Why did my panorama have different sky colour?

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rabaroo

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Hi

I posted this panorama earleir this week and got some very helpful replies
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=128255

One thing highlighted was the change in sky tone across a diagnal about 1/3 of the pic in from the left..... Why did this happen?

The camera was on a tripod, set to manual and set at the same focal length throughout the 6 frames that formed the panorama.... be keen to understand if I did something wrong for future attempts
 
when the sun is out (so not tonight) look up at the sky turn around and see how it changes from a darker blue to a lighter blue. Thats part of the reason. Although I'm not sure about the change that looks like it's been spliced in place.
 
natjag said:
when the sun is out (so not tonight) look up at the sky turn around and see how it changes from a darker blue to a lighter blue. Thats part of the reason. Although I'm not sure about the change that looks like it's been spliced in place.
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hmmmmmm - I am a bit surprised it showed up so dramatically though... i didnt expect that!

so if this is nature at work, how do I mitigate against it and cover it up in processing???
 
It's really difficult to do pano's of mountain ranges or ay kind of place that has anything but a flat landscape. Especially if the sun is to one side of your shot. It's best to do them with the sun directly behind you. That's the best way of getting roughly the same kind of exposure on each shot.

The trouble with the sun being on one side is that some parts of the shot will be in the shade, and the opposite side will be way brighter. Given that on a single shot the normal way to combat this is by layering different exposures, doing so for a large pano is a lot of work. Also it means more time in the field getting bracketed shots, which takes time and also gives another risk of the light changing due to moving cloud and what not.

It's simply a lot easier to take these kinds of shots with the sun behind you :lol:
 
Did you shoot manual? If you did and ket your settings the same the sky should be exposed evenly.

If you didn't then there is the possiblity (depending upon metering mode and where you were focusing) that the dark slope in the bottom right affected your exposure causing you to overexpose the sky slightly on the very right.

The diagonal line also extends onto the slope on the left (miner's track but not as high as the pyg track unless I'm mistaken on the location) giving you nicer colours on the grass. Again I'd say it was a slight metering issue if you weren't using full manual
 
Also did you shoot manual colour ballance? or auto, the different shades can affect the shot colour. I always set everything to manual, even focus for panos.
Another thought, doesn't CS2 have the advanced blending option? can't remember, if it's there did you use it. Wayne
 
swanseamale47 said:
Also did you shoot manual colour ballance? or auto, the different shades can affect the shot colour. I always set everything to manual, even focus for panos.
Another thought, doesn't CS2 have the advanced blending option? can't remember, if it's there did you use it. Wayne
Click to expand...

Do you mean white balance rather than colour balance? - if so then yeah I think that may be one area where I slipped up! - I'm pretty sure its still on AWB (auto) which is what I generally use
 
Uneducated_Rick said:
Did you shoot manual? If you did and ket your settings the same the sky should be exposed evenly.
Click to expand...

Even setting to manual won't help when you're moving towards the sun. You'll always struggle unless the sun is behind you and then natural polarisation will look even in the sky.

Ah, the joys or merging :)
 
specialman said:
Even setting to manual won't help when you're moving towards the sun. You'll always struggle unless the sun is behind you and then natural polarisation will look even in the sky.

Ah, the joys or merging :)
Click to expand...

OK so a simple question then..... in future is it worth lugging my tripod 1000m up mountains to take pictures like these...... is the picture with its "natural" flaws worth the effort invested - or should I just not bother?
 
It is probable CS2 that has cocked it up, I find the "merge" function in to be crap. I think it was the first time they had done it in CS2.

A friend has CS4 and it is loads better at merging.

If you have taken the shots all in a row with the camera on manual why not try sticking them together yourself? You will have to crop the top and bottom due to the curvature you will get. Also I would Google merging or panoramic contruction as they is a fair bit of info out there on how to do it, with out using CS2.
 
Rabaroo, of course it's worh lugging your gear up a mountain – it's obviously what you like doing and if you're happy with the results then that's what matters.

As far as the auto-merge goes though, I don't think you'll ever get as good a result using auto-merge on older versions of PS as you would if you used selective masking and layers to join shots. It's a lot more work but you'll be able to colour match much better and join images with more precision, avoiding joins and blending the gradient of the sky much cleaner.
 
rabaroo said:
Do you mean white balance rather than colour balance? - if so then yeah I think that may be one area where I slipped up! - I'm pretty sure its still on AWB (auto) which is what I generally use
Click to expand...

Yes I did mean that, sorry. Wayne
 
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