**The Art of Stitching Panoramas: A Landscape Photographer's Approach**

As a landscape photographer, I have always been fascinated by the concept of stitching panoramas. The idea of combining multiple images to create a single, high-resolution image is both exciting and intimidating. In this article, I will share my approach to stitching panoramas, including how I shot the specific image you see before me.

**The Challenge of Shooting at the Right Time**

I remember telling you that I was shooting at a time when it would be best for capturing a particular image. However, in this instance, I chose a slightly different approach. While I wouldn't normally shoot during this time of day, I wanted to demonstrate how stitching can help overcome some of the challenges posed by less-than-ideal lighting conditions.

**The Stitching Process**

So, to explain my process, I shot six images that I then stitched together using Lightroom and Photoshop. The resulting panorama is a higher resolution image than what my camera could have captured alone. To achieve this, it's essential to get the shots right in the camera before stitching them together. This means finding the brightest area of the image and ensuring that you retain those highlights.

**Choosing the Right Algorithm**

When stitching panoramas, it's crucial to choose the correct algorithm for your specific shot. I used the "Perspective" algorithm because my camera was handheld, and I was moving it slightly over time. The Perspective algorithm takes into account the way the image is mapped out, ensuring that the stitching process produces a seamless result.

**Experimenting with Options**

Before merging the images, I experimented with different options to see which one worked best for me. I clicked on each of the algorithms (Spherical, Cylindrical, and Perspective) to preview how they would work for my specific shot. This allowed me to choose the correct algorithm and ensure that the stitching process produced the desired result.

**The Importance of Overlapping Images**

One critical aspect of stitching panoramas is getting sufficient overlap between images. If the images don't overlap enough, the algorithm won't be able to create a seamless stitch. To avoid this issue, I made sure to select all six images and then control-clicked them to open a panorama merge preview.

**Using the Right Camera**

While it's possible to shoot panoramas with a variety of cameras, some are better suited than others for this type of photography. In my case, I was using a Sony A7S, which has a relatively low megapixel count. This meant that I needed to be more selective about which images I chose and how I stitched them together.

**Stitching vs. Bracketing**

When it comes to shooting panoramas, there's an important distinction between stitching and bracketing. Stitching involves combining multiple images to create a single image, while bracketing involves taking multiple shots of the same scene at different exposures. While both techniques can produce excellent results, they require different approaches.

**Additional Tips for Landscape Photographers**

As landscape photographers, we have access to some amazing tools and techniques that can help us capture stunning images. Here are a few additional tips to keep in mind:

* **Use a camera with good low-light performance**: A camera with good low-light performance will make it easier to capture details in bright areas of the image.

* **Shoot at f/8**: This aperture setting helps to avoid aberration distortion and ensures that the image remains sharp throughout.

* **Have your camera at the base ISO**: This will help minimize noise and ensure that the resulting image has the best possible quality.

**Recommended Resources for Landscape Photographers**

If you're interested in learning more about landscape photography, I recommend checking out two YouTube channels: Ben Horne and Thomas Heaton. Both of these gentlemen are accomplished photographers who share their knowledge and expertise through vlogs, behind-the-scenes content, and tutorials. By following their channels, you'll gain valuable insights into the world of landscape photography.

