Two years ago one tree was red, another orange and the other yellow. I don't think people aren't really supposed to wander in there past the gates so I didn't take any pictures today regretfully.

When I got home, I took a look at my fall pictures from last October when I was getting ready to move from Kentucky back to California. Looking in my folder for Clifty Falls State Park, I noticed a series of four images that appeared to be meant for a panoramic photo. My life was pretty hectic a year ago so I probably forgot about these images until today.

Panoramic photo of Clifty Falls State Park Fall Foliage, Indiana

I use AutoPano panoramic stitching software to create my panoramics. Shooting pictures for panoramics requires a great deal of pre-visualization because you cannot see the final composition until you get home and stitch the individual frames together. I try to take the individual images with significant overlap so that I am not missing any details from the scene. This image here was taken at about 50mm focal length. Any wider angle than this would not be taking advantage of all the detail available in the scene. Another advantage to using a medium focal length is that it minimizes perspective distortion because it forces you to stand further back from the scene therefore "flattening" the perspective. AutoPano usually does an amazing job with the panoramics with the exception of moving objects such as boats and people. I also woudln't recommend using a polarizer for panoramic images that have a blue sky.

I've read that some photographers like using tilt and shift lenses for panoramics because shifting the lens allows you to create the images without having the move the camera. That makes sense because when you are forced to move the camera you still have to keep the horizon perfectly even in relation to the other images. However, spending over $1,000 for that specialty lens isn't too appealing unless you plan on using it for other things. A panoramic tripod head is another effective way to create images for panoramics but the least convenient option in my opinion because you'd either have to pack two tripods or keep swapping heads on your tripod everytime you need a panoramic.

To see more panoramic pictures, see my web gallery.