Wide Angle Lens or Stitching?

John Retsal · Oct 25, 2022

Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

raunak · Oct 25, 2022

If your aim is to show a sufficiently wide landscape, I would suggest shooting a panorama with around 8-10 images with your camera in portrait orientation and at about a normal focal length (40-70 mm) and then combine using any decent pano stitching software (LR / AutoPano/ Hugin etc).

I feel wide landscapes taken by using an ultrawide lens suffer from the following -

1. Can lead to boring images unless the composition is done carefully to emphasise near/far relationships.

2. Suffer from wide angle distortion unless you are perfectly horizontal and level.

PLShutterbug · Oct 25, 2022

John Retsal said:
Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

Better, if you do the panos right. Let’s say you need one that covers the full 114° at 14mm. Using the 14-30 with a single shot you will end up a with an image that is 8,256 pixels wide but maybe only 2,000 pixels tall. Using your 24-70 at maybe 35mm, oriented vertically, you can shoot that same pano with multiple shots and arrive at 8,256 pixels tall by 17,000 pixels wide, give or take. that is a LOT more resolution. (This assumes a Z7 or Z9).

The challenge is that you could end up with movement artifacts, but a good pano processor might be able to eliminate that.

Leonard Shepherd · Oct 25, 2022

A third option that unfortunately costs money is the 24 mm TS lens.

With the camera on a tripod image one is taking with the lens shifted left, image two with the lens central, and image three with the lens shifted right.

This option has the advantage of keeping the sensor parallel to the subject for the three images, and the disadvantage of being limited as to how wide a scene can be captured with the sensor remaining parallel to the subject.

--
Leonard Shepherd
In lots of ways good photography is similar to learning to play a piano - it takes practice to develop skill in either activity.

NickZ2016 · Oct 25, 2022

John Retsal said:
Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

Like a lot of things the question ends up being in what situation are you shooting?

On a tripod out in an empty landscape with light that doesn't change you can do many things.

Trying to do the same thing in a crowded city might drive you nuts. Especially indoors handheld.

John Retsal · Oct 26, 2022

PLShutterbug said:
John Retsal said:

Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

Click to expand...

Better, if you do the panos right. Let’s say you need one that covers the full 114° at 14mm. Using the 14-30 with a single shot you will end up a with an image that is 8,256 pixels wide but maybe only 2,000 pixels tall. Using your 24-70 at maybe 35mm, oriented vertically, you can shoot that same pano with multiple shots and arrive at 8,256 pixels tall by 17,000 pixels wide, give or take. that is a LOT more resolution. (This assumes a Z7 or Z9).

The challenge is that you could end up with movement artifacts, but a good pano processor might be able to eliminate that.

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

NikonNature · Oct 26, 2022

John Retsal said:
PLShutterbug said:

John Retsal said:

Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

Click to expand...

Better, if you do the panos right. Let’s say you need one that covers the full 114° at 14mm. Using the 14-30 with a single shot you will end up a with an image that is 8,256 pixels wide but maybe only 2,000 pixels tall. Using your 24-70 at maybe 35mm, oriented vertically, you can shoot that same pano with multiple shots and arrive at 8,256 pixels tall by 17,000 pixels wide, give or take. that is a LOT more resolution. (This assumes a Z7 or Z9).

The challenge is that you could end up with movement artifacts, but a good pano processor might be able to eliminate that.

Click to expand...

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

In that case yes.

Just take a few vertical images with a decent amount of overlap. It's better to shoot more and crop later in post. The stitching software will do fine, but you might have one or two frames that are higher or lower than the others. So you just have to crop to get straight edges.

Here's one I took that is a handheld pano made up of five vertical images stitched together and cropped. It is slightly wider than 3:2, but not a typical 'wide' panorama.

Machu Picchu

--
Jeff

Jeff Loomis

Explore Jeff Loomis’s 1,058 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

John Retsal · Oct 26, 2022

NikonNature said:
NikonNature said:

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

Click to expand...

