Street panorama advice

PaulieC

Hi All,

This (photography for payment) is becoming a bit of a habit for me now. I have been asked to price something like this ad for an agency:



It's to be used eventually for brochures and possibly an exhibition stand, so it could stretch to as much as 2 metres high. Given the possible dimensions of the final product, would it be possible for me to do this using a Canon 30D ? Is there some kind of upsizing that can be done in Photoshop that would enable printing at this size?

thanks in advance for any advice proferred

Paulw

Yes, the 30D can certainly do this. Just shoot in Raw, and generate a TIFF file. You should have plenty of data in the file to produce such a large print.

PaulieC

Sounds good Paul, thanks. Would I get away with a wideangle crop of would it need to be a panorama of shots stitched together? I would imagine the latter.

Paddy@CIRL

I picked up a great method for enlarging images using Photoshop from one of Scott Kelbys books. Go to image size, change the resolution to 400 or 500 dpi in this case, then choose Bicubic Sharper (Best for Reduction) It goes against every single rule of enlarging but it somehow works better then even the Genuine Fractals method !

Paulw

Having never printed that large, I'd just be guessing.

But, I'd say you would get away with 2 stitched wide angle images. Of course, the more images stitched together, the better the quality.

PaulieC

thanks both, that sounds a lot better than I originaly thought - I had visions of spending hundreds in Conns renting a 1DMkIII (or whatever the largest sensor camera is) and some 'L' glass. That would have ate up a lot of the payment...

Paulw

cambo_gueno wrote: »

I had visions of spending hundreds in Conns renting a 1DMkIII (or whatever the largest sensor camera is) and some 'L' glass.

LOL ... surely you mean THOUSANDS?

1Ds MkIII is what you want - 21 megapixel, full frame sensor
*SRP Inc VAT: € 8,700.00

TS-E 24 mm f/3.5L
*SRP Inc VAT: € 1,600.00

Those are probably what you really want to capture the image.

PaulieC

here's Conn's pricelist for renting...(not that I am endorsing Conn's, it's the only place I know of that rents out gear)

Camera/Lens/Flashgun Hire Over eur4000 value eur200.00(day) eur350.00(weekend) eur500.00(week)

Placebo

hmmmmmm nice panoramic lense, or just a tripod with some photoshop i guess . I think finding the right setting/stage will be as big of a problem

stcstc

i would suggest if your using a 30D

and a non L glass that when you blow it up large (depending on the print technology) that the image will actually go soft

It really does depend on how its gonna be printed and how close people will be to the display


I have printed up to 5 metres by 2 metres for museum display from 5 image stiched panorama and it looks great.

Thirdfox

Any particular programme for stitching or just photomerge in photoshop?

PaulieC

stcstc wrote: »

i would suggest if your using a 30D

and a non L glass that when you blow it up large (depending on the print technology) that the image will actually go soft

It really does depend on how its gonna be printed and how close people will be to the display


I have printed up to 5 metres by 2 metres for museum display from 5 image stiched panorama and it looks great.

I think the aspect ratio of the final image is about 3:1, so that would mean a 6x2 metre print. It's for a billboard type thing, so you'd have to stand far enough back to see it correctly anyway.


Has anyone seen the new billboard at the point depot? It's a still of Gay byrne from the Late Late Show. If that can be blown up as large as that (at least 10 metres high) I'd say I might be ok with what I have . Sure it's only a few years since the top of the range DSLRs had 4 MP

stcstc

I use PTGUI, i find i have more control with it than the photomerge in photoshop

stcstc

if its for a billboard the print res is very low, so not a problem


if its more a photographic type print for an exhibition stand then you need resolution and top quality lenses to make sure its very sharp

PaulieC

here's the description from the brief...

"The final image will be used for brochures and an exhibition stand, so it’s likely that it will appear at approx 2m high."

Oriel

Paulw wrote: »

LOL ... surely you mean THOUSANDS?

He said renting, not buying.

JMcL

For printing that size, with a 30D you'll need to go down the stitching route, cropping will just reduce your vertical resolution by too much. You should also shoot in portrait format to maximize the vertical res. Top of my head that'll give you about 50dpi printed at 2m, maybe 30dpi if you shoot in landscape format and stitch using those (note that these are maximum figures - in practice you'll almost always lose some height as the image will need to be cropped post stitching). As others have said, it'll depend on the viewing distance - I think big billboards are typically about 15dpi, though you're generally never doing to look closely at these.

I generally avoid extreme wide angles for panoramas. They tend to be difficult to stitch properly and will usually require a lot of warping to take care of distortion. Go for something above 30mm if possible.

The problem with all this in a dynamic situation like a street scene is that you run the risk of people turning up in more than one frame, though I suppose you could take account of this at the shooting stage and wait til people already in a frame have moved out of a second potential frame. Use some software that'll output a layered PSD file (PTAssebler does this, I think PTGui does too) and you'll be able to touch up problems post stitch.

stcstc

i agree with JMcL

although i do use a wide angle, but use it with a panoramic head so i dont have to distort as much as i am rotating around th nodal point of the lens

the other thing you could do is doa multi row panaramic as this would again increase your vertical resolution

PaulieC

thanks all for the replies, most helpful...if I stop down to f22 and use an ND filter, I should be able to lose the people altogether, right? I've never done daytime long exposures, but this is the idea...

JMcL

cambo_gueno wrote: »

thanks all for the replies, most helpful...if I stop down to f22 and use an ND filter, I should be able to lose the people altogether, right? I've never done daytime long exposures, but this is the idea...

If it's daytime, I seriously doubt you'll be able to get a long enough exposure to make people disappear. If you want to lose the people altogether, why not shoot each frame in the pano multiple times. Not bracketing, same exposure, everything. Try to get the shot with either nobody in frame (in which case your job is done), but get enough shots that if layered together you can expose a personless part of that particular view. When you've done all that, then combine them into a pano.

pete4130

Another spanner in the works could be good weather (yes good weather!). If the sun is shining with clouds in the sky the exposure and colour temp might change between some shots. so either hope for a constantly overcast day or a clear blue sky with not a cloud to be seen.