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Lenses for Stitching Large Panoramas

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Doppler9000

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Hello,

I am considering creating some large panoramas for a wall where people would get close to the photos, so I am looking for advice on lenses that have great native corner to corner resolution, as I will use the portrait orientation much of the time.

i don’t need anything very fast, f/4 to f/8 is where I will be, mostly.

I would like to know people’s thoughts on a lens in the 30 - 70mm range and one in the 80-150mm range.

A wrinkle is that I need to be able to shoot in infrared, so it really limits the options.

TIA
 
Last edited:
Any lens with good center sharpness will do it. As longer it is as more pictures you need. Corner sharpness is no issue at all. The corners are generally in the overlap area and will never show up in the stitched picture.
 
Alexander Rosenwald said:
Any lens with good center sharpness will do it. As longer it is as more pictures you need. Corner sharpness is no issue at all. The corners are generally in the overlap area and will never show up in the stitched picture.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the input.

While the extreme corners will be out of the picture, the far corners won’t, nor will the corners of the finished panorama, so I am looking for lenses with strong corner performance.
 
As long as you work with the usual 30 % overlap even far corner sharpness isn't an issue.
 
Alexander Rosenwald said:
As long as you work with the usual 30 % overlap even far corner sharpness isn't an issue.
Click to expand...
Since I don’t want to take any more frames than I need to, and I don’t want to crop off the left and right edges, as would be required with the criteria you are suggesting, I would like a lens with strong corner performance.
 
You will find shooting stitches with longer lenses to be difficult. Depth of field gets really shallow, so you need to do focus stacks to have everything remain sharp. Doing extensive focus stacking as well as large stitches becomes time consuming. The longer it takes, the more opportunity there is for the light in the scene to change. You will more frequently get big stitches from 20 to 35 mm lenses, and wide scenes. I would recommend you buy a 20 and a 35 mm prime lens for stitching. I do this often, single and double vertical row stitches. On rare occasion I use a longer lens and do a larger stitch with more rows. Of course, your style of photography will affect this. You may find yourself shooting stitches at longer focal lengths more frequently than me. Just as important, you want a very stable tripod, shoot from f4-f11(most lenses), use extended shutter release, and to use your noise reduction and sharpening filters to good effect. This includes unsharp mask at the end of your edit.

Most people view a very large print from further back. This diminishes the need for extreme resolution. do the math on the DPI of a print, and the resolution of your camera. The most detail the eye can see is about 400 dpi. Honestly, just shooting a single three or four row stitch with my 50 megapixel camera makes for pretty spectacular results. With this, I get about a 120+ megapixel result. I have had shots come out well over a giga pixel, which is total overkill. Using the Adobe camera raw filter in Photoshop sets a limit of around 500 or so megapixels. A 7 foot wide print will not really utilize more than about 600 megapixels. Finding a printer that will produce really sharp high resolution results is just as important a step as any in this process. I went through about 20 printmaking companies before I found one I was happy with. Forget about printing on metal, or canvas if you want sharp results.
 
Last edited:
Sproesser said:
You will find shooting stitches with longer lenses to be difficult. Depth of field gets really shallow, so you need to do focus stacks to have everything remain sharp. Doing extensive focus stacking as well as large stitches becomes time consuming. The longer it takes, the more opportunity there is for the light in the scene to change. You will more frequently get big stitches from 20 to 35 mm lenses, and wide scenes. I would recommend you buy a 20 and a 35 mm prime lens for stitching. I do this often, single and double vertical row stitches. On rare occasion I use a longer lens and do a larger stitch with more rows. Of course, your style of photography will affect this. You may find yourself shooting stitches at longer focal lengths more frequently than me. Just as important, you want a very stable tripod, shoot from f4-f11(most lenses), use extended shutter release, and to use your noise reduction and sharpening filters to good effect. This includes unsharp mask at the end of your edit.

