What's wrong with this panorama photo?

DocDerm · Oct 24, 2020

Hi, all

I am learning panoramic photo's and seem to have run into a roadblock. All assistance appreciated.

This is a 7 shot pano. The problem is the appearance of the sidewalk curving to the left on that side of house and to the right side of house. In reality it is parallel to the house.

Tech: tripod, levelling base installed on top of tripod has been levelled, tripod head on top of that base has also been levelled, camera on a nodal slide positioned at the the nodal point of the lens.

Why is the sidewalk curving? How to avoid this problem?

Thanks

The side walk curves toward left and toward right. Why??

Charles Hull · Oct 24, 2020

DocDerm said:
Why is the sidewalk curving? How to avoid this problem?

A way to solve this is to use a tilt shift lens, and shift between the images for the panorama.

As far as I know there aren't any native tilt shift lenses for L mount. You can use a Canon tilt shift lens plus an adapter.

The reason for the distortion is that you need to re-point the camera to a different direction for each shot. A tilt shift lens always points in the same direction.

But the good news this distortion can be corrected in Photoshop for a lot less money. A Google search will point to tutorials.

DocDerm · Oct 24, 2020

Hi, Charles Hull:

Thanks for replying.

What is the specific name for this type of distortion?

Tutorial on what subject in a Google search?

Thanks

DocDerm · Oct 24, 2020

Hi, Charles:

Your idea worked!

I went now and tried your suggestion of using a shift lens instead of a std lens for this type of panorama.

While I don't have a tilt & shift lens I remembered I do have a shift lens: Nikon PC 28mm.

Here is the pano shot using a std lens rotated to generate the pictures. Then the pano shot using the shift lens.

Pano made with standard 50mm lens vertical shots on a pano head stitched together.

pano made with 3 pic's made by shifting a Nikon PC shift lens 28mm

Jeffry7 · Oct 24, 2020

DocDerm said:
Hi, all

I am learning panoramic photo's and seem to have run into a roadblock. All assistance appreciated.

This is a 7 shot pano. The problem is the appearance of the sidewalk curving to the left on that side of house and to the right side of house. In reality it is parallel to the house.

Tech: tripod, levelling base installed on top of tripod has been levelled, tripod head on top of that base has also been levelled, camera on a nodal slide positioned at the the nodal point of the lens.

Why is the sidewalk curving? How to avoid this problem?

Thanks

The side walk curves toward left and toward right. Why??

I have repaired similar distortions with panoramic software. I recomend MicroSoft ICE.

Computational Photography Applications - Microsoft Research

Pushing the limits of what is possible in photography As part of the larger Computer Vision Group, computational photography research explores the power of AI and computer vision, pushing the limits of what is possible by helping people fully and easily utilize technology with innovative...

www.microsoft.com

Charles Hull · Oct 24, 2020

DocDerm said:
I went now and tried your suggestion of using a shift lens instead of a std lens for this type of panorama.

Cool solution. Good work!

Shirozina · Oct 25, 2020

DocDerm said:
Hi, all

I am learning panoramic photo's and seem to have run into a roadblock. All assistance appreciated.

This is a 7 shot pano. The problem is the appearance of the sidewalk curving to the left on that side of house and to the right side of house. In reality it is parallel to the house.

Tech: tripod, levelling base installed on top of tripod has been levelled, tripod head on top of that base has also been levelled, camera on a nodal slide positioned at the the nodal point of the lens.

Why is the sidewalk curving? How to avoid this problem?

Thanks

The side walk curves toward left and toward right. Why??

That is normal for a panorama with a cylindrical projection. To fix it you don’t need shift lenses - just choose a ‘planner’ output projection in your panorama stitching software.

Sepeteus · Oct 25, 2020

You can try to use panorama editor for straighten horizontal lines. Strong corrections may affect to image quality, but one can try. Hugin panorama editor is free and very capable. Some instructions here (to old version):

Rome A · Oct 25, 2020

Charles Hull said:
DocDerm said:

Why is the sidewalk curving? How to avoid this problem?

Click to expand...

A way to solve this is to use a tilt shift lens, and shift between the images for the panorama.

As far as I know there aren't any native tilt shift lenses for L mount. You can use a Canon tilt shift lens plus an adapter.

The reason for the distortion is that you need to re-point the camera to a different direction for each shot. A tilt shift lens always points in the same direction.

But the good news this distortion can be corrected in Photoshop for a lot less money. A Google search will point to tutorials.

Maybe this will do???: Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL Lens for Leica L

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/products/Mirrorless-Camera-Lenses/ci/17912/N/4196380428?filters=fct_brand_name%3Avenus-optics%2Cfct_lens-mount_3442%3Aleica-l-mount

DocDerm · Oct 25, 2020

Thanks everyone for your answer

Would love to hear more suggestions

Thomas Mottl · Oct 25, 2020

You can only capture a limited vof without distortions. Now you have the choice to choose curvature like you did, longitudinal distortion as a single lens with such a view would do, or vertical distortion.

To avoid this, go further away if possible and shoot the same scene with a much longer lens.

The second option is, when you are god change the law of optics.

Richard_Wong · Oct 30, 2020

Laowa has just announced a new 15mm shift lens. A lot cheaper than the Canon 17mm TS and wider.

No L mount at the moment, but since it is fully mechanical fully manual lens you can easily adapt one of the mount and use it on your L-mount camera.

But if enough people interested, I believe Laowa would be interested in creating L mount version too

This is a photo i shot with this new Laowa 15mm shift lens (horizontally shifted + stitched panorama)

DocDerm · Oct 30, 2020

Hi, Richard

Hi, Richard

Thank you so much for telling us about this new shift lens. Your picture looks wonderful.

Please address the comment above which I often find online as almost an “unwritten rule “about making panorama photos. Frequently one finds comments that if you use a wide angle lens to shoot a panel “you will cause a lot of distortion“.

Richard_Wong · Oct 30, 2020

DocDerm said:
Hi, Richard

Hi, Richard

Thank you so much for telling us about this new shift lens. Your picture looks wonderful.

Please address the comment above which I often find online as almost an “unwritten rule “about making panorama photos. Frequently one finds comments that if you use a wide angle lens to shoot a panel “you will cause a lot of distortion“.

It is kind of true, ultra wide angle lens would cause perspective distortion which is just laws of physics, for example, if you tilt the lens you will see all the vertical lines not vertical anymore (unless it's right at the middle of the frame)

and then the wide angle lens (esp zoom) quite often has a bit of geometry distortion itself.. but some are better corrected with almost no visible distortion like the Laowa Zero-D lenses or a lot are corrected by lens profile automatically in camera

Charles Hull · Nov 1, 2020

Richard_Wong said:
Laowa has just announced a new 15mm shift lens. A lot cheaper than the Canon 17mm TS and wider.

No L mount at the moment, but since it is fully mechanical fully manual lens you can easily adapt one of the mount and use it on your L-mount camera.

But if enough people interested, I believe Laowa would be interested in creating L mount version too

I would get the L-mount version. I left Canon several years ago, and sold my lenses including a tilt-shift lens. I really don't like adapters, and would like a native mount.

If anyone missed it, here is the DPReview write up on the Laowa shift lens.

Richard_Wong · Nov 1, 2020

Charles Hull said:
I would get the L-mount version. I left Canon several years ago, and sold my lenses including a tilt-shift lens. I really don't like adapters, and would like a native mount.

If anyone missed it, here is the DPReview write up on the Laowa shift lens.

Lots of comments on my youtube review request L-mount versio so hopefully that will make Laowa create one for L-mount shooters

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