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A complicated landscape question

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SandShark said:
I've not tried either software, but you might take a look at Helicon
Focus or CombineZM for image stacking. I believe these software are
used mostly for macro photography, but you should be able to use them
with landscape, too.
Click to expand...
  • In principle you are right, but in practice it is not very feasible (I tried: see
http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Week/slides/J_%20 (1).html

) not only because of movement (wind), but also because when an extreme wideangle lens is focused at different distances from the same point of view it "warps" the field of focus in a different way, visually displacing objects from one shot to the other. Not exactly easy to superimpose.

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/
 
I get good landscape corners with my 5D and 17-40mm f/4 L shot at small apertures such as f/11 and f/16.

Of course, you have two issues going in your sample shot. One is, indeed, corner sharpness. It really does look bad. That problem simply would not occur with the setup I use or similar.

But there is another issue as well. Your shot includes extremely close subjects along with much more distant subjects. While a UWA lens will give you tremendous depth of field, there are some things that even ultra wide at small apertures can't do. (Though I would risk a tiny amount of diffraction and try it at f/22 if I were in your shoes.)

Not sure it would solve it in the example photo, at least in the way you composed it, but another way to deal with the need sharp focus across very different distances is to look at a tilt/shift lens. (They have their own issues, and work best when the very close and very objects are at opposite edges of the frame.)

There is also some software that some folks use. I think it is called "Helicon Focus" or something similar. (I'm virtually certain that the work helicon is in there.) You make several exposures at different focus points (essentially "focus bracketing") and the software attempts to combine them into one sharp image.

Dan
MICHAEL_61 said:
I would like to describe my problem in the hope that somebody went
through this before me and would be able to suggest a solution. How
do you do a wideangle land/cityscape WITH SHARP DETAIL CLOSE TO THE
LENS (sorry, not shouting, just emphasizing) - with good sharpness
and detail all over?
1) Good quality wideangle in the range of 20mm is not wide enough;
2) Fisheye is not orthogonal;
3) Extreme wideangle produces disgusting out-of-focus corners in this
situation, at any aperture:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Landscape/slides/LIDSKI_LANDSCAPE%20 (75).html

4) Panorama stitching - is it the ONLY solution? Couldn't very well
work for the sample posted above, now, could it?

Have you got an answer?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/
Click to expand...
--
---
G Dan Mitchell
SF Bay Area
http://www.gdanmitchell.com/
 
No, you missed his point. FOCUS on a point 3 meters (or perhaps less, I'll agree) so that a large DOF will give reasonable focus on objects that are both CLOSER and FARTHER than that distance from the camera. If you are trying to get everything inside your DOF range, you can't focus on the closest objects any more than you can focus on the farthest.

Well, you can. But it won't look good.

Dan
MICHAEL_61 said:
renato said:
3. use a foreground for a focus point, let it be about 3 meters away
Click to expand...
  • You missed my point: I want to be much closer than that.
http://lordofthelens.co.nz/
Click to expand...
--
---
G Dan Mitchell
SF Bay Area
http://www.gdanmitchell.com/
 
MICHAEL_61 said:
  • I don't mind distortion as such, just want the straight lines to
remain straight. I DO mind horrible ugly disgusting blurry streaking
that ALL extreme wideangle lenses seem to produce in the
abovementioned situation.
Click to expand...
If blurriness is your gripe, what you need is a better lens. The Nikon lens I posted earlier is reputed to be one of the best. I've ordered the adapter and intend to try one out when the adapter gets here.

Another option you may not have considered is to use mirrors instead of lenses to get what you want. On that note, does anyone know of a good source for high quality front surface convex mirrors? It used to be the case that I'd pull out my Edmund Scientific catalog, but I haven't had one in years.
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 
I wouldn't go wide angle at all with this. I'd use a 50mm Macro prime lens. Very low distortion, you can get very close. You'll want as much depth of field as possible, between f16-f22. I shoot stuff like this all the time, with a macro you can get as close at 6 inches to the flowers. Instead of stitching, take multiple exposures and bracket the DOF instead, blend them together and you have it in focus front to back. There's even software out there that does this for you.
--
Visit me at

http://www.have-camera-will-travel.com
 
Either Im misunderstanding you or the potential answer can be an easy one using the right technique.

