Buy a camera that has the function built in.
Regular Reader Randy (that almost deserves its own acronym, RRR) commented on yesterday’s post wanting to know how I made that panoramic 360° photo of my cubical. Well Randy, I don’t remember, but I’m guessing by the photo’s vintage, circa 2001-02, that it was done using the Olympus D-40Z which had the function built right into the camera. The predecessor to that camera, a Kodak V570, had a mode that did it internally to three successive exposures quite convincingly. Sadly my current Panasonic DMC-TZ3 does have that function.
But I figured that with a little bit of web searching I could come up with a freeware solution. And I did, unfortunately they were either crap or so complex that it would take a rocket scientist to make it work. I found one, AutoStitch, where using their included sample images the demo worked great, but trying to use my images it only knitted two of the 10 photos. So I ended up doing it the old fashioned way, creating one really long blank image and placing each photo in it one on top of the other. Here you go, my new 9′ x 9′ home:
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 913
RRR – I like that.
I bought myself a camera for my birthday and I’m playing with it a lot. I’ve heard of Autostitch, but not used it. Some of the software takes a lot of talent to use.
There’s also a technique (I forget the name) of taking pictures at different settings and then overlaying them one on top of the other. Then, you pick the best background, the best foreground, the best trees, etc.
I don’t want to work that hard…
I think I found my problem with AutoStitch, a couple of my photos didn’t have enough overlap, so it bombed out trying to stitch them. I brought my camera into work today to take another series, but when I snapped a picture of the sky in the parking lot this morning, that was all the juice my battery had.
The other technique you are thinking of is HDR (High Dynamic Range) I use Photomatix the free trail version is fully functional, but leaves a small watermark.
Yes, HDR. Haven’t tried it…. I’ll keep Photomatix in mind.