**Conclusion**

Stitching panoramas is an exciting technique that can help us capture stunning images in a way that would be impossible with a single camera shot. By understanding how to shoot for optimal results, choose the correct algorithm, and experiment with different options, we can create truly breathtaking images. Whether you're a seasoned photographer or just starting out, I hope this article has provided you with some valuable insights into the world of stitching panoramas.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: engood morning everyone back in Dallasagain this morning I am here to do anexterior shot Museum is back over thereand we're going into a building up hereif this weather will hold out it'sawfully cloudyI have to say the parkingsituation downtown could be much improvedand less expensivethat ended up going really well it isovercast out here but it's notcompletely overcast and I actually thinkthis ended up working pretty well I wasconvinced we were gonna have to comeback out a second time and reshoot butwe got it of course that's up to the clientso I'm obsessed with the idea of lunchhere so got a kill a little time firstbut since we have a minute to kill I'll showyou where we are this is actually a parkthat is built over a freeway when I wasa kid growing up for years we referred tothis as the canyon because it all justwent underground well they built a parkup at the top and it's surrounded by theArts District on one side on the otherside you have hipster expensiveapartments there's like two restaurantsin here that are excellent lots ofmirrors here's the museum I worked infor seven years is it just me or dothese two sculptures look like bird sh…whole slew of food trucks and some morefood trucks that's the opera hall andbehind that is where I went to highschool you can sort of see the SymphonyCenter back there this new buildingwhatever that is is now in the waysculpture center Asian Art MuseumOh tough choice here or therewe're going to the Phoenixenchiladas checktime to head back to the fort you knowin the last vlog a lotof you complained about the highwayfootage and yeah it's a long drivebetween Dallas and Ft Worth but just for youguys we're gonna cut to the chase Iwon't do highway footage today mainlybecause I forgot the dashcam I need towork on that - I need to like pimp this carout so like when it gets a little coolerwe'll find a cooler set up for this butanyway let's go ahead and head back toFort Worth right nowno… waitoh, not yetthere we go so let's go in and see what we gotoh these guysI'm a construction magnatelike seriously it follows meeverywhereokay so essentially this is an urbanlandscape so my plan here was to end upwith a composite image that had themaximum depth resolution that I couldpossibly crank out of this and so what Idid was a series of images that arestitched together in Lightroom at theend and I'll show you how to do that ina second the lens I chose for this isthe Zeiss Loxia this is the f/2 35mmit is a Sony mount it isincredible and so essentially what I dois go through and just do a series ofthree or six images that are just sideby side that are going to be stitchedtogether in the end now the key to thisis making sure that your exposure isidentical on every one of these imagesso what you want to do if you want to dothis is go through and find thebrightest spot in your image andsometimes with landscapes you've got theSun in there you've got to find that andyou've got to expose for that and thenthat's the exposure you're going to usethroughout and I'll explain how we getinto this in Lightroom next thing you'regonna want to do I'm going to show youhow to do this in Lightroom is you'regonna want to actually apply any lenscorrection profiles that Lightroomoffers if that's a possibility there aresome cameras like Panasonic and Fuji forinstance that do it internally in-cameraand that's fine you can just use themstraight off the camera but if you'reusing something else like Canon Nikon Sonywhat you want to do is go in andmanually select those lens profiles andwhat that will do is it'll help you withthem in the vignetting and any distortions thatyou have and it'll make it easier forthe algorithm to stitch those togetherokay so we're in Lightroom now and Iwant to make a couple points about thisimage first of all as I said before thisis not the client image and the reasonI'm telling you that actually there aretwo reasons that it will get to butfirst of all this is shot the oppositedirection from the landscape that I wasactually shooting for the client theyasked me what my preference of time ofthe day was and it was kind of a favorthat was called into a business that hastwo floors in this high-rise on theother side and I said well we want toshoot it in the morning knowing wherethe sunrises and knowing where the building isand they said fine and so before I leftI did a couple shots so I could use thesame technique to illustrate to you guysin this video but it is shot in theopposite direction I was in a hurry andit was overexposed and you can tellbecause if you look in the sky hereyou're seeing some blown highlights so Ididn't have time to bracket this at thispoint because the priority unfortunatelywas not doing this video it was doingthe job for the client but I want toshow you at least the process but thepoint I want to make though is that eventhough this was overexposeda lot of it was recoverable because ofthe settings that I chose to use so youcan see what I used over here this isactually the final stitched panorama itmakes a dmg file and this was onesixtieth of a second at f/8 at ISO 100and the Sun is right here over the Chasebuilding so but you could still see eventhough that it was