Ideal focal length for stitching?

[EspressoJunkie]

I recently purchased a Sigma 12-24mm to get my ultra wide fix. However it's horribly soft on one side and is heading back to the seller

I'm not going through the rigmarole of finding a decent copy (this sort of thing generally puts me off a particular lens, as I've been here before!), so im more than likely going to go for the safe choice and get a Canon 17-40mm.

However if i still wanted 'wider' say for a small room, what would be the ideal length to shoot for stitching?

I've tried before and had varying success from really good, to pretty unusable. I know focal length is only part of the equation but id be interested to hear others experiences.

 

[Alastair]

Stitching a small room is extremely demanding, the widest truly rectilinear lens you can find and a very accurate set-up on a nodal rig. And even then there are limits to how you can represent a 3D spherical image on a 2D file/page. It depends how demanding the use is - I was asked at short notice to help a friend with shots for their AirBnB listing (I used a 14mm lens) and tbh the stitching was a mess around the edge with breaks/jags in the picture rails.skirting board but they were very happy with it as the centre portion of the scene stitched perfectly and it accurately portrayed the layout and relative size of the rooms.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I stitch quite a lot and the important thing is that the coverage is equally sharp side to side. I used to use my 17 55 f2.8 canon lens on a crop camera at 17mm.
Provided I stopped down to below f4 it was fine sharpness wise.
However most of my outdoor stitches, these days, are taken on my x30 camera hand held, an using PTAssembler as the stitcher. Although this is only a 12megapixel camera this is multiplied by the number of images stitched. So is more than adequate for even large prints.

I do have An excellent NodalNinje pano bracket but rarely use it except for interiors.
To answer your question , for normal single row or double row pans, the quality of the lens, over its entire field, is more important than the focal length, as you can adjust the number of images.

Provided you use a proper stitching program like PTGui or PTAssembler the wide angle or even fisheye distortions are unimportant as the programs plot the image on a sphere, and then transpose them using the chosen projection on to a flat plane. So that all lens distortions are removed. Sadly this is rarely the case with photoshop stitching and the like which only allow cylindrical wide stitches, and do not allow you to correct verticals or horizons.

 

[maarten.dhaese]

The Canon 17-40 f/4 L might not be ideal because it's sharp in the centre but quite a bit softer in the corners on full frame.

Have a read of the following comparison:

http://www.16-9.net/ultrawides/

This corresponds to my own experience of the 17-40 f/4 L on a 5DI/5DII. I actually thought the Canon 10-22 performed better in terms of consistency across the frame on a 400D.

 

[Craig_85]

Ideal focal length for stitching is a nodal slide, £20 off amazon. I have one and it once you have found the ideal point of the lens it will stitch 17mm without parallax error!

 

[Nod]

I use a Sigma 12-24 and don't stitch.

Assuming an FF body, I would use a 50mm and set it up carefully on a nodal ninja type mount/head to avoid parallax errors.

 

[Mark twiglet]

I did a 57 shot grid pano at aviemore with my 80-200 2.8 on fx nikon and ended up with a near on 2gb image! Was sharp as a pin

 

[EspressoJunkie]

Ideal focal length for stitching is a nodal slide, £20 off amazon. I have one and it once you have found the ideal point of the lens it will stitch 17mm without parallax error!

These look interesting!

I don't want to spend a huge amount of money because this will only be used occasionally, so something like this would be ideal!

 

[Craig_85]

These look interesting!

I don't want to spend a huge amount of money because this will only be used occasionally, so something like this would be ideal!

Make sure you buy one the correct length though. The one I have is fine on most lenses but my 18mm prime is physically short and being wide angle it sees the front of the slide rail in the photo! Might take the angle grinder to it...

 

[StewartR]

As others have said, any focal length can be used for stitching a panoramic image.

I have a client who regularly uses 400mm and 500mm lenses for landscape panoramas. The resulting images are ... quite large, shall we say. But then when you're getting them printed to 100 metres wide, as he is, they need to be quite large.

 

[Mark twiglet]

As others have said, any focal length can be used for stitching a panoramic image.

I have a client who regularly uses 400mm and 500mm lenses for landscape panoramas. The resulting images are ... quite large, shall we say. But then when you're getting them printed to 100 metres wide, as he is, they need to be quite large.

100 metres wide????

 

[StewartR]

100 metres wide????

Yes.

 

[TimHughes]

Woah - can we take a peek?

 

[Kodiak Qc]

any focal length can be used for stitching a panoramic image.

Yes. Lenses over 50 mm make it easier for the stitcher
and require less retouche. Typically, I use a 105 Macro
or a 300mm both on a robot to produce 60 + columns
by 5+ rows stitches.

 

[StewartR]

100 metres wide????

Yes.

Woah - can we take a peek?

You might have already seen some of his work without being aware of it. His big panoramas are used as Translights (illuminated backdrops) for film and TV productions.

Say you're directing the next James Bond movie and one of the scenes is a chase or a fight on the rooftops of Moscow. Obviously doing this for real in Moscow isn't going to be very practical. So you build a set of the rooftops in the studio and get the actors to run and jump around on that. But how do you make it look like you're in Moscow? You could just do it against a green screen and add a CGI background later. But if you're a bit old school: you get someone like my client to create a multi-gigapixel panorama (photographed at the right time of day in the right weather, of course), you get it printed onto a translucent sheet measuring say 100m x 20m, you hang it as a backdrop around your rooftop set, you illuminate it from behind, and then you do the shoot.

There are more mundane uses of the technique, I understand, but that's the most glamorous one.