Most people view a very large print from further back. This diminishes the need for extreme resolution. do the math on the DPI of a print, and the resolution of your camera. The most detail the eye can see is about 400 dpi. Honestly, just shooting a single three or four row stitch with my 50 megapixel camera makes for pretty spectacular results. With this, I get about a 120+ megapixel result. I have had shots come out well over a giga pixel, which is total overkill. Using the Adobe camera raw filter in Photoshop sets a limit of around 500 or so megapixels. A 7 foot wide print will not really utilize more than about 600 megapixels. Finding a printer that will produce really sharp high resolution results is just as important a step as any in this process. I went through about 20 printmaking companies before I found one I was happy with. Forget about printing on metal, or canvas if you want sharp results.
Click to expand...
I am aware of the constraints and math with regard to light, focal length, field of view, dpi, etc. I have asked for insights on an informed basis.



As I said in the first post, people will be close to the picture, so I want a very high resolution final product.
 
What brand of camera do you have?
 
Doppler9000 said:
Hello,

I am considering creating some large panoramas for a wall where people would get close to the photos, so I am looking for advice on lenses that have great native corner to corner resolution, as I will use the portrait orientation much of the time.
Click to expand...
I know you have mentioned several times your desire not not crop off the edges/corners (left and right edges in portrait mode), but that is generally not how creating panoramas works. I don't know of any pano software that works well with basically zero overlap. All of the ones I have used recommends at least 25-30% overlap - irrespective of whether you are in landscape or portrait mode.

I am sure that you could shoot panos and stitch them manually without overlap, but you would probably have to use a very good pano head for your tripod and be very accurate with your transition points, but it is a lot easier (and faster) to just shoot a few extra shots and overlap them.
Doppler9000 said:
i don’t need anything very fast, f/4 to f/8 is where I will be, mostly.
Click to expand...
Do you want a zoom or prime lens ?

I would suggest that almost any EF (FF) primes lens should be plenty sharp enough for close scrutiny when shot at around f5.6-f8 (allowing for some corner/edge loss).

With zooms the list would be shorter.

How much do you want to spend ?

Do you plan to buy new or second hand ?

Do you want EF or RF - you mentioned a Canon FF to be determined, so it may make a difference, especially if you want to "future proof" ? All of the newer Canon FF cameras are mirrorless RF mount bodies.
Doppler9000 said:
I would like to know people’s thoughts on a lens in the 30 - 70mm range and one in the 80-150mm range.
Click to expand...
EF 35mm f2 IS - cheaper option

EF 35mm L ii f1.4 - more $

EF 16-35L f4

EF 50L

EF 85mm - cheaper option. The CA may be an issue though ?

EF 85mm L f1.4 - more $

EF 100mm f2.8 macro - cheaper option

EF 100mm L f2.8 IS - more $

EF 100mm f2

EF 135mm

EF 70-200mm L - f4 and f2.8 versions

And then there is the new RF lenses, and a wide variety of 3rd party lenses (like Sigma Art primes). And no doubt there are several other EF lenses that I have not mentioned.
Doppler9000 said:
A wrinkle is that I need to be able to shoot in infrared, so it really limits the options.
Click to expand...
I know nothing about infrared, so I have no idea how that limits the options. I thought (and probably showing my ignorance here) that infrared was a camera thing, and pretty much any lens could be used, but I have no idea really.
Doppler9000 said:
TIA
Click to expand...
As regards a Canon FF camera - are you planning to get the high resolution 5DS(r) or R5 ? They will provide the most detail I would think.

Are you planning to have it converted to infrared, or are you going to use a filter, and if the latter, you would obviously want the best quality filter (because it is likely to degrade any lens' IQ - again I might be showing my complete ignorance about infrared :-)

If money is no object, you might consider the R5 (or wait for the rumoured extra high resolution version), and look at some of the very sharp RF primes like RF 50 L f1.2 and RF 85 L f1.2 - obviously you don't need the f1.2, but if they are sharp at f1.2, they are REALLY sharp at f8. I am sure that there is RF 35 L on the way as well.

