In the distant past, I had played around a bit with the Panoramic tool in Photoshop Elements. It was kind of neat as long as everything lined up properly and was shot at the same aperture/speed combination, etc. More recently, starting around October, I became more interested in pulling together panoramics from more diverse sources (e.g. from my P&S Olympus running in program mode).

Consider this: A traditional panoramic photo permits a sweeping view of a landscape, seascape, or cityscape. However, a series of lateral and vertical narrow-angle overlapping shots could be assembled to create an image with a large depth of detail approaching a traditional medium or large format photograph.

This discussion will lead through my exploration of techniques and software from then through today.

A friend of mine from work, Pierre, introduced me to the work of the gifted photographer Arnaud Frisch (Website is here) and lent me his copy of the book “La photographie panoramique” which I struggled through with my high-school French. I was highly impressed with the book and am pleased to hear that it is now available in English. There are lots of great examples of his work on the site, especially in his photo gallery area (Gallery). I would like to point out a few really neat photos of his:

Vault in Senlis Cathedral

Nave of Bourges Cathedral

Panorama of Paris and La Défense

Needless to say, M. Frisch is a master of the art of panoramic photography! His book raises the bar considerably and delves into seriously technical details such as determining the true optical center of one’s lenses and the best apertures for shooting without introducing distortion, etc.

Photoshop Panorama Tool: The Early Days

It is time to go back to the beginning. I started digital photography in 2002 and was introduced to the panoramic tool in Adobe Photoshop Elements early on. As I stated earlier, I experimented with it but never used it in any way that could be deemed “serious” prior to this year. Even in my experiments, I discovered that it was very touchy on what it could do with stitching. Needless to say, when I really needed its capabilities as a naive neophyte, it started to show its ragged edges!

It all started with some simple panoramas which I shot along the Blue Ridge Parkway on October 24, 2009. At that time, I did not know enough to use manual metering across the scene to set a compromise exposure. The scenes before me were well within the capabilities of standard Program mode of my Nikon D100 so I shot series of overlapping shots, five images in one case and three in the other. The first series had been shot with my 35mm Nikkor lens and the second with my ultrawide 14mm Sigma EX. In post-processing, my woes began.

Photoshop either could not stitch all the photos together without considerable manual work or, in the case of the sequence shot with the 14mm, the distortions of the lens created a scenario in which I had to do a considerable amount of editing (clone stamping, blending, smudging, etc.)! Finally, I was able to produce something that looked reasonable and these are posted here and here. The latter of these was the one that took the most work to gel and if you look at the largest image available (if you have a Flickr login), you might catch some of the grunge work at the junction of the second and third images on the right 1/3 of the photo.

I ran into real problems with this application when I attempted to stitch a nighttime panorama of Charlotte, NC later on. This was a tough photo sequence to shoot, but by then I had the sense to take images at the same compromise, manual exposure which made life easier. The shooting was done through an office window at the corner of a building so there was a point at which I had to change sides on a supporting column which changed perspective just a tad. All in all, Photoshop threw up its hands in disgust and left the room!

What to to then? After researching on the net a bit, I discovered a great tool….

Autostitch! Its Powerful and its Free!

Since I was staying in Charlotte for a few nights, I wanted to get the most out of the experience. I did not want to throw away any of the work that I had expended in producing any panoramas. I downloaded the free version of Autostitch and threw it at the sequence that Photoshop had rejected earlier and it worked! I was able to take the resulting image back into Photoshop to perform post-processing and was able to produce a pretty decent image which you can examine here.

Empowered with this, I shot another night panoramic (with full manual settings and my 35mm lens) a few nights later and processed it with Autostitch. This time, I had to play with memory settings which was a little inconvenient, but for a free product, who is complaining? Once again, it provided me a reasonable image which I could then process with Photoshop. See the results for yourself here.

I then threw a real challenge at Autostitch. I happened to see an interesting scene with rain and descending mist over one of the Charlotte Uptown parks. All I had was my Olympus point-and-shoot. I decided to “guess” at a series of stacked exposures (side by side and stacked one over the other) to capture as wide a scene as possible. The camera, of course, shot in program mode so each exposure was different.

Again, Autostitch came through pretty well once I had tweaked its memory settings. The image is downright impressive considering all the difficulties that the program had to work through (lens distortions, the fact I shot through glass, differing exposures, etc)! The resulting image, following post-processing in Photoshop, is here. The only really frustrating problem is that of memory for large multi-image shots.