In that case yes.

Just take a few vertical images with a decent amount of overlap. It's better to shoot more and crop later in post. The stitching software will do fine, but you might have one or two frames that are higher or lower than the others. So you just have to crop to get straight edges.

Here's one I took that is a handheld pano made up of five vertical images stitched together and cropped. It is slightly wider than 3:2, but not a typical 'wide' panorama.

Machu Picchu

That's a beautiful shot. Thank you for your reply. So it is possible to do this hand held. So will the stitching software correct automatically for any vertical mis-alignment and any tilt away from vertical or is that done manually via the software?

PLShutterbug · Oct 26, 2022

John Retsal said:
PLShutterbug said:

John Retsal said:

Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

Click to expand...

Better, if you do the panos right. Let’s say you need one that covers the full 114° at 14mm. Using the 14-30 with a single shot you will end up a with an image that is 8,256 pixels wide but maybe only 2,000 pixels tall. Using your 24-70 at maybe 35mm, oriented vertically, you can shoot that same pano with multiple shots and arrive at 8,256 pixels tall by 17,000 pixels wide, give or take. that is a LOT more resolution. (This assumes a Z7 or Z9).

The challenge is that you could end up with movement artifacts, but a good pano processor might be able to eliminate that.

Click to expand...

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

Ok. As the Macchu Picchu poster said, it’s still the same thing: you shoot several images and stitch them.

Particularly with images like his, clouds and other wind-driven elements are a problem with stitched panoramas vs. just taking a single image with a wider lens. He seems to have been fortunate to shoot that on a calm day and he was probably quick with the shots. From a tripod it takes 5-10 seconds to move, confirm, etc. and clouds can move, complicating stitching and resulting in mismatches between adjacent frames - or worse, from the first to the last.

If you plan to do wide, non-pano images often it’s better to have a lens that allows you to do it all in one shot.

John Retsal · Oct 26, 2022

PLShutterbug said:
PLShutterbug said:

PLShutterbug said:

to eliminate that.

Click to expand...

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

Click to expand...

Ok. As the Macchu Picchu poster said, it’s still the same thing: you shoot several images and stitch them.

Particularly with images like his, clouds and other wind-driven elements are a problem with stitched panoramas vs. just taking a single image with a wider lens. He seems to have been fortunate to shoot that on a calm day and he was probably quick with the shots. From a tripod it takes 5-10 seconds to move, confirm, etc. and clouds can move, complicating stitching and resulting in mismatches between adjacent frames - or worse, from the first to the last.

If you plan to do wide, non-pano images often it’s better to have a lens that allows you to do it all in one shot.

That's a good point. I can see where even wind causing foreground trees to move might be a problem.

SteveoM · Oct 26, 2022

John Retsal said:
Is stitching a couple photos taken at say 24-30mm with my 24-70/4 S likely to produce images that are as good as those taken with a 14-30/4 S at an equivalently wide angle?

I'm not shooting wider than 24mm typically but there are certainly going to be occasions so I'm wondering if it's worth the investment in the 14-30.

It depends on what you mean by "as good as". You lose the perspective aspect of the extreme wide angle by going pano. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your composition. Yet, many times shooting "way wide" just doesn't do justice to the perspective you want to achieve, like the majesty of mountain scenes, then pano is the way to go.

Having said that, you are now trading one set of issues for another. Yes, you can shoot handheld but you generally get better results with a tripod even with simple one row panos. Add a second or even third row, now you are really in tripod territory, and almost certainly looking for a pano head. It's even more problematic if you want do do multiple exposures for wide dynamic range.

Also as mentioned, shooting panos in subdued lighting, or with moving sky elements can be problematic, and shooting at sunrise or sunset with rapidly changing lighting conditions can challenging to say the least.