Colin
 
Andy01 said:
Doppler9000 said:
Hello,

I am considering creating some large panoramas for a wall where people would get close to the photos, so I am looking for advice on lenses that have great native corner to corner resolution, as I will use the portrait orientation much of the time.
Click to expand...
I know you have mentioned several times your desire not not crop off the edges/corners (left and right edges in portrait mode), but that is generally not how creating panoramas works. I don't know of any pano software that works well with basically zero overlap. All of the ones I have used recommends at least 25-30% overlap - irrespective of whether you are in landscape or portrait mode.

I am sure that you could shoot panos and stitch them manually without overlap, but you would probably have to use a very good pano head for your tripod and be very accurate with your transition points, but it is a lot easier (and faster) to just shoot a few extra shots and overlap them.
Andy01 said:
i don’t need anything very fast, f/4 to f/8 is where I will be, mostly.
Click to expand...
Do you want a zoom or prime lens ?

I would suggest that almost any EF (FF) primes lens should be plenty sharp enough for close scrutiny when shot at around f5.6-f8 (allowing for some corner/edge loss).

With zooms the list would be shorter.

How much do you want to spend ?

Do you plan to buy new or second hand ?

Do you want EF or RF - you mentioned a Canon FF to be determined, so it may make a difference, especially if you want to "future proof" ? All of the newer Canon FF cameras are mirrorless RF mount bodies.
Andy01 said:
I would like to know people’s thoughts on a lens in the 30 - 70mm range and one in the 80-150mm range.
Click to expand...
EF 35mm f2 IS - cheaper option

EF 35mm L ii f1.4 - more $

EF 16-35L f4

EF 50L

EF 85mm - cheaper option. The CA may be an issue though ?

EF 85mm L f1.4 - more $

EF 100mm f2.8 macro - cheaper option

EF 100mm L f2.8 IS - more $

EF 100mm f2

EF 135mm

EF 70-200mm L - f4 and f2.8 versions

And then there is the new RF lenses, and a wide variety of 3rd party lenses (like Sigma Art primes). And no doubt there are several other EF lenses that I have not mentioned.
Andy01 said:
A wrinkle is that I need to be able to shoot in infrared, so it really limits the options.
Click to expand...
I know nothing about infrared, so I have no idea how that limits the options. I thought (and probably showing my ignorance here) that infrared was a camera thing, and pretty much any lens could be used, but I have no idea really.
Andy01 said:
TIA
Click to expand...
As regards a Canon FF camera - are you planning to get the high resolution 5DS(r) or R5 ? They will provide the most detail I would think.

Are you planning to have it converted to infrared, or are you going to use a filter, and if the latter, you would obviously want the best quality filter (because it is likely to degrade any lens' IQ - again I might be showing my complete ignorance about infrared :-)

If money is no object, you might consider the R5 (or wait for the rumoured extra high resolution version), and look at some of the very sharp RF primes like RF 50 L f1.2 and RF 85 L f1.2 - obviously you don't need the f1.2, but if they are sharp at f1.2, they are REALLY sharp at f8. I am sure that there is RF 35 L on the way as well.

Colin
Click to expand...
Colin,

I understand there is overlap between frames within the panorama. My responses were about the far left and right corners of the “finished panorama”, as I wrote. The left and right sides of the final image. I would rather not have to crop off the left and right sides to get to the high quality parts of the left and right final panels that make up the panorama.

I will have the hot mirror replaced with optical glass. I will likely wait on the rumored high resolution RF body, but might go with EF lenses, to run the EF - RF filter adapter, to switch out filters, to be able to do visible and IR work.

The issue with lenses is “hotspots”, where internal reflections create a bright circle in the middle of the frame.

I want highly optically corrected lenses and am willing to budget to get the best, below the Otus class. I assume the best lenses will be primes.

I was hoping to elicit feedback on the most exceptional, best corrected, sharpest lenses in the focal length spans I mentioned. I am good on the panorama logistics, etc.
 
Last edited:
While I can't offer much help, I would like to see your results.
 