1- is the object up close atleast within the minimum focusing distance of the lens?
2- are you using a tripod?

3- how long was that exposure with the wild flowers up close, and are they blurred due to a slow shutter and wind blowing them arnd?

4- assuming all the above is on the money, have you tried focusing first for the foreground THEN for background? Or atleast pick a very small aperature.

5- lastly, stitching is the only real way to beat those distorted edges so using a thirds rule overlap appropriately then stitch'em up.

Gd luck!

--
Canon 1D
Canon i9900
http://www.pbase.com/fortisi876
 
MICHAEL_61 said:
SandShark said:
I've not tried either software, but you might take a look at Helicon
Focus or CombineZM for image stacking. I believe these software are
used mostly for macro photography, but you should be able to use them
with landscape, too.
Click to expand...
  • In principle you are right, but in practice it is not very feasible
(I tried: see

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Week/slides/J_%20 (1).html

) not only because of movement (wind), but also because when an
extreme wideangle lens is focused at different distances from the
same point of view it "warps" the field of focus in a different way,
visually displacing objects from one shot to the other. Not exactly
easy to superimpose.

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/
Click to expand...
Hey, I tried. I didn't expect they would work under all landscape conditions, especially if it's windy and causing things to move around or if you're photographing moving water. However, under some landscape conditions, you could have success. Of course, if you move the camera or change the focal length, I can't image any stacking or stitching program would do a good job. Corner sharpness or, should I say, lack of corner sharpness on wide-angle lenses has been around since film, so it's nothing new because of full-frame digital.

Steve

--
http://www.threepalmsphoto.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/threepalmsphoto/
 
flo67 said:
Either Im misunderstanding you or the potential answer can be an easy
one using the right technique.
Click to expand...
  • Let's see:
flo67 said:
1- is the object up close atleast within the minimum focusing
distance of the lens?
Click to expand...
  • Let's say within hyperfocal DOF.
flo67 said:
2- are you using a tripod?
Click to expand...
  • Of course. Although with a short shutter-speed it shouldn't really matter.
flo67 said:
3- how long was that exposure with the wild flowers up close, and are
they blurred due to a slow shutter and wind blowing them arnd?
Click to expand...
  • It's not really relevant to those flowers. I have many landscape shots of this type, in which rocks and stones look exactly as ugly as those flowers. I will post them if you wish.
flo67 said:
4- assuming all the above is on the money, have you tried focusing
first for the foreground THEN for background? Or atleast pick a very
small aperature.
Click to expand...
  • Tried all apertures including 1/32, focused both ways.
see, it really seems to depend on the distance. Sigma 12-24 is usually not a bad lens (same as or better than Canon 14mm, 16-35 II, or 17-40):

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Week/slides/J_%20 (4).html

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Landscape/slides/LIDSKI_LANDSCAPE%20 (8).html

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Landscape/slides/LIDSKI_LANDSCAPE%20 (59).html

BUT:

http://lordofthelens.smugmug.com/gallery/3036347_SUkP4#165030061

See what I mean?

I want to be able to get this angle of view:

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/JAlbum/Landscape/slides/LIDSKI_LANDSCAPE%20 (96).html

See?

http://lordofthelens.co.nz/
 
If you are making an image that contains action, or moving detail, then unless you don't mind cheesy, stitching is simply out. What you need is full frame and nothing longer than a 20mm. In the example you are showing here, wanting full background and foreground focus, using a tilt shift or camera with movements is not going to help you much.

So the only thing you can really do with any degree of quality is to use a lens in the 12-14mm range. The sigma on the 5D would work and I have heard from buddies that use it that it is quite sharp. The 14-24 I use on my D3 is pretty much the top of the UWA chart in terms of image quality and has tremendous amounts of inherent depth of field.

Basically, you are trying to defy the laws of optical limits. You need inherent depth of field, that way you can stay away from the diffraction limit of even a ultra wide.

I stitch here and there, but for really big landscapes, I simply use film in medium or larger format.
 
