Goodbye Bristol

Devrij · 23 Mar 2012 at 09:55

With my upcoming move to Yorkshire I thought I'd get in a shot of the ever-popular Clifton Suspension Bridge (shot so many times the valley echoes with shutter clicks

), and I took it as an opportunity to shoot my first ever pano shot. So without further ado

and the remix!

I'm not 100% happy with either tbh and keep flip-flopping between which one I like better. I think I might print one as a memento so any ideas as to how it could be improved or which one you prefer would be great

Amp34 · 24 Mar 2012 at 00:52

How did you process the pano? To me it looks like you processed each side separately and then stitched them together. There is a distinct gradient between darker and more colourful and lighter and flatter, right in the centre. Was the exposure the same for each shot?

If it was all processed in the way the left hand side was then I think it would be a very nice image, just the right hand side seems very flat.

Rojin · 24 Mar 2012 at 01:18

Looks like the sun is to the right, locking WB and exposure is something I always forget to do on a panorama. I've had some right dodgy results!

Devrij · 24 Mar 2012 at 07:32

Rojin said:
Looks like the sun is to the right, locking WB and exposure is something I always forget to do on a panorama. I've had some right dodgy results!

Ah, now that's probably what went wrong.

I had noticed the seam between the two and was wondering how it got there. So basically when I rotated the camera away from the sun it was recalculating the exposure. *sigh* Well at least I took something I had more experience with on the way out.

Amp34 · 24 Mar 2012 at 17:27

Yep basically, however if you shot in RAW it should be pretty easy to change exposure of the right hand one to match the left hand one. If you shot JPEG it will probably be a bit more difficult but it's doable.

philds · 24 Mar 2012 at 17:40

For a pano, your exposure needs to be calibrated and then configured in manual mode so that it doesn't change between the shots. What I usually do is use the camera meter to check the values it gives for a normal exposure across the scene, then set my exposure values in between the highest and lowest metered exposure using the cameras manual mode.

Basically you play with shutter speed leaving the aperture static (because it affects the depth of field) as well as the ISO (because you'll want to keep that at it's lowest for the best quality). If you have the bright sun at one end of the pano and a darker shadowy area at the other end then it's going to hard to get a balance as you'll never find the perfect middle ground. You'll have to decide between clipped highlights or clipped shadows depending on the mood of the image you are trying to create.

TL;DR - Always do panos in manual exposure mode, select your aperture (depth of field) and don't change it, select your ISO (lowest for best quality) and finally find the right shutter speed to get a good exposure across all the shots that make up your pano.

Nexus · 24 Mar 2012 at 17:46

Devrij said:
Ah, now that's probably what went wrong. I had noticed the seam between the two and was wondering how it got there. So basically when I rotated the camera away from the sun it was recalculating the exposure. *sigh* Well at least I took something I had more experience with on the way out.

I want to like this, but the details in the shadows have been brightened too much, almost to HDR proportions. It makes it feel unnatural.

philds · 24 Mar 2012 at 17:50

I can see a longer exposure was used, but did you use a ND filter at all?

Devrij · 25 Mar 2012 at 12:44

Nexus said:
I want to like this, but the details in the shadows have been brightened too much, almost to HDR proportions. It makes it feel unnatural.

It is HDR, and I actually dislike the trees as well. I'm not entirely sure what to do with them as they make up a large portion of the shot, and I dislike the purple colour they have. I would've preferred green trees, but hey ho. I did try burning them a bit to get rid of the spider-web look, but could't get it to look right.

philds said:
I can see a longer exposure was used, but did you use a ND filter at all?

Nope, no filters to use yet, just used HDR to bring detail from shadows back without blowing out the sunset. It was already quite dark at that stage.

Cheers for the feedback guys

Tysonator · 26 Mar 2012 at 13:56

I have yet to just Bristol and when I do this is one of the shots I would love to do.