Grab a 5DSR if you can. For accurste stitch with close foregrounds I have shifted and stitched using the 17 TS-E but that is only 3 images, the very odd time I will get 6. With wideangles with close foregrounds you cannot resolve the distortion in near subjects in pano stitching.

For horizon style, one vertical row, I have had extremely good success with the EF 70 -200/4 L, EF 300_2.8 L and FD 55mm f1.2 SSC Aspherical ( so EF 50_1.2 L should be good).

The flattest field lens should be a true macro lens but I don't know which one is best.
 
John Crowe said:
Grab a 5DSR if you can. For accurste stitch with close foregrounds I have shifted and stitched using the 17 TS-E but that is only 3 images, the very odd time I will get 6. With wideangles with close foregrounds you cannot resolve the distortion in near subjects in pano stitching.

For horizon style, one vertical row, I have had extremely good success with the EF 70 -200/4 L, EF 300_2.8 L and FD 55mm f1.2 SSC Aspherical ( so EF 50_1.2 L should be good).

The flattest field lens should be a true macro lens but I don't know which one is best.
Click to expand...
Thanks, John!
 
Doppler9000 said:
Hello,

I am considering creating some large panoramas for a wall where people would get close to the photos, so I am looking for advice on lenses that have great native corner to corner resolution, as I will use the portrait orientation much of the time.

i don’t need anything very fast, f/4 to f/8 is where I will be, mostly.

I would like to know people’s thoughts on a lens in the 30 - 70mm range and one in the 80-150mm range.

A wrinkle is that I need to be able to shoot in infrared, so it really limits the options.

TIA
Click to expand...
it makes it hard to recommend a lens, not knowing what camera your using--is it FF or crop "aps-c"! for FF camera, i would use a canon 24-70 f2.8 II, if you have the budget for it. this lens performs just like a bunch of primes in the range. if i feel like using primes, i would get real fancy and use my canon TSE 24mm II, which is an amazing sharp lens, or i'd go with my canon 35mm f1.4, or the rev.2 would be even the best!!! so, possibilities are abound, it only depends on your cash and what type of camera you are using!

i know you asked for f4.0-f8.0 but the IQ in f1.4-f2.8 are the best!!!

--
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!
 
Last edited:
Doppler9000 said:
My responses were about the far left and right corners of the “finished panorama”, as I wrote. The left and right sides of the final image. I would rather not have to crop off the left and right sides to get to the high quality parts of the left and right final panels that make up the panorama.

...
Click to expand...
Don't overcomplicate things. When doing a three row panorama from a total of 24 pictures the corners are a negligibly small portion of the picture. If you insist in it, cropping them away is no matter. Just take one more picture to the left and the right.
Doppler9000 said:
to be able to do visible and IR work.

The issue with lenses is “hotspots”, where internal reflections create a bright circle in the middle of the frame.
Click to expand...
Hotspots aren't any issue with modern high quality lenses as long as you use a IR-modified camera. Hotspots only happen on unaltered cameras and are a result from very long exposure times.
 
Last edited:
Doppler9000 said:
Andy01 said:
Doppler9000 said:
Hello,

I am considering creating some large panoramas for a wall where people would get close to the photos, so I am looking for advice on lenses that have great native corner to corner resolution, as I will use the portrait orientation much of the time.
Click to expand...
I know you have mentioned several times your desire not not crop off the edges/corners (left and right edges in portrait mode), but that is generally not how creating panoramas works. I don't know of any pano software that works well with basically zero overlap. All of the ones I have used recommends at least 25-30% overlap - irrespective of whether you are in landscape or portrait mode.

I am sure that you could shoot panos and stitch them manually without overlap, but you would probably have to use a very good pano head for your tripod and be very accurate with your transition points, but it is a lot easier (and faster) to just shoot a few extra shots and overlap them.
Doppler9000 said:
i don’t need anything very fast, f/4 to f/8 is where I will be, mostly.
Click to expand...
Do you want a zoom or prime lens ?

