I finally upgraded my copy of nik Color Efex Pro.1 It has this new feature called “u-point” which allows you to do zone system tone masking a lot like LightZone. This means I can finally edit without masks. The other advantage is it finally works again on the Mac version of Photoshop. 
So I re-stitched an old panoramic of mine and then imported it into Photoshop to try out updated versions of my old nik filters as well as a new one.
Santa Cruz beaches, Santa Cruz, California
Olympus C-2500L
(8 images, 1/250-1/1300 sec) @ f/5.6, iso 100, 9.2mm (36mm)
Please view large on black.
[nik professional filters and panoramic photography after the jump]
The filterz
For the curious, I used:
- a light blue Graduated Color Filter: to bring back the color in the sky;
- a Neutral Density version: to bring open up the foreground—if I had Vivenza, this wouldn’t be necessary and unfortunately the graduated color version is missing this feature;
- Contrast Color Range: to bring some color contrast back to the rocks—this filter is like a color version of using color filters for black and white film; and
- the new Film Efects to compare it with DxO FilmPack—verdict: it’s easier to test and compare samples, but the film effects concentrate mostly on just color and contrast, in the future, I’ll abort on using the contrast color range filter, and use this instead.
Editing mistakes
There is a lack of dynamic range in the shadows which created a lot of color noise on the water reflections. I should have used NeatImage before stitching.
The autopano-sift code, while doing a good job, messed up the enblend on the ocean. I had to blend it back in. Unfortunately there is a contrast mismatch there which the post processing really brought out.
Easy panoramic photography
By the way, it is very easy to take this sort of panoramic photograph yourself with almost any camera. (This one was shot with a ten year old 2.5 megapixel camera whose “wide angle” is not as wide as your typical digital pocket camera!)
The key is to zoom all the way out, use program/automatic mode (for autoexposure), frame the camera vertically in portrait mode(!) and ensure a 1/2 frame overlap between successive images. As you shoot closer to the sun, put even more overlap (2/3 of a frame). You can even shoot it handheld like this one was done.
Notice that the wide angle is perpendicular to the panorama. Also notice the huge barrel distortion in the image which was corrected for by Olympus’s software. Distortion on your typical Canon SD series pocket camera is much less than this camera and, what little there is, is corrected for automatically with the right settings in Panorama Tools-derived software.
This turned a 2.5 megapixel camera into something that can generate a 7.4 megapixel image.
More advanced panoramic photography
For more advanced stuff, you can preset the white balance, use a tripod mount with parallax correction adapter, and shoot bracketed exposures.
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, Oregon
Nikon D70, Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G
12 exposures (.8 sec – 3 sec) @ f/22, iso 800, 12mm (18mm)
With the right equipment, you won’t have merge issues in the foreground, can shoot extremely wide angles (believe it or not, you can walk under the waterfall you see in the image), and have no trouble handling 10 stops of dynamic range to make a 25 megapixel image.
Please view large on black.
Software for stitching
As I mentioned before, I use PTMac. There are various panoramic stitching programs that do a great job, but be sure to get one based on the open-source Panoramic Tools code. I recommend the freeware Hugin. Don’t trust the one that comes with Photoshop.
Have fun taking panoramas!
