Building Panoramas, Or Why Your Smartphone Alone Isn't Enough

As readers of this blog may know, I try to get outside and enjoy the natural world with my camera. And as I get more and more interested in what's out there, I seem to keep upping the ante a bit! This latest adventure involved spending 8 days on the glaciated slopes of Mount Rainier. Initially, I planned to bring my D7100, complete with specialized DIY carrying case - but when my pack weighed in at 68 pounds before adding the 3lbs of DSLR goodness, I decided to limit myself to my Samsung Galaxy S5.

Now, I've used my Galaxy S5 before on this blog, and the results were more artistic than photo realistic. You can bet that as I left my D7100 behind, I was thinking about this a lot. But, as we settled in for the night at our first camp site, I realized that I shouldn't be worried. Why, you ask? Because of the great free photo stitching software, Hugin! Sure, I'd be limited in megapixels. But I was in the middle of glacier, outside, taking landscape style shots. I could turn 10 photos into one with this software, and you'd never know that they came from a smartphone!

Let me pause here. You may be confused by what I've just said, and the title of my post. You're using your phone, silly! Why isn't that enough? Well, one other climber, our guide, Devin, took panorama shots nearly the same as I did. But he did it all "in cameraphone."

Courtesy Devin, at twitter.com/denalidevo

The photos are amazing, as you can see in this one example. But one thing comes into play here - distortion. It's that subtle fishbowl effect that appears when taking panoramas. It's not easy to get rid of, but it is possible - with software. And that's where Hugin comes into play.

In order to build the panoramas below, I took upwards of 10 individual photos. I basically created a grid of the scene that I wanted to capture, ensuring that there was plenty of overlap between each shot. This ensured that the software had many examples of common points in each set of images to stitch them together - aka do computer magic.

I began with seven separate photos

Lots of control points make for more accurate stitching

Now, Hugin allows you a lot of control with photos. I should mention that I did all of my preliminary post-processing in Lightroom. White balance, exposure levels, minor edits - I performed this on one image in Lightroom, and then batched the settings to the other six images. This ensured that each piece of the larger puzzle looked the same - no odd underexposed sections here!

Once we have all seven images imported, and the software has identified the common control points, we get this output screen.  Here, I can select the type of projection that I want to base my image on. This is how we either eliminate (or increase) distortion, based on our artistic ideals for the image. Just check out my picture of the Emmons Glacier with Little Tahoma in the background - I went with some level of distortion to the picture, but that's just because I liked it that way.

Panini General Projection

Cylindrical Projection

Trans Mercator Projection

As is quite apparent, each projection created a very different image. The brighter areas are what Hugin would produce to create a "final" image. The cylindrical projection is what I made for my final image, so it is cropped properly, however the other two projections, while having the same dimensions, now include blank space within the final image. The Trans Mercator projection has also created that "fishbowl" effect that we saw in the smartphone image from Devin! But, our other choices eliminated that distortion. And this is precisely why you need a little bit more than just a smartphone to create a panorama - that is, if you want to avoid distortion!

Equipment Used

Samsung Galaxy S5
Hugin Version: 2012.0.0.a6e4184ad538


Images

Outdoor Photography Preperation - Gear-Hacking a Camera Holster

An Easily Accessible Outdoor Camera Rig - For Half of the Price.

 

Over the last two years, I've attempted to combine my love of photography with the enjoyment that I get from being outdoors. To put it mildly, I have had very little success. Sure, I've snagged a few nice shots, but if you're going on a multi-day camping trip, the amount of time you can spend pulling gear out of bags to get the perfect shot is limited

So, how can I make my camera more available to me, on the go? I'm going on hikes, doing alpine climbing, and paddling down rivers at times. Breaks are fine, but part of all of these journeys is reaching the destination (eventually) . If I keep stopping for the perfect shot(s), I'm going to be very late to work the next Monday!

There are a number of complex chest rigs to hold your camera in place as you hike, even with a full backpack on. Well, those cost anywhere north of $99. That's a little much for what I want to spend. But then I stumbled on Think Tank's Digital Holster 10 V2.0. (You're welcome, Think Tank. How about endorsement money now? No? Maybe a coupon?)

So, let's get this puppy all set up. See this cool super sturdy velcro tab? We can attach the camera holster to the backpack via the chest strap.You may be curious as to why I didn't just attach the holster to my waist belt. Well, I'm going to be traveling while wearing a climbing harness on occasion. The one thing that I do not want my camera to interfere with is my safety equipment. Safety first!





















Just make sure that you've got enough room on the male end of the clip to buckle the strap. You might think that this will be uncomfortable, but the chest strap isn't meant to be cinched tight and bear weight. It should be semi-loose when clipped!

So here is what we've got when it's attached to the strap and clipped in. Not too bad! But I'm putting some pretty pricey gear in this holster. I don't want to trundling down a hill, cliff, or worse when I take my pack off for a breather. After all, tired minds make mistakes. So we get out a cheap carabiner.





















Finally, I've attached the carabiner to one of the metal D-rings on the holster, and then attached that to a closed loop on the chest strap. Note - CLOSED loop. If it's just the strap, the holster can still go sliding off - this time with a carabiner in tow. And there - I've just recreated a camera set-up for half of the price that keeps my gear well protected from weather and bumps, all while securely fastened to me in an easy to reach place.