I would suggest that almost any EF (FF) primes lens should be plenty sharp enough for close scrutiny when shot at around f5.6-f8 (allowing for some corner/edge loss).

With zooms the list would be shorter.

How much do you want to spend ?

Do you plan to buy new or second hand ?

Do you want EF or RF - you mentioned a Canon FF to be determined, so it may make a difference, especially if you want to "future proof" ? All of the newer Canon FF cameras are mirrorless RF mount bodies.
Doppler9000 said:
I would like to know people’s thoughts on a lens in the 30 - 70mm range and one in the 80-150mm range.
Click to expand...
EF 35mm f2 IS - cheaper option

EF 35mm L ii f1.4 - more $

EF 16-35L f4

EF 50L

EF 85mm - cheaper option. The CA may be an issue though ?

EF 85mm L f1.4 - more $

EF 100mm f2.8 macro - cheaper option

EF 100mm L f2.8 IS - more $

EF 100mm f2

EF 135mm

EF 70-200mm L - f4 and f2.8 versions

And then there is the new RF lenses, and a wide variety of 3rd party lenses (like Sigma Art primes). And no doubt there are several other EF lenses that I have not mentioned.
Doppler9000 said:
A wrinkle is that I need to be able to shoot in infrared, so it really limits the options.
Click to expand...
I know nothing about infrared, so I have no idea how that limits the options. I thought (and probably showing my ignorance here) that infrared was a camera thing, and pretty much any lens could be used, but I have no idea really.
Doppler9000 said:
TIA
Click to expand...
As regards a Canon FF camera - are you planning to get the high resolution 5DS(r) or R5 ? They will provide the most detail I would think.

Are you planning to have it converted to infrared, or are you going to use a filter, and if the latter, you would obviously want the best quality filter (because it is likely to degrade any lens' IQ - again I might be showing my complete ignorance about infrared :-)

If money is no object, you might consider the R5 (or wait for the rumoured extra high resolution version), and look at some of the very sharp RF primes like RF 50 L f1.2 and RF 85 L f1.2 - obviously you don't need the f1.2, but if they are sharp at f1.2, they are REALLY sharp at f8. I am sure that there is RF 35 L on the way as well.

Colin
Click to expand...
Colin,

I understand there is overlap between frames within the panorama. My responses were about the far left and right corners of the “finished panorama”, as I wrote. The left and right sides of the final image.
Click to expand...
OK now I understand. My point still applies though. You could easily take 1 extra image (per row if a multi-row pano) and chop almost 50% off the two outer images to get rid of any bad edges or corners.

I am really not seeing the issue.
Doppler9000 said:
I would rather not have to crop off the left and right sides to get to the high quality parts of the left and right final panels that make up the panorama.

I will have the hot mirror replaced with optical glass.
Click to expand...
Is there a "hot mirror" on a mirrorless RF body ? I have no idea ?
Doppler9000 said:
I will likely wait on the rumored high resolution RF body, but might go with EF lenses, to run the EF - RF filter adapter, to switch out filters, to be able to do visible and IR work.
Click to expand...
I am not sure that there is a IR filter available for the EF-RF lens filter adapter ? I know there is a clear, ND and CPL filter.
Doppler9000 said:
The issue with lenses is “hotspots”, where internal reflections create a bright circle in the middle of the frame.

I want highly optically corrected lenses and am willing to budget to get the best, below the Otus class. I assume the best lenses will be primes.
Click to expand...
OK, I would think that any of the f1.4 L lenses, or the EF 100L macro lens (which has a very flat field), and most other recent L primes would have the resolution and sharpness you seek - after all that is why they charge the big bucks for them.
Doppler9000 said:
I was hoping to elicit feedback on the most exceptional, best corrected, sharpest lenses in the focal length spans I mentioned. I am good on the panorama logistics, etc.
Click to expand...
You could also spend some time on the Digital Picture's lens IQ comparison chart looking specifically at corners ? Compare them with a lens that is know to you.

www.the-digital-picture.com

Canon RF 50mm F1.2 L USM Lens Image Quality

View the image quality delivered by the Canon RF 50mm F1.2 L USM Lens using ISO 12233 Resolution Chart lab test results. Compare the image quality of this lens with other lenses.
www.the-digital-picture.com www.the-digital-picture.com

Colin
 
If I'm understanding correctly you may require 24 shots (8x3) and it includes people. Yikes, thats a big ask anyway regardless of the added variable of people moving slightly between shots.