Ruby Rod · Oct 26, 2022

I find hand-held panos work great for many landscapes, but if I can use the WA I prefer it. Modern pano software is great and will compensate for misalignment and other things- within reason. Where I have trouble with stitching is technical images like product photography. Sometimes specular highlight and high contrast details give halos and weird artifacts that I can't live with. These are cases where I'm trying to get more resolution, not cover more field.

Do your own tests- download the Microsoft ICE, shoot some photos and try it!

PCACGHTGI · Oct 26, 2022

Yes you can stitch if all you want is a wider view. Which is what many folk set out to do with their new ultra wide angle lens too. To me, that misses the point. The reason to get an ultra wide in the first place is for more dynamic images. For landscape images that typically means something dominant in the foreground like a rock or a tree. Those that truly master an ultra wide lens know this. For everyone else there is stitching …..

RBFresno · Oct 26, 2022

raunak said:
If your aim is to show a sufficiently wide landscape, I would suggest shooting a panorama with around 8-10 images with your camera in portrait orientation and at about a normal focal length (40-70 mm) and then combine using any decent pano stitching software (LR / AutoPano/ Hugin etc).

I feel wide landscapes taken by using an ultrawide lens suffer from the following -

1. Can lead to boring images unless the composition is done carefully

raunak said:
to emphasise near/far relationships.

I agree, and this deserves emphasis.

For some scenes (not all) a wide angle lens will cause distant subjects to look so small that it detracts from the composition

On occasion, I've even shot panos with telephoto lenses up to 500 mm that have a completely different look than what would have been obtained with an ultra wide lens.

Here's a 2 shot pano taken with a 105mm lens.

A wide angle shot from the same spot would have made the San Francisco buildings appear smaller compared to the near portion of the Bay bridge

raunak said:
2. Suffer from wide angle distortion unless you are perfectly horizontal and level.

Yes.

Best Regards,

RB

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24Peter · Oct 26, 2022

There have been some good replies - and fabulous photos - so far in response to this thread. My two cents: For casual use, stitching is fine, depending on the software of course. This image is a Photomerge stitch in Photoshop CS6 of three handheld landscape orientation images from my Z7II. It's not perfect if you look close, but it's good enough for my purposes and I think it would make a fine print at normal viewing distances. I sometimes prefer to stitch rather than use a wide-angle lens for the reasons mentioned by others above.

This is a 50% resize of the stitched 12000x6000 image. (I could have easily done a 24000 x 12000 resolution image based on three full rez files from the Z7II but like to down-rez to help hide any stitching defects.) Either way, judge for yourself.

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PCACGHTGI · Oct 26, 2022

24Peter said:
There have been some good replies - and fabulous photos - so far in response to this thread. My two cents: For casual use, stitching is fine, depending on the software of course. This image is a Photomerge stitch in Photoshop CS6 of three handheld landscape orientation images from my Z7II. It's not perfect if you look close, but it's good enough for my purposes and I think it would make a fine print at normal viewing distances. I sometimes prefer to stitch rather than use a wide-angle lens for the reasons mentioned by others above.

This is a 50% resize of the stitched 12000x6000 image. (I could have easily done a 24000 x 12000 resolution image based on three full rez files from the Z7II but like to down-rez to help hide any stitching defects.) Either way, judge for yourself.

It's a lovely image but everyone on this thread who advocates stitching doesn't understand what an ultra wide angle lens is for quite frankly. You CANNOT replace an ultra wide with stitching! Have a look at Phil Norton as an example, he KNOWS HOW to use an ultra wide and WHY to:

https://www.philnortonphotography.co.uk/gallery.html

John Retsal · Oct 26, 2022

PCACGHTGI said:
It's a lovely image but everyone on this thread who advocates stitching doesn't understand what an ultra wide angle lens is for quite frankly. You CANNOT replace an ultra wide with stitching! Have a look at Phil Norton as an example, he KNOWS HOW to use an ultra wide and WHY to:

https://www.philnortonphotography.co.uk/gallery.html

Can you point me to where I can find information on the how and why that you speak of of using an ultra wide lens? (that link only shows examples)

PCACGHTGI · Oct 26, 2022

John Retsal said:
PCACGHTGI said:

It's a lovely image but everyone on this thread who advocates stitching doesn't understand what an ultra wide angle lens is for quite frankly. You CANNOT replace an ultra wide with stitching! Have a look at Phil Norton as an example, he KNOWS HOW to use an ultra wide and WHY to:

https://www.philnortonphotography.co.uk/gallery.html

Click to expand...

