The panoramic photography it is both admired and avoided. It’s funny, I know that many people don’t try it thinking that it is very difficult and… nothing could be further from the truth! Today I’m going to show you. There are different ways to pan and achieve amazing results. Some of them so easy that you would not believe it. The level of difficulty only depends on how much you want to complicate yourself.
In today’s guide I will show you the different possibilities when it comes to getting panoramic photos, the necessary equipment, how to do them step by step, some tricks to achieve the best panoramas and the necessary programs to join all the photos. You can not lose this!
- What is panoramic photography?
- Why take a panoramic photo?
- Ways to get a panoramic photo
- Necessary equipment to take a panoramic photograph
- Ideal situations for panoramas
- The parallax error, the most common in panoramas
- The 3 keys to excellent panoramic photography
- How to make a panorama step by step?
- How to join the photographs for a panorama?
- How to make a panorama in Lightroom step by step
- How to Pan in Photoshop Step by Step
- Tips and tricks for stunning panoramic photography
- Tricks to make panoramas without a tripod
- panoramas and creativity
- How to make panoramic photography “easy”?
What is panoramic photography?
Panoramic photos are, as the name implies, photos that allow you to appreciate a larger portion of a scene than a normal photo. The secret of this type of photos is the proportion of their framing, since it allows the observer to be transmitted the sensation of immensity, in a very efficient way and almost impossible to achieve using other frames.
Achieving this type of photography is relatively simple, although like any technique, it has its secrets. Next, I will name some of them and how you can get the most out of them.
Panoramic of mountains of rice fields
Why take a panoramic photo?
Of course, in photography everyone can do what they want, it would be missing more. Even so, I am going to give you some reasons to encourage you to make panoramas:
- You can get it with any camera. You do not need any special equipment, you will check it throughout this article.
- Allows different aspect ratios. It is an open format. While the 16:9 aspect ratio is the most popular, you can also use other aspect ratios like 21:9, 12:5. The most common or popular are 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1. The most characteristic thing is that its longest edge is twice that of the shortest edge.
- Tribute to cinema and its 16:9 ratio. The square format so fashionable by IG has its one and immerses us in nostalgia, but… what about the nostalgia of cinema?
- It is ideal to decorate your house. Surely some corner of your house is waiting for a photograph of you and… what better than a spectacular panoramic view? A headboard, a corridor, the wall behind a sofa, the back of a desk… are perfect places for the panoramic format. Here are some ideas for printing your photos.
Ways to get a panoramic photo
Panoramic photography is not a new type of photography but, as you will discover in the article dedicated to framing in photographs, it is just one of the many formats that you have available when making your compositions and that the cinema and the screens offer us. they are used to.
Thanks to their “elongated” proportions, that is, the width of the photographs is much greater than their height, panoramas are very pleasing to the human eye and allow a much larger scene to be shown than other types of format. But how to achieve such proportions?
You can achieve this type of framing using two totally different techniques.
Panoramic photos from a single shot
This type of panorama is achieved by cropping a photograph of “normal” proportions so that the width is much greater than the height (or the other way around if it is a vertical panorama).
You can use any program to crop the photo. You will find the Crop tool even in the simplest editing programs.
To obtain the best results, it is essential that you are very clear about the result you want to achieve in the final photograph. Why? Because reframing a photo of normal proportions to transform it into a panorama will require you to compose the photo in a different way. That is, you must leave enough space to be able to make the cut later.
cropped panorama
Let’s see an example of how to do the cropping or reframing in Befunky which is a free online program.
- Select the Crop tool (see right icon).
- Determines free proportion (or panoramic if any).
- Set where you want to cut and save or download.
Step 2 Step 3
Panoramic photography from different captures
This technique or method is called stitching. It consists of taking a sequence of images and, once made, joining them using a program (or function within your camera if it allows it) to achieve a great panoramic photograph.
Sequence of images to assemble the panorama Assembled panorama without editing Edited panorama
The main difference between these two methods is the final quality. Although both achieve the same feeling of space and spaciousness, the panorama that results from stitching multiple images together will have a much higher resolution and quality than one that is simply cropped.