One possible solution is to shoot two shots with different focal points. The first is at the hyperfocal distance and the second is identical except focus is on the near object. In photoshop, clone the sharp parts of the near object into the shot focused on the hyperfocal distance. This works quite well if you shoot from a tripod or can shoot consecutive shots "without moving".
--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
 
MICHAEL_61 said:
  • Tried all apertures including 1/32, focused both ways.
see, it really seems to depend on the distance. Sigma 12-24 is
usually not a bad lens (same as or better than Canon 14mm, 16-35 II,
or 17-40):
Click to expand...
You are right. It depends on the distance. In theory with a 35mm lens, and a frame of 32 if you focus at 1.2 meters everything will be in focus from 0.6 m to infinity. But if you focus to 1.1 m the depth of field wil be reduced to 13 meters
 
MICHAEL_61 said:
I would like to describe my problem in the hope that somebody went
through this before me and would be able to suggest a solution. How
do you do a wideangle land/cityscape WITH SHARP DETAIL CLOSE TO THE
LENS (sorry, not shouting, just emphasizing) - with good sharpness
and detail all over?
1) Good quality wideangle in the range of 20mm is not wide enough;
2) Fisheye is not orthogonal;
3) Extreme wideangle produces disgusting out-of-focus corners in this
situation, at any aperture:
Click to expand...
I have a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II and I'm not 100% happy with it in terms of corner and edge sharpnes, but until I saw test images of the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 I thought this was the best that money could buy at 16mm and thereabout.

I use hyperfocal disctance for my focussing and determine that the entire focus is within the limits given by the calculation given a small COC. I also try to get quite (fairly) natural looking wa shots and not the more extreme you are looking for. A couple of examples of where I was pretty close to what is at the lower part of the picture:

Canon 5D, 16mm f/11, iso 200, 1/250s handheld (not cropped)



Canon 5D, 16mm, f/11, iso 100, 1/25s tripod (3 shots HDR merged and tone mapped with Photomaix)



I think the issue is to stay within dof as calculated and possibly even be conservative about that and know your lense well in terms of where to focus and how the sharpnes is laid out. Alternatively as suggested use software and/or t/s lenses.

Although I find the Canon 16-35 II pretty good, I'm not entirely happy and may go for a G-adapter and the Nikon 14-24 at some point, especially now that I have got a 1Ds mkiii. See this example with the new camera at 16mm, f/11, 1/100s, iso 250 handheld resized to the resolution of my screen and what simulates an A3+ print pretty well. See the sharpnes in the corners and along the edges are not perfect.



--
Kind regards,
Hans Kruse
http://www.hanskruse.com
http://www.hanskrusephotography.blogspot.com/
 
You need to set your focus to the hyperfocal distance for the lens/aperture you are using. At the hyperfocal distance, everything in the image from some distance (e.g. 10 feet) to infinity will be in focus. There are web sites that offer hyperfocal distance calculators. Figure the setting for your situation and then move the camera position such that the nearest object, like a rock, is at the nearest focus distance and fire away. The image will not look perfectly focussed in the viewfinder but the finished shot will have the desired effect. Also, some Canon cameras have an automatic setting called A-DEP allows you to move the AF points over the scene. Objects in the scene that cause the AF points to light up will be in focus. It is one of the program modes so you may not get the f stop or ISO you would if you shot manually but it is a quick way to get a lot of depth of field.
 
Just curious, are you using full-frame? Using my 5D, 24mm seems very wide to me.

BTW, I checked out your website. Great pictures. I am jealous.

Jim
http://www.pbase.com/jcassatt
 
MICHAEL_61 said:
Thank you, but how easy would it be to stitch moving objects, like
cars/people in the city or branches/leaves shaken by wind in
landscape?
Click to expand...
Easy? Not.

But not out of the realm of possibility.

Almost all of my stitch panoramic works have some moving objects in them. Water, trees, people, vehicles. I do a fair bit of hand-masking to attack each target in an effective and plausible way.

I'm currently in the middle of stitching 60 images I took at an intersection in Shibuya district of Tokyo, outside one of the busiest train stations in the country. Of course there wasn't a chance to ask several thousand people to just pause for a moment while I took a panoramic image!

--
[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ] http://www.halley.cc/pix/
 
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