Can you point me to where I can find information on the how and why that you speak of of using an ultra wide lens? (that link only shows examples)

Not off the top of my head no. But in simple terms it's about the dynamism of using foreground and background in the same image. I'd suggest looking at Phil's galleries and working out what and how he's doing it.

Me persoanlly? I'm an ultra wide junkie. I own the 14-24mm and 14-30mm Z lenses. But I dont do landscapes and I especially don't do stitching. I use mine for people and street! But that's another story .......

NikonNature · Oct 26, 2022

John Retsal said:
NikonNature said:

John Retsal said:

I should have said that I'm not interested in producing wide panoramas but rather I would just want a standard FX size image ( 6048x4024 3:2 right? ) but I want to know if it is easily done via stitching and if the resulting image would be just as good as if it were produced by using a wide or ultra wide lens.

Click to expand...

In that case yes.

Just take a few vertical images with a decent amount of overlap. It's better to shoot more and crop later in post. The stitching software will do fine, but you might have one or two frames that are higher or lower than the others. So you just have to crop to get straight edges.

Here's one I took that is a handheld pano made up of five vertical images stitched together and cropped. It is slightly wider than 3:2, but not a typical 'wide' panorama.

Machu Picchu

Click to expand...

That's a beautiful shot. Thank you for your reply. So it is possible to do this hand held. So will the stitching software correct automatically for any vertical mis-alignment and any tilt away from vertical or is that done manually via the software?

Thank you. We had one day there and were fortunate to have good weather and no wind. I did shoot fairly quickly, trying to keep the nodal point of the camera over my left foot as a reference point.

With hand held shots, it is tough to keep the camera in line vertically. That's why I suggest shooting taller than you need - either by using a shorter focal length or by shooting an extra row. The stitched image will not have perfectly straight edges on the top and bottom, so you need that extra space to crop.

--
Jeff

Jeff Loomis

Explore Jeff Loomis’s 1,058 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

John Retsal · Oct 26, 2022

PCACGHTGI said:
John Retsal said:

PCACGHTGI said:

It's a lovely image but everyone on this thread who advocates stitching doesn't understand what an ultra wide angle lens is for quite frankly. You CANNOT replace an ultra wide with stitching! Have a look at Phil Norton as an example, he KNOWS HOW to use an ultra wide and WHY to:

https://www.philnortonphotography.co.uk/gallery.html

Click to expand...

Can you point me to where I can find information on the how and why that you speak of of using an ultra wide lens? (that link only shows examples)

Click to expand...

Not off the top of my head no. But in simple terms it's about the dynamism of using foreground and background in the same image. I'd suggest looking at Phil's galleries and working out what and how he's doing it.

So, it sounds like you don't know how it's done either otherwise I should think you would have told me how.

Regarding the dynamism that you speak of, the same objects are in the image, both foreground and background, whether I use an ultra wide lens or a more normal lens and stitch.

What is it about an ultra wide lens that makes it different? Is it that you get a more exaggerated presentation of foreground objects? For instance, let's say I want a photo of a mountain range where I have in the foreground, a rock formation that is considerably closet to me that the background mountains. With an ultra wide lens that foreground rock formation might be distorted to look larger than it actually appears to the naked eye whereas in a stitched image, made from using two or more images shot with a lens at a more normal focal length, the foreground would be more natural in perspective and size.

Wide Angle Lens or Stitching?

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