Another difference is that sometimes a simple crop does not allow you to cover the entire scene you want, either because you cannot get far enough away or because you do not have a wide angle lens that allows it. In that case the only solution is the method of joining several photographs.
In short, depending on what you want your photography for and what you expect from it, you will have to decide which method is more worthwhile.
Necessary equipment to take panoramic photos
Next I will tell you about the equipment necessary to make a panorama, although this will depend on the result you want to obtain, of course.
- The camera: To take this type of photography it is not necessary that you have the most advanced camera on the market, far from it. With almost any camera, be it SLR, EVIL or compact, you will be able to make excellent panoramas. Even with the camera of your mobile phone, as you will see later, you will be able to obtain excellent results. Of course, the better the equipment, the better the final quality of the photograph. This is not to say that quality is everything. It is not always necessary so much level of demand. Everything will depend on the final destination, the size at which you are going to print it and how far you want to go.
- The objective: avoid distorting targets. A wide-angle produces optical distortions (almost similar to those of a fisheye) that will make it difficult for you to line up the shots with each other. On the other hand, you also don’t want to use a telephoto lens because you will get extremely small frames. The ideal, therefore, would be to shoot with a standard focal length, between 35 and 50mm. Have you lost between angles and focal lengths? In the following article we will tell you everything about the focal length of your lens and how it affects your photographs.
Panorama made with 47.0mm focal length and ƒ/11.0 1/200s
- Tripod: stability at the time of taking the different shots is important, so having a good tripod will be very helpful, although it is not essential. In addition, using a tripod will allow you to correct one of the worst enemies of panoramic photography, which is nothing less than “the parallax error”. Don’t you know him yet? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you about it later and I’ll tell you what to do to avoid it. If possible, use a tripod with a ruler or nodal point similar to this one or a ball head. On the one hand, you will have stability and you will avoid blurry or moved photos. On the other hand, a ball-and-socket tripod will allow you to calmly and smoothly rotate the camera in the desired direction. Now, to make pro-level panoramas, that is, with professional results, the ideal is a panoramic head. By the way, if you are thinking of buying a tripod, do not miss this guide with tips and recommendations to find the best tripod for you.
Ideal situations for panoramas
Of course, you can take a panoramic photo almost anywhere, but beware, not all places are ideal to obtain a good result. If you browse a bit on the Internet, you will see that the vast majority of panoramas are landscape photographs (natural or urban).
And it is that, taking panoramic photographs in situations where there are a large number of subjects or objects moving in front of the lens will not only make the task difficult, but the results will be quite imperfect. Below I show you an example of the disaster that can come out.
Also keep in mind that the panoramic format is already the protagonist in itself, but once you master the technique you will be able to break the rules and revolutionize your panoramic photographs.
The parallax error, the most common in panoramas
As we have said, taking a panoramic photograph can be easy, but it has its tricks that you should know. It is not enough that you take several shots with your camera and then join them on the computer. If you do it this way, you will be inviting to the party one of the worst enemies of panoramic photography: “the parallax error”.
And what does the parallax error? Pay attention to the following pictures:
Parallax error
In the image above you will notice that as the different photographs are taken, if you do not keep the optical center of your camera fixed, significant distortions can occur that affect the continuity and, therefore, the final attractiveness of your panoramic photograph. The camera varies its position with respect to each shot, changing the perspective and generating distortions that you can easily fix using a tripod (or some little trick that I’ll tell you about shortly).
How to fix parallax error
As you can see in this second image, by rotating the image around its optical center, you not only respect the perspective but also guarantee the continuity of the shot throughout its entire path.
The optical center of your lens, also known as nodal pointit must remain as fixed as possible and for this you can resort to:
- Tripod with panoramic head or with a ruler (which you can do at home).
- Use the tricks that I leave you almost at the end of the article to shoot without a tripod.
The 3 keys to excellent panoramic photography
There are three key aspects when making a panorama:
- The…