Brenizer Effect

[dubaiphil]

I've done a search on the forum and can't find any reference to previous posts about this subject. Has anyone else been experimenting with the Brenizer effect?

It's named after a guy in the US who didn't invent it, but has popularised it with his wedding photography. The process is as follows:

Get as fast a telephoto lens on your camera as possible
Dial in a wide aperture, the wider the better
Shoot a panorama, either with a tripod or handheld. If you have a human subject it's best to start with shooting them fast first while they're still and spiraling out to get a large amount of background in your panorama
Stitch together using your preferred software

Hey presto, you have a wide field of view final image with a very shallow depth of field. This is something which you definitely can't do for every shot you take, but it produces a different result which looks more medium or large format than 35mm or crop sensor.

There's even an online calculator which shows you what the equivalent DSLR lens would have to be to recreate your final image as a single shot.

Here's an example - shot with a D700 and 85mm f1.4 @ f1.4 - 18 shots made the panorama, which was stitched using PTGui Pro. The result is the equivalent of a 24mm f0.45 lens

[dubaiphil]

And another which gives a cinematic feel

[dubaiphil]

So no great images here, but just playing with the technique!

[dje]

Phil I've seen nothing on this technique before but it's an interesting one to consider for certain situations. Presumably you set the focus on the foreground object then lock it in for the rest of the shots.

Dave

[dubaiphil]

Correct, Dave. On my VW, the front wheel is in focus and the rear wheel is a little out of focus. The problem at night can be stitching the large out of focus areas, but different stitching software deals with this in different ways, or lets the user override the process

[dubaiphil]

here's a link:

http://blog.buiphotos.com/2009/07/th...th-directions/

[MilT0s]

The VW one is fantastic Phil. Interesting technique, thanks for posting.

[Donald]

No, I've never come across this technique before. But as you suggest and as is more evident, for me, in the underground garage image, it does produce quite spectacular results.