Panoramas shot in 1:1

[stevet1]

If you shot a panorama in a 1:1 aspect ratio, it seems to me that it wouldn't matter if you shot horizontal or vertical, or am I missing something.?

Steve Thomas

[shadowsports]

Hi Steve,

Can you give us your use case?  What camera and lens are you using?  Are you using software for stitching.  What is / is not happening?

[wq9nsc]

Steve,

If your camera allows you to force a 1:1 sensor map then it won't matter.  BUT unless your camera has a sensor that is a 1:1 ratio format when using the full sensor surface (and I don't know of any Canon camera with that sensor although I am certainly not familiar with all of their models), then you are not fully using all of the resolution your sensor can provide.

Typical camera sensors have more horizontal than vertical pixels so you would want to plan your panorama setup to best use your camera's capabilities.  Your stitching software should allow you to merge BOTH vertical and horizontal axis so instead of a single roow, it often makes sense to shoot a matrix with at least two rows instead.

Rodger

[stevet1]

To Rick and Roger,

Thanks for your replies. I'm using a Canon T8i.

I haven't done any panoramas yet, so I don't have any issues to refer to. I'm interested in learning how to do multi-row panoramas. I've looked at some panorama software programs, and right now I'm using Autostitch.

Let's day I have a three-shot panorama:

When I go to the merge part of the programs, do I alternate one sky picture and one landscape picture, i.e. one photo from row one and then a photo from row two, or do I do do the three sky pictures and then the three landscape pictures?

I've read a lot of advice from people who recommend taking vertical panaormas, but what if I don't want that much sky?

That's what made me think of the 1:1 aspect ratio.

Steve Thomas

[stevet1]

Here's the one panorama picture I did do.It's been a couple of years ago now (I think on my older Rebel T6)

Steve Thomas

[rs-eos]

Check out This Thread where I did a multi-row panorama (3 x 3).  Each image was captured in portrait orientation and the resultant image's aspect ratio was also portrait.

For that particular image, I was using insanely narrow depth of field (a 135mm f/2 lens at its closing focusing distance).  I chose a 3 x 3 since I wanted the ensure that eyes, nose and mouth were all captured in one image.  Due to this not being a tilt-shift lens, for all surrounding images, the plane of focus was not parallel to the face.  So if the surrounding images contained key parts of the face, they would now be out-of-focus.

It will ultimately depend upon what final result you want.  If the final output is square, I would then recommend capturing 3 rows of 2 images in landscape orientation.  Or 2 rows of 3 images in portrait orientation.  Due to the 3:2 ratio, this will give you a square when stitched together (assuming you use the same % overlap for the images).

I would first start with single-row panoramas for practice and then move on to multi-row.

I have only used Photoshop for merging which takes all images into account at once (i.e. I don't have to choose to first merge a row's worth of images vs a column's worth of images).

About the most complicated scenario I have seen someone do was Joel Grimes with I think 9 images.  This was a single column panorama of 3 images.  But at each position, he captured 3 images for capturing higher dynamic range.  He first merged the 3 images at each position to create a 32-bit image.  Then merged those results into the final panorama.

Having certain equipment can also really help.  I use a Really Right Stuff setup (nodal slide, leveling base, multi-row pano capability).

[ebiggs1]

"It will ultimately depend upon what final result you want."

This is the bottom line. However, in just a simple three to five shot pano if you select to shoot landscape mode you will end up with a long and skinny photo. But if that is your goal fine. A much more pleasing pano, IMHO, would result from a vertical or portrait mode. There would not be a necessarily huge amount of "sky" unless you shot it that way.

[ebiggs1]

There are a few 1:1 ratio cameras also medium format cameras are close to square. The Hasselblad X1D Medium Format Mirrorless Camera comes to mind and has a 1:1 sensor but it is nearly four grand without a lens. Some security cameras have square sensors, too.