somewhat backlit Iwas still able to recover a lot in thisimage and that is a key because thereare two things that you have controlover when you're shooting basically anurban landscape or any kind of landscapefor that matter the first one is ISO andISO as most of you guys probably know isa metaphor in the digital world for whatwe dealt with in film sensitivity and sotypically if you're gonna get the mostdetail the most information out of theimage that you possibly can you want toshoot at the cameras base ISO now thatmay be very conservative by today'sstandards because cameras are reallygood with higher gain settings or higherISO settings but anyway I shoot at thebase ISO and the other thing is Idefinitely wanted the lens at f/8 thatit's just it looks really good at f/8everything's sharp you could shoot atf/16 this lens doesn't have theaberration problems that some lenses dobut anyway f/8 was my choice so theshutter speed is all I'm left to dealwith and we're shooting into the Sun andif this were the shot that I were tryingto get this is not the time of the daythat I would have tried to get it whichwas in the morning so anyway with thatbeing said though this is the finalstitched image and you can see thatthere's a lot of detail even if i zoomin you can tell it retains a lot ofdetail and I wouldn't have chosen thistime of day like I said to shoot thisparticular image this is the oppositeway the way I was shooting but anywayjust to tell you how I did this so thisis basically a stitched panorama basedon six images that I took and so if yougo look at the original images here theyare so real exciting here but you candefinitely tell that I'm slightlyoverexposed with that sky blowing outbut when you do these you want to createenough of an overlap so that Lightroomor Photoshop or however you're stitchingthese the algorithm can tell what'strying to be stitched together and so itneeds information that is similar ineach image so if that makes sense sothey need to overlap slightly is mypoint if they definitely don't overlapit can't invent it the image that's notthere so you're gonna have a problem sowhat you basically do to do this is youselect all six images and you do control+mand it's going to bring up a panoramamerge preview now there are threechoices you have here in algorithms andthey are spherical cylindrical andperspective and these are based on howthe image is mapped out and so it couldbe very different if you're using adrone to go in a spherical patternanyway so you want to choose the correctone the correct one in this case becauseI'm simply just like hand holding thisand just moving the camera over is goingto be perspective of course if you clickon any one of these you can see apreview so you can always experimentwith it from there and then what youwant to do is just click merge and I'vealready done - I'll say cancel and it willgive you a DNG composite of those mergedsix images so what you end up with isvery much a higher resolution image thanyour camera and of course I'm using thesony a7s on this and so that's kind ofpart of my thinking on this if I had ahigher megapixel camera the original a7sis only 12 megapixels you know feelfree to go wild but in my case I havea lower megapixel count and I want areally high megapixel image in the endand so I could have gotten even higherthan this there are different ways youcould go about it but I really love thiswhole concept of working with composited imagesso that is essentially myapproach to landscape photography I am abig fan of stitching in this instancebecause what I want to do is be able toretain the maximum amount of detail thatI possibly can out of a single imageeven though it's six all stitchedtogether but it is a cool technique andif you want to try it yourself rememberit is really important to get thingsright in the camera before you do thestitching in post and when you're kindof going around you want to find thebrightest area of the image and makesure that you retain those highlightsand I know this was kind of a weirdexample because I was doing somethingfor a client and so that's where myattention was and then I wanted to havesomething to share with you guys so Ikind of flipped around the oppositedirection which was not ideal and Ididn't get the time to bracket itappropriately but you get my point themain things that you want to remember tohave your camera at the base ISO thatis really important because any gainthat you start to introduce will startto degrade the image quality somewhat ofcourse in the modern age this is alittle different than it was 10 yearsago the other thing you want to rememberis to have your aperture set at f/8 thiswill avoid anykind of aberration distortion and it'salso not too shallow so you won't haveany depth of field issues okay so oneother thing that I want to mention is Iam NOT Joe Landscape and don't claim tobe and I want to recommend you twochannels on YouTube that definitely arealthough I wouldn't call them JoeLandscape the first I want to mention issomebody that I've known online foryears his name is Ben Horne he has anamazing channel he doesbehind-the-scenes and vlogs he shootsfilm shoots eight-by-ten if you've neverseen an eight-by-ten negative orpositive you are missing out I've onlykept to Ben's channel in the showdescription make sure you check that outanother gentleman I would highlyrecommend is Thomas Heaton and if youhaven't seen Thomas he does a lot ofvlogging a lot of behind the scenes onhow he's getting the shot and he goes tosome really amazing locations both thosegentlemen are awesome check them out Iwill see you guys on Monday we havephoto assignments and this week is goingto be really good so until then I'llcatch you Monday later\n"