The Autostitch website indicates several packages that have licensed their technology. It was from this jumping-off point that I headed towards my latest acquisition….

Autopano Pro 2

I am now dedicated to the original proposition I made concerning panoramic photos. Not only should they be handled in their traditional sense, but they could also permit what I will call “Additive Detail” which allows one to use a more normal lens and take a group of “slices” of a scene to assemble a very detailed final image. Since I have, obviously, been influenced by Arnaud Frisch, I want to capture some similar images from this area. One of these prime locations on my radar is Duke Chapel in Durham, NC. I have a request pending with them to gain access to do a series of photo sequences.

In preparation for this, I decided to try the technique out at my home church, Burlington Assembly of God. The staff graciously gave me permission to come in one day and capture all the photos that I cared to within their sanctuary. I did two sequences, each with about 14-20 shots. Needless to say, these immediately decimated Autostitch. I purchased Autopano Pro and threw it at the images. It did a fantastic job of stitching the two sequences together, then, unlike Photoshop or Autostitch, it provided me with tools to change perspective, line up verticals, and set my exact viewpoint. All around, it is a really good package!

The results of this “maiden voyage” through the turbulent seas of stitching panoramas with Autopano can be seen here and here. This amazing program did not once complain about memory during the rendering of these images! The output images could then be post-processed in Photoshop normally.

Another really good test came early this week. A friend of mine works at a local airport and he informed me that there was a WWII vintage T-28 Trojan parked on the tarmac while it received routine maintenance. I was able to go by and visit on a beautiful foggy day. I snapped a number of photos of it with my Olympus point-and-shoot. The only problem with this camera is that its wide angle is never as wide as I would want it to be! When I wanted to shoot photos of the underwing area, the picture field was way too limited to capture “interesting” detail. I just started shooting a handheld sequence of photos covering a part of the underwing area and just hoped I could stitch them together.

The results were amazing. Autopano pulled everything together perfectly and produced a stellar image. The level of detail is incredible as you can see for yourself here. My ultimate goal for using panoramic shooting has been realized!

Lessons Learned and Still Being Learned

At this point, I have accumulated some good programs for working with digital images. Photoshop is well designed for its specific tasks and Autopano Pro seems to be the perfect tool for assembling complex panoramic images. Now my journey will need to become more technical. I need to research the plethora of panoramic heads and determine if they are worth the money for my usage. I need to purchase M. Frisch’s book and study it at length and I need to practice more and more with both the photographic technique and the application of the tools to the product of these endeavors. Stay tuned….

Cette phrase est de plus en plus récurrente quand on a envie d’écouter du bon son !

Vous l’avez deviné, il s’agit bien du Social Club. Celui qui a ouvert ses portes le 16 janvier 2008 et qui connait un vif succès depuis la soirée de son inauguration.

Alors vous allez me demander : “mais où il est ce club ?” 142 boulevard Montmartre à Paris (l’adresse du Triptyque, célèbre club qui a rendu l’âme, de ses cendres est né le “Social”, ndlr).

Le club fait dans le “gros”, oubliez les boîtes où tous les soirs on a droit au même DJ résident qui passe les titres commerciaux à la chaîne.

La sélection musicale est un vrai melting-pot de musiques électroniques, avec des artistes tels que :
2 MANY DJ’S, SEBASTIaN, BIRDY NAM NAM, FELIX DA HOUSECAT, THE HACKER, CRYSTAL CASTLES, TEENAGE BAD GIRL, ETIENNE DE CRECY, BRODINSKI, BUSY P, DJ PONE, ELISA DO BRASIL, et ça continue…

Quant à la déco, on rejoint un peu l’esprit “daft”, des néons partout, des lignes et des formes géométriques… Ca plaît ou pas, mais c’est réussi.

En ce qui concerne les propriétaires, ils ne sont pas complètement inconnus au bataillon : Arnaud FRISCH et Antoine CAUDRON nous avaient déjà fait rêver à la Techno Parade, aux Festivals Astropolis et au Cabaret.

La seule chose qu’on pourrait éventuellement reprocher à ce nouveau club concerne les prix : il faut compter entre 10€ et 20€ par soirée. Fini le temps du samedi soir gratuit au Triptyque.

Myspace du Social Club : www.myspace.com/parissocialclub