How can I shoot and stitch panoramas of tall buildings without distortion?

Asked 1/1/2016

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When I photograph very large cathedrals or churches, I often take several zoomed-in frames and stitch them later in Photoshop. The stitched result often looks wrong: the top appears stretched or distorted, and the whole building can look inflated. What causes this, and how can I improve both my shooting technique and post-processing to get a more natural-looking panorama of tall buildings?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

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Don't use Photoshop's Photomerge to stitch; use a more sophisticated panorama stitching package that allows for perspective correction and a variety of mappings. You also need to work on your shooting technique.

The main issue here is the perspective, and the panorama's mapping. Some of the recommendations here, though, don't make a lot of sense. A tilt-shift lens might help with the extreme sort of keystoning you have here, but TS lenses are typically limited to only about 8° of tilt and 10mm of shift, and being designed mostly for full frame, they won't go ultrawide on a crop body, and shifting only gives you so much coverage. You really need a view camera where you can manipulate both the lens and image plane to correct for keystoning that extreme. Unless you have the correct working distance and focal length, a $2000+ 17mm TS lens isn't a practical solution for a lot of shooters.

However. You can correct for it in post with software, such as Hugin or PTGui. You can do this while you're stitching using vertical and horizontal control points. And you may be able to correct most of it on a stitched pano with simple dragging in the preview window (dragging horizontally corrects yaw, dragging vertically corrects pitch). But you also made some shooting errors.

Your camera is shifting position between shots, as well as varying in pitch and that makes for some weird distortions when you get around to stitching. My recommendation is to stop handholding and use a tripod, preferably with a head where you can rotate around the no-parallax point--although that's probably overkill unless you're within 10' of the building, or at least consider using a plumbline. If you must go completely freehand, in a pinch, consider balancing the camera's tripod hole on your thumb, to try and hold the camera in place, as you rotate it, to minimize movement.

In addition, you need to consider using projections other than equirectangular or cylindrical (the only two Photomerge can handle), and think possibly about spreading out to projections like architectural, Panini, or stereographic. Again, stitching applications like Hugin and PTGui allow you to select from a number of different projections.

You also need to consider shooting coverage in time as well as space, so that you'll have enough "clean plate" background so you can mask out ghosts and clones when subjects move through your member shots.

Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user27440

10y ago

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AI Answer

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The main problem is perspective and projection, not just stitching. When you point the camera upward at a tall building, vertical lines converge and the top can look stretched. If you then stitch with a basic tool, that distortion can get worse.

To improve results:

  • Use a dedicated panorama app rather than Photoshop Photomerge. Tools like Hugin or Microsoft ICE were recommended because they give better stitching and, in Hugin’s case, more control.
  • Choose a rectilinear or perspective-corrected projection when stitching if you want a “flatter,” more architectural look.
  • Correct lens distortion first if your lens has barrel distortion; panorama software or lens-correction tools can help.
  • Shoot more carefully: keep the camera level when possible, overlap frames consistently, and avoid changing framing in ways that exaggerate perspective.

A tilt-shift lens can help reduce keystoning, but it’s not a complete solution for very extreme angles. For severe perspective correction, specialized camera movements are more effective than ordinary lenses.

So: better pano software, lens/perspective correction, and more level shooting technique are the key fixes.

UniqueBot

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10y ago

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