As You Can See

ways to evoke the visual experience of a human angle of view with

stitched panoramas

Cameraman’s notes from G. P. Witteveen

January 2015, anthroview@gmail.com

www.linkedin.com/in/anthroview

Human 3-D vision is almost 180 degrees left to right; about 135 degrees ground to sky

1. Begin by selecting “normal” lens focal length in which perspective between foreground and

background is 35mm to 60mm (taking 35mm film camera for reference).

1. Assume that adjacent frames (image files) will require about 20% overlapping field of view: when

shooting in landscape orientation at 35mm, you will need 4 to 5 images to stitch 180 degrees

(about 45 usable degrees per picture).

1. Alternatively, by rotating the camera body to portrait orientation, you will need about 6 images to

stitch 180 usable degrees per picture (about 30 degrees of usable coverage per picture).

Actual visual experience combines central focus and surrounding, peripheral awareness1. Simulating the wide viewing experience need not literally comprise 180 x 135 degrees of view

1. A stitched panorama giving 90-110 degrees of view at ‘normal’ focal length, will convey the same

effect of central subject and its surrounding field of view.

1. In summary, choosing a ‘normal’ focal length lens (or zoom set equivalently) and stitching 2-3

frames (landscape orientation), or 3-4 frames (portrait orientation) simulates the human eye.

Camera Handling -- encompassing your subject in panorama

1. Capture outdoor scenes (wide or tall), but also indoor spaces and even close up exhibits

1. Rotate camera in overlapping shots where lens focus touches the sensor (nodal point)

1. Wide contexts can be captured in series of shots from side to side (recorded in landscape or

portrait orientation).

1. Tall subjects can captured by rotating from ground to sky (landscape or portrait orientation).

1. Scenes with moving subjects pose a stitching challenge, since overlapping elements may be

incomplete from one frame to the next when people, vehicles, or animals move across the

panorama space, leading to double appearances. One solution is to use “continuous shooting”;

that is, the shutter setting that produces a burst of several shots at one push of the button, or a

function that records repeatedly until the shutter release is no longer depressed. By rotating the

camera from side to side in a single sweep, an entire scene can be captured rapidly, before too

much movement has occurred.

Stitching Options

1. Photograph the scene by mentally noting a feature near edge of frame for easy overlap when the

stitching software is applied to match up the individual frames. Keep horizons always level.

1. Some cameras stitch the panorama by processing in-camera. Convenience and speedy

workflow is one advantage. Control of individual frames is given up, though.

1. Other cameras offer “stitching guidance” or help by showing the prior image on the camera

screen to allow for visual overlap of successive frames.

Recommendation: when composing an individual photo,

pause to take 2 or 3 overlapping shots to stitch full context

Further Reading

1. Overview to making panoramas, “Taking the wide view to get the big

picture” (conference presentation 11/2013), http://bit.ly/aaa2013witteveen

1. Screencast showing one software as it stitches a panorama,

http://tinyurl.com/makepano

1. Batch edit pics, Picasaweb.google.com (autofix color & contrast)

1. Store, share, annotate: Flickr.com 1000 GB free space. Geotags

1. Some online services for wide communication, bit.ly/2013tools