Panorama advice

[andrei1989]

Hello,

I will be spending a night on a nearby mountain peak and i have an idea of a photo i want to make: a ~250° panorama which will include sunrise, sunset and night sky in between.

I searched online and could only find timelapses but not any panoramas..have any of you done something like this?

for the more experienced panorama creators around here: do you have any advice on what to take care of when taking the photos for this? its not my first pano but this one is, i think, a bit tricky...

also..i would need some photoshop help/tutorials for the final image...

thanks

 

[Deleted member 378664]

Hi,

I never have done a Panorama with this kind of tricky light situation.
I would recommend to take the panoramashots 3 times (1 x during sunset, 1 x during night sky, 1 x during sunrise) and each of the panoramas in HDR.
Which focal length do you plan to use? 250° is a big range especially with a long focal length and even more so when you plan to take a multiple row panorama. During sunset and sunrise you have to be quick to avoid too big differences in lighting.
Maybe it is a good idea to begin your shots at the right end of the panorama FOV and end with the left end for mastering the differences in light.

The final touch would then be to blend the three HDR panoramas in Photoshop.

kind regards
Frank

 

[andrei1989]

I would recommend to take the panoramashots 3 times (1 x during sunset, 1 x during night sky, 1 x during sunrise) and each of the panoramas in HDR.

Taking one panorama for each moment was also my idea..
HDR is an interesting suggestion though, i will consider it

Which focal length do you plan to use? 250° is a big range especially with a long focal length and even more so when you plan to take a multiple row panorama. During sunset and sunrise you have to be quick to avoid too big differences in lighting.
Maybe it is a good idea to begin your shots at the right end of the panorama FOV and end with the left end for mastering the differences in light.

i will decide on focal length on the spot when i get there, from what i remember about the location (i've been there a few years ago) i think the FL range would be 24-35mm on a crop camera, but it's not fixed

i will however take only 1 row of photos, as lighting will change a lot during the shots

i plan to have about 30-40mins before sunset to experiment, then between sunset and moonrise i have ~2.5h and for sunrise..well..as long as that lasts, but i should have everything figured out by then

also the perseid meteor shower will be on the same night, so no sleep for me

 

[Mikehit]

is this the sort of thing you want?

http://www.camerastupid.com/how-to-make-a-time-slice/

https://500px.com/photo/98888235/360-panorama-time-slice-of-the-bank-of-the-westminster-bridge-by-yifan-chen

If so, I have seen them referred to as 'time slice'. I have never done it myself but if you search that term you may be able to find 'how to' somewhere

 

[andrei1989]

yes, something like this, but in my head i have only 3 slices merging together without those weird lines..

 

[Mikehit]

yes, something like this, but in my head i have only 3 slices merging together without those weird lines..

Those lines will be got rid of in post processing. There is no way you can achieve seamless sky colour in camera. The 500px image is probably what you are after by the sounds of it.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I've done a few like this, here's one example:



I started with two panorama shots of Boston, from the north bank of the Charles River by the MIT campus. They were taken from the exact same spot, one at night and one during the following day. Each was a 10-shot pano at 70mm in portriat orientation (1D X, 24-70L II), although I cropped them to ~7 shots worth for this, so I could pick ends where the buildings lined up nicely. There were a few boats floating in the foreground, and I cloned those out (including the masts among the buildings). Then I converted both night and day panos into tiny planets, cleaned up the seams, pasted the day planet over the night planet, and applied a gradient layer mask.

Below are the two assembled panos. For a regular linear pano, you could just layer your three panos in Photoshop, then blend them with gradient layer masks.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The above shots were taken in late fall. I subsequently went back to the same location (which is near where I work) in a winter snowstorm, and then half a year later on a summer day. I wasn't terribly happy with the resulting merged/blended 3-scene pano, mainly because of the big difference in the water between summer and fall. But here are the two additional panos and the merged scene.

Good luck with your shot!

 

[Labdoc]

Hey Neuro, use transform tool to planetize the pano's?
OP, looks like a cool project. I do a lot of HDR pano's, thanks for all the ideas.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Hey Neuro, use transform tool to planetize the pano's?

Typical tiny planet is take the pano, make it square (resize with constrain proportions unchecked), rotate it 180°, use Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates to make it a planet, then clean up the join.

Note that you don't have to use a pano, you can crop a single image. Also, if you omit the 180° step, you get an 'inside out' planet. For example, I took a shot from a trip to DC, planetized it without the rotation, fabricated a star field and added a moon (desaturated from my Blood Moon shot).

 

[andrei1989]

Thanks neuro that's exactly what i want to do ass well, except the planet thing...not a big fan unless the pano is exactly 360°..

Also, great summary on the procedure

 

[bholliman]

Very cool images Neuro! I especially like the Boston cityscape. I'll have to try this technique.

 

[stevelee]

My deck:

 

[mnclayshooter]

is this the sort of thing you want?

http://www.camerastupid.com/how-to-make-a-time-slice/

https://500px.com/photo/98888235/360-panorama-time-slice-of-the-bank-of-the-westminster-bridge-by-yifan-chen

If so, I have seen them referred to as 'time slice'. I have never done it myself but if you search that term you may be able to find 'how to' somewhere

I had the same thought - I couldn't recall the vernacular term for it. As I hit google image search for time slice, it confirmed that's what I was also remembering.


https://www.google.com/search?q=time+slice+photography&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFy6nvh9DVAhUB4oMKHWdhAw8QsAQILg&biw=1680&bih=960#imgrc=tVCm8uF5GcTqHM:

 

[andrei1989]

unfortunately the weather wasn't ass good as i would have wanted this weekend with a thick cloud covering the sunset on both friday and saturday nights... pity...i would have liked to get the night panorama with some meteors in it..

i will try again the coming weekend and will take advantage of the new moon and milky way visibility..

 

[neuroanatomist]

That's unfortunate, but good luck next weekend!