No wonder you wish to keep the total number of shots to a minimum by being able to use each image to its "extreme" edge. No wonder you want to find lenses that would deliver strong results at the edges.

How about some lateral thinking? Instead of doing it all manually hire / acquire a robotic motorised panoramic head. It could shoot in a fraction of the time you might otherwise shoot manually, with lower people in shot movement and using the more central portions of the lens - thereby giving you a much wider and cheaper choice of lens rather than needing to go to the extremes.

Creating gigapixel panoramas with a robotic panohead - PTGui Stitching Software

PTGui is image stitching software for stitching photographs into a seamless 360-degree spherical or gigapixel panoramic image
www.ptgui.com www.ptgui.com


My Rollei 200 Mark II panoramic head is great but looks anaemic in comparison :- )
 
Alexander Rosenwald said:
Doppler9000 said:
My responses were about the far left and right corners of the “finished panorama”, as I wrote. The left and right sides of the final image. I would rather not have to crop off the left and right sides to get to the high quality parts of the left and right final panels that make up the panorama.

...
Click to expand...
Don't overcomplicate things. When doing a three row panorama from a total of 24 pictures the corners are a negligibly small portion of the picture. If you insist in it, cropping them away is no matter. Just take one more picture to the left and the right.
Alexander Rosenwald said:
to be able to do visible and IR work.

The issue with lenses is “hotspots”, where internal reflections create a bright circle in the middle of the frame.
Click to expand...
Hotspots aren't any issue with modern high quality lenses as long as you use a IR-modified camera. Hotspots only happen on unaltered cameras and are a result from very long exposure times.
Click to expand...
As I said, I am looking for lenses with excellent corner performance. I understand that I could take more pictures using poorer lenses. I don’t wish to do this. Repeating your answer again won’t change my mind.

Where did you get your notions regarding hotspots and modern lenses?

In general, modern lenses are far more prone to hotspots than simpler, older designs.

I highly recommend offering advice from personal experience. If you don’t have any, as appears to be the case here, at least do some research before offering advice - god forbid someone listens to you and buys an expensive modern lens that has hotspots, rendering it useless for infrared.

Kolarivision and Life Pixel, two firms that offer conversions, have helpful lists.

These two examples, from Life Pixel, show hotspots in two modern Canon lenses. These lenses, and many other modern designs are not usable for infrared.

7106528dddc244ac80a75fb9c38782bc.jpg

720f31a0527a4b6ea965f8a99afaf9c0.jpg
 
Last edited:
ashton lamont said:
If I'm understanding correctly you may require 24 shots (8x3) and it includes people. Yikes, thats a big ask anyway regardless of the added variable of people moving slightly between shots.

No wonder you wish to keep the total number of shots to a minimum by being able to use each image to its "extreme" edge. No wonder you want to find lenses that would deliver strong results at the edges.

How about some lateral thinking? Instead of doing it all manually hire / acquire a robotic motorised panoramic head. It could shoot in a fraction of the time you might otherwise shoot manually, with lower people in shot movement and using the more central portions of the lens - thereby giving you a much wider and cheaper choice of lens rather than needing to go to the extremes.

https://www.ptgui.com/examples/creating_gigapixel_panoramas_with_a_robotic_panohead.html

https://www.red-door.co.uk/pages/productpages/GigaPan-EPIC-Pro-for-DLSR-Cameras.html

My Rollei 200 Mark II panoramic head is great but looks anaemic in comparison :- )
Click to expand...
Hi Pete,

i just asked about good lenses. The thread got sidetracked with advice, etc., on various other issues that have rather obscured the question.
 
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