Panoramas at night

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Jh84

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Jahir
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Hi all. Im going away on holiday soon and want to try a panorama which I would want to print if it works out well but I havnt tried panoramas before. I understand the general concept of it and the technique involved. What I want to know is if I'm doing a panorama at night and there is a bright bit in part of the composition and then theres a dark bit in another bit, how do I expose for it? I understand that exposure should be kept the same throughout the different photos. How would you do this and whats the best way to do it?

Thanks
 
Shoot in manual to keep the exposure the ame each shot.

personally, I'd look at the scene you're about to photograph and select what you want to base the exposure around.... do you want to control the lights, therefore making anything unlit very dark, or do you want to keep some details in the shadows, which could leave the highlights burnt out?


Rhondda at night by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr

I was really fortunate with this that there were lights everywhere along the valley floor, although you can see hot areas on the horizon when there's light spill from further away (Pontypridd to the left, Port talbot to the right).

Just shoot in raw if you can to allow you to play around with white balance that suits the light sources.
 
Thanks for that Pat, I think I understood what you said. By the way, what an awesome panorama you have there. Was it shot in portrait? I'll be well chuffed if I get anything half as good as what you got there.
 
Jh84 said:
Thanks for that Pat, I think I understood what you said. By the way, what an awesome panorama you have there. Was it shot in portrait? I'll be well chuffed if I get anything half as good as what you got there.
Click to expand...

Cheers - was a case of getting out of a child-filled madhouse when I went to see the inlaws.

Can't remember what orientation I shot it in. Stitched together in CS3 - think it was something like 15 shots. :)
 
specialman said:
Shoot in manual to keep the exposure the ame each shot.
Click to expand...

To that I'd add shoot manual focus to avoid variation there too.

Specialman's advice about shooting in RAW and choosing what you're exposing for is sound. I tend to let the lights take care of themselves, but watch out for blowing highlights on things that are illuminated.

I slipped a little on this 3 shot pano and, though it worked well for the rest of the scene, I allowed the right hand tower of Tower Bridge to blow and probably should have taken it a third to half a stop down. RAW got me a bit of the detail back, but not quite enough.


London at Night: Shard, Thames, City, Wapping by cybertect, on Flickr

Oh, and one other thing - remove any filters you may have on your lenses. IME all they're likely to do shooting at night is increase the chance of flare.
 
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Hopefully not stating the obvious, but if you're doing any PP on the component shots prior to assembling the pano, make sure you apply the same changes to all the frames (WB, contrast, exposure adjustments, etc.).
 
Great advice there musicman thanks :)
 
Oh and where did you take that panorama from? The shard looks amazing, didn't realise it was finished, was watching a documentary on it last night.
 
Musicman said:
Hopefully not stating the obvious, but if you're doing any PP on the component shots prior to assembling the pano, make sure you apply the same changes to all the frames (WB, contrast, exposure adjustments, etc.).
Click to expand...

This. I make the adjustments to the left hand raw file, then copy them to successive files, then convert the whole lot to tiff and then into PS, it ensures your skies are all the same colour for example.
 
Jh84 said:
Oh and where did you take that panorama from? The shard looks amazing, didn't realise it was finished, was watching a documentary on it last night.
Click to expand...

Bermondsey Wall East at the end of last November.

If you click on the link to the Flickr page it's geotagged (edit: and there's a big version you can get a look at :))
 
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I'll have a look on my laptop when I get a chance (on the phone). Thanks :)
 
Musicman said:
Bermondsey Wall East at the end of last November.

If you click on the link to the Flickr page it's geotagged (edit: and there's a big version you can get a look at :))
Click to expand...

Just had a look on my laptop, looks amazing :thumbs: I want to try something similar before I go away :)
 
I ditto what pretty much everyone else has said.

Only thing I do differently is I edit the image at the end, opposed to editing one then sync'ing to the rest.
 
Lock everything from shot to shot, including WB, ISO, focus - it makes the stiching software do less work and it'll be more consistant - you can scan round the panorama beforehand to check the exposure for the brightest spot.

One tip, shoot portrait orientation for a horizontal pan, you can get slightly more vertical resolution and the I think the overlap from frame to frame's less distorted...I've definitely had the same pano cleaner shot portrait vs landscape.

Musicman, that pano's lovely! Been to that spot before but not done a pano there, it's a great spot to line up Tower Bridge and St Pauls in tele.
 
Musicman said:
Bermondsey Wall East at the end of last November.

If you click on the link to the Flickr page it's geotagged (edit: and there's a big version you can get a look at :))
Click to expand...

Big version is stunning!

I'd also recommend shooting portrait. Too many panorama are spoiled by being too thin and stretched out.

Here's one I took in Newcastle last year (big version here)

trio.jpg
 
Thanks everyone for the advice, hope I can put it to good use.

Btw crazy badger, another stunning panorama :)
 
Btw guys, if I fix the white balance, what white balance should I be using at night?
 
Shoot it in RAW so you can sort the WB later
 
Jh84 said:
Btw guys, if I fix the white balance, what white balance should I be using at night?
Click to expand...

Anything you like if you shoot raw. The idea of using a fixed white balance is just so that all the images have a similar tone rather than having to process them all individually before you stitch.
 
Thanks everyone. I just posted my first panorama attempts in the Architecture and Urban section, can you guys let me know what you think.

Thanks
 
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