There are many ways to capture the source images for stitched panoramas. These range from hand-holding to using specially calibrated panorama heads. Today, I’ll discuss an approach that uses the shift feature of Canon’s 24mm tilt shift lens to create a vertically stitched panorama.
One reason for creating a panorama is to capture an entire scene that won’t fit in a single frame.
Why not just back up farther to get the whole scene in the frame? There may be a busy road or a structure preventing you from doing so. Or objects (like a tree) may occlude the scene making it necessary for the camera to be in front of the obstruction.
Why not just rotate the lens to portrait orientation? This may cut off too much of the horizontal context of the scene.
Why not just use a wider lens? This may create unacceptable distortion. While wide-angle distortion has its place as a creative tool, controlling vertical lines is often a requirement for architectural photography.
A few words about the source images: The three source images shown above were each created by combining 5 bracketed exposures to achieve the high dynamic range shown. In this case, I used the tool known as Enfuse. The stitching was done using CS5 Merge to Panorama command. After stitching the panorama, further refinements to exposure and contrast were made in Photoshop. The final shot was also retouched to clean up the foreground.
A few words about the lens: The new Canon 24mm tilt shift lens (Canon TS-E24mm f/3.5L II) is a vast improvement over the first generation version of this lens. In particular, the near elimination of the chromatic aberration issues that plagued the first generation version and the unbelievable sharpness make this my go-to lens for architecture work. It is also much more flexible, enabling shifting horizontally or vertically. If you want to read a review about this lens you can do so here.
