A 70 megapixel panorama from the X100

This image was created from 20 X100 photos and the fantastic PTGui panorama stitching software. Post-processing in Photoshop and then sent it through tone-mapping in Photomatix Pro to give the photo a little kick.

Here's the end result (downsampled, of course!):



The 70 megapixel image can be explored at the link below. I used KRPano, which allows you to pan and zoom to your hearts content down to 100%.

http://t.co/ggx9RGRK

Enjoy!

Wow. Just...wow, sir.

Thank you for sharing. I was on 26th and 8th Ave that day, 10 years ago...so thanks for taking the time to create this shot.

-Swanson

Astounding composition. So, when will we see this incredible image in Architectural Digest?

Beautiful! I haven't used PTgui in about 2 years now, and I am intrigued by the panorama abilities of newer cameras. I know you wouldnt 't able to create a 70 megapixel photo without something like PTgui, but how does the X100's built in panorama feature hold up as far as resolution and stitching goes?

Impressive and very2 beautiful....

Great view - very well done too.

Thanks for sharing

Regards
--
Paulo Abreu,

'It is not worthy to make a video of your life - just keep the best moments in
pictures!'

32°38'22.85"N 16°56'42.65"W

Simply excellent Albert, thank you for sharing ! Stitched photos are yet another area of photography I have yet to experiment with, though Im dying to try. Curious... did you use a special pano ball head for the composition of all the captures ? Is the software you mentioned compatible with the mac os ?

Scott
--
http://bigsaint.smugmug.com/

Quite amazing...

Awesome pic.

You got to love the X100 and what it can do when one "uses" it......

Thanks for sharing...

Trevor Kloeden
Aussie retired in the Philippines
https://trevorkloeden.wordpress.com
http://trevor.kloeden.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26503291@N03/sets/

For this one, I just stuck my hands out the window and did 20 photos at different angles. The downside of that is that there were definitely a lot of stitching errors that required a lot of manual attention. A pano head would have solved that but for this type of photo (shooting out a high floor window in a apartment building), a tripod would have made this shot much harder to do.

PTGui (ptgui.com) does support Mac. However, if you have Photoshop 4 or higher, you can start playing with photo stitching today! Go to File... Automate... Photomerge, and you can select a batch of photos and you'll have your first multi-image panorama done without a whole lot of fuss. PTGui is a lot more memory efficient and can handle complex stitches better for sure, but Photoshop does a fantastic job if you're just starting out!

Swaleck said:

Simply excellent Albert, thank you for sharing ! Stitched photos are yet another area of photography I have yet to experiment with, though Im dying to try. Curious... did you use a special pano ball head for the composition of all the captures ? Is the software you mentioned compatible with the mac os ?

Scott
--
http://bigsaint.smugmug.com/

Click to expand...

--
http://photos.leesoft.com

The sweep pano shooting in the X100 is really quite good. And using the X100 in portrait mode and sweeping left-to-right gives you a meaningful bump in vertical resolution if you need it.

The only downside is it's JPG and can only do 1 row of photos.

--
http://photos.leesoft.com

Thanks Albert great info !
--
http://bigsaint.smugmug.com/

Wonderful image Albert; great work.

For those people wondering about the built-in pano mode, I can confirm it's very good, although I invariably use it as a test-shot before taking pictures to use with PTGui. As always with taking panoramas you have to be careful to not swing the camera in an arc so much as rotate it around the lens otherwise parallax stitching errors of objects close to the lens can be very pronounced. I hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread Albert, but I've got a few comparison pics of in-camera vs. PTGui. All photos have been downsized; the in camera panos were originally 2160*5120 (11MP) The PTGui images were up to 5000x10752 (54MP). They're vertical panos, so the post is a bit long... Sorry!

Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham UK. In-camera first (note stitching errors on walking people:





PTGui:





Shopping centre in Coventry. In camera first again:





PTGui:





If you're not careful with moving the camera you can easily get results like this:





Note the jagged looking straight lines at the bottom of the photo.

In short don't discount the in camera pano mode; it can produce pretty good images very quickly. None of these were made using a panoramic head (I wouldn't have been able to sneak a tripod into the shopping centres). The only real pain is that the best way to take photos is using manual exposure to aid accurate stitching. If only there was a functioning histogram for quickly checking exposure in different areas of the scene! Cue Tom Bird informing me this is user error in 3... 2... 1...

Excellent job. Some blocking in the shadows but the dynamic range needed to cover this scene would challenge the S5 as well.

I watched the original Towers go up floor by floor as I drove from the Bronx to Brooklyn everyday while I was in school. I was about 10 miles away on 9/11 and, like most everyone, could not believe this could happen. I also found it hard to believe how long it has taken to rebuild, but they are doing it right so I guess the wait was worth it. In you image, the footprint of the new tower looks about the same size as the old Towers but with the design they've chosen looks to be so much smaller.

It is good to see so much progress being made. I live on the other side of the country now so I'm not near to see how the building is going. Thanks for the look.

--
Regards,

Tom

Thanks for the info! I have a pano head for my tripod. I assume if it's correctly set up for parallax, the X100 would take perfect panoramas every time using the built in panorama function?

Yes, although the built-in pano mode will tolerate a lot of misalignment and can be used handheld with no issues.

If you're using a pano head, may as well try some larger panos that require stitching via Photoshop or similar. You'll get some pretty epic results!

jesseleite said:

Thanks for the info! I have a pano head for my tripod. I assume if it's correctly set up for parallax, the X100 would take perfect panoramas every time using the built in panorama function?

Click to expand...

--
http://photos.leesoft.com

TomC601 said:

Excellent job. Some blocking in the shadows but the dynamic range needed to cover this scene would challenge the S5 as well.

Click to expand...

It's definitely correctable with some heavy work, but I'd have to go back to the RAWs and really tweak the exposure to better balance the dynamic range. Unfortunately, the size and complexity of the stitch is already taxing my aging laptop... the render takes between 2-3 hours as is!

TomC601 said:

In you image, the footprint of the new tower looks about the same size as the old Towers but with the design they've chosen looks to be so much smaller.

Click to expand...

It'll never measure up in my eyes having grown up with the twin towers as well. But things will always change. 1 WTC is up to 1000 feet now... only 776 feet to go!

--
http://photos.leesoft.com

Albert C. Lee said:

Yes, although the built-in pano mode will tolerate a lot of misalignment and can be used handheld with no issues. If you're using a pano head, may as well try some larger panos that require stitching via Photoshop or similar. You'll get some pretty epic results!

Click to expand...

Just a thought. I wonder if you could do several horizontal panos within the camera and then stitch them together with PTgui for a fast 50+ megapixel composition? This could speed up the process. Instead of sticking together lets say like 20 regular photos, you could stick together 3 or 4 camera generated panos. Have any of you tried this?

jesseleite said:

Just a thought. I wonder if you could do several horizontal panos within the camera and then stitch them together with PTgui for a fast 50+ megapixel composition? This could speed up the process. Instead of sticking together lets say like 20 regular photos, you could stick together 3 or 4 camera generated panos. Have any of you tried this?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother. It's not a bad idea, but if you're going to the effort of using PTGui you should at least start with decent images. The in-camera panos are lower resolution, have stitching errors if there's any movement in frame, and PTGui would struggle with working out how to match them; it works best with rectilinear photos...

I haven't actually ever tried it with the X100 myself, but I used to use a widelux film camera that shoots cylindrical panoramics, and had a lot of trouble trying to stitch two of those together...

Great work!
--
KJ