Panoramas are visually interesting, and that’s why Panorama modes can be found on many consumer cameras. Simply set the camera to Panorama mode, frame your shot, and follow the panning instructions in your viewfinder. Move slowly, evenly, and keep your camera level with the horizon. If your camera is on a tripod, so much the better. Do it right and you get a terrific panoramic image of up to 360 degrees, depending on how you set your camera.
I have long been a fan of panorama imaging, you can imagine my surprise when I realized my Sony a7R III—the fourth Sony A7-series camera I’ve owned—does not have a Panorama mode. My a7S, a7R, and a7R II each had a Panorama mode. The a7R III doesn’t, which is why my original plan to create panoramas with varying focal length lenses by using the in-camera shooting mode suddenly morphed into something different, and I had to turn to Adobe Photoshop to merge my 2:3 images into wider-field panoramic photographs. This two-part story became a three-part story when I had to turn to Adobe Photoshop for merging my 2:3 images into wider-field panoramic photographs.
Photographs © Allan Weitz 2020
How Are Panoramas Created?
Panoramic photographs can be captured in several ways. The first is with a wide-field camera, which in the film days were typically medium-format cameras that captured 6 x 12cm or 6 x 17cm photographs on 120 and 220 film. Wide-field panorama field cameras that recorded panoramic images on large sheets of cut film are still produced by small custom camera shops. Film for these cameras is typically produced in small batches once or twice a year, by companies that include Ilford.
Today, many consumer digital cameras have a Panorama mode, which captures 50 or more consecutive stills as you slowly pan your camera from left to right, or vice versa. These images are processed and merged in-camera into a single, wide-field panoramic photograph. For the most part, these in-camera panorama modes work quite well. This article is for those who—like me (thanks, Sony!)—do not have a panorama mode in their camera and require some help from Photoshop to create panoramic images.
Creating Panoramas in Photoshop Using Two or More Still Images
Photoshop features a handy set of tools that enable you to create wide-field panoramas using traditionally captured still images.
The first thing you need are the images, which are easy to assemble. Although stills for panorama images can be captured handheld, it’s preferable to use a tripod simply because straight horizon lines guarantee seamless, distortion-free results. If you’re using a tripod, make sure it is locked in place and the head remains level throughout a 360-degree rotation.
The three top photographs were taken with a 15mm lens, merged together into a panorama, and cropped to eliminate distracting visual elements and optical distortions (bottom photograph).If your camera has a built-in electronic leveling feature, this is the time to use it, regardless of whether you are shooting handheld or mounted on a tripod. Level images make for better panoramas, even when you can’t see the horizon line in the picture.
The number of pictures required to produce a merged panorama photograph depends on two components: how wide you want the horizontal plane to be, and the focal length of your lens. In the case of 14 to 18mm ultra-wide-angle lenses on a full-frame camera, it’s possible to create a 180° panorama in three frames. Lenses in the 24 to 28mm range require about five still images to create a 180° panorama, and seven to eight still images are needed to create the same 180° panorama image when using a 50mm lens.
When capturing the individual frames, it’s extremely important to leave about 20% image overlap between each frame. Photoshop needs this overlap image area to identify and merge visual elements that are common between adjacent images. The more visual clues you feed to the Photoshop algorithms, the better and cleaner your results will be.
Something to keep in mind when choosing lenses for panoramas is that along with increased detail and narrower image fields in each frame, shooting panoramas with longer focal length lenses results in notably larger file sizes, along with all of the logistical issues that go hand in hand with juggling larger file sizes.
To illustrate this story, I used a Sony Alpha a7R III and five lenses: a Voigtländer Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 Asph III, a Zeiss Biogon T* 25mm f/2.8 ZM, a Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm f/2 ZM, a Nikon NIKKOR 50mm f/1.2 AI-S, and a Voigtländer Nokton 75mm f/1.5 Asph. The lenses—all Leica M and Nikon F-mounts—were coupled to my Sony camera using Voigtländer and Novoflex lens adapters. Needless to say, all of the tips and procedures talked about in this article hold true regardless of camera brand and lens types you use—the lessons are one and the same.
Piecing the Picture Elements Together
Once you capture your images, it’s time to get them into Photoshop. I shoot raw when composing photographs for panoramas because doing so allows me to embed lens profiles into each image file, which helps to reduce the possibility of introducing unwanted optical distortions into the mix.
Accessing the panorama merge function is as easy as FILE > AUTOMATE > PHOTOMERGE, which brings you to the Photoshop Photomerge menu.
On the left side is the Layout Menu. The default mode is Auto, which I suggest using as a starting point because it works well 99% of the time. (You’re welcome to play with the other modes if you wish.) At the bottom of the menu are four boxes—Blend Images Together, Vignette Removal, Geometric Distortion Correction, and Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas. The default setting has only the top box checked off—check all four boxes.
Autofill? Maybe… Sometimes…
The only box you might decide to uncheck is the last box (Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas), which digitally fills in missing image data due to the merge and reformatting process. When the content fill feature works, it usually works well. In the case of wide-angle lenses, the algorithms become too complex and the results are twisted. In these cases, uncheck the Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas box and clean up the final image file by cropping it into a proper rectangle.
What’s the Best focal Length for Capturing Panorama Photographs?
When shooting panoramas, most people do not think much about the focal length of the lens. In the case of point-and-shoot cameras, when switched to panorama mode, the camera lens automatically zooms to “true” normal, which in the case of full-frame 35mm cameras is about 40mm, give or take a millimeter or two. However, you might want to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t work.
Considerations include subject matter—what are you photographing and under what kind of shooting conditions will you be working? If you need to back up to capture the entire scene, is there enough room or will you need a wider-angle lens? Is your intended subject off at a distance and not viewable close up? As with conventional photography, these are all considerations and parameters that must be factored into your lens choices. (And let’s not forget aesthetics!)
Can You Shoot Panorama Photographs with Wider or Longer Focal Length Lenses?
The short answer is yes, though each lens type comes with its own set of issues. Wide-angle lenses take in wider fields of view and require fewer images to create panorama images, but they also require greater cropping when merging the individual frames together.
Long focal length lenses capture narrower angles of view, specifically in the height of the image. (The width of panorama images can be up to 360 degrees, but the lens can only see so far up and down. And because long focal length lenses require more still images for creating the image field, the file sizes of panoramas captured with long focal length lenses are notably larger.
Need Additional Sky and/or Lower Foreground? Shoot Vertically
Setting the angle of horizontal coverage for panorama images is easy—you can go as wide as 360 degrees. It’s the top and bottom of the frame that can prove challenging when shooting panoramas. Sometimes even an ultra-wide-angle lens cannot give you the needed height coverage, and/or lower foreground. In these situations, rather than shoot with the camera horizontally, flip the camera position to vertical. You’ll need to increase the number of frames you shoot to maintain the horizontal field, but you will gain notably more image area at the top and bottom of the frame.
Although I chose Photoshop to produce the panoramic images in this article, there are numerous alternative software programs and plug-ins available online that accomplish the same goal, some free, some for a fee. Serif’s PanoramaPlus X4 is a downloadable stitch software that can be purchased on the B&H website. You can also produce panoramas in Adobe Lightroom, which has a similar panorama workflow as Photoshop. Photoshop is preferable because Lightroom (for whatever reason) does not have Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill option, which I find to be priceless.
Are you curious to learn more about shooting panorama photos? Jump to the Explora article Panoramic Photography for Beginners.
Do you have any experience producing panoramas from individual image files? What software did you use and, if you learned any tricks along the way, do you want to share them in the Comments field? We’d love to hear about your experiences.
