Steven Bourelle Digital Arts

This image was made when I still lived in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. I happened to see this sunset in the side mirror of my truck while I was driving. Luckily I had my camera with me, so I made a quick u-turn and sped to an area to photograph it. I had shot a lot of pictures of the sunset when I realized that this would make an awesome panoramic picture. I fired off the three shots that make up this image just before the colors began to fade. Two minutes later, the sunset was over.

I try to always keep the possibility of a pano in mind when I’m out shooting. Many times I’m so caught up in the moment that I forget about panos, that’s what almost happened in this image. Other times, I’ll see the scene and know right away that I’m shooting a pano, (The header image for this site is an example) .

When I shoot a pano, I like to keep the picture count down. I try to make the pano with less than 5 pictures. I feel 3 or 4 are the perfect number. The main reason for this, I don’t care for long, skinny panos. I like my images to have some width to them. 3-4 pictures creates a nice width to the pano.

It’s important to remember to overlap each picture and try to keep the horizon as level as possible. I actually find it easier to keep the horizon level if I hand hold the camera while shooting panos. Of course if your shooting at slow shutter speeds, this is impossible, so make sure your tripod is very level.

I use the free program AutoStitch to stitch together my panos. It does an amazing job of aligning the images and matching the colors and contrast. Of all the pano programs I’ve used, and there have been many, AutoStitch is the simplest and best. Unfortunately it’s only for Windows, sorry Mac folks. There is a program for Macs called AutoPano Pro, and it uses the AutoStich engine

So, the next time your out shooting, remember the panoramic image. Some amazing images can be made by combining a few pictures together.

1 Comment »