How to make Panoramic images with tilt-shift lens?

[yaniv]

hi
i bought tilt shift lens (samyang)
for Architectural photography
is it possible in photoshop or lightroom to make Panoramic image ? how ?
where can i find explanations on using tilt shift lens
thanks
yaniv

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Yaniv,

I appreciate English isn't your first language, so I have taken a liberty and rephrased the thread title to better describe your query.

I'm afraid I can't help with an answer though, as I do not have a tilt-shift lens and don't take panoramas either.

All the best, Dave

[Shadowman]

It is possible to make panoramic images using photoshop, depends on version. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/us...hotomerge.html

[Manfred M]

I have a 24mm Nikkor shift-tilt lens, but have never used it for any pano work. As I shoot a full frame body, this lens is a very wide angle lens and in general panos at that focal length would be uninteresting because they would give you a lot of foreground and a lot of sky.

In theory it is quite easy to do. Normal practice for a pano is to put the onto an L-bracket and mount the camera on a long focus bar to rotate it around the no-parallax point of the lens. When shooting your Samyang, you can probably skip the L-bracket and so long as you are careful with what is happening in the foreground, you might even be able to skip using the long focus bar.

Focus the lens (you should be shooting 100% manual with auto ISO and auto WB turned off). Drop the lens to the highest shift position and shoot a pano allowing at least a 20% from side to side. Swing your camera back to the starting position and shift the lens down and lock it, ensuring that you have about 20% overlap from top to bottom versus your first set of shots.

Pano software should be able to combine these shots correctly.

[billtils]

Take a look at this video from Dave Hudspeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7SU20Jl0dQ

[William W]

Is the lens: “Samyang T-S 24 mm f/3.5 ED AS UMC”?

What camera are you using?

***

It occurs to me that there are two quite different enquiries in your opening post. One is about making Panoramas with a T/S Lens and the other is about interior Architectural Photography.

*

If you are using the T/S Lens for “Architectural Photography” (as per the example images in the link you that provided), then there would (should) be little or no need for “panoramas”.

The (indoor) “Architectural Photography” as displayed in the sample images would typically be used for something like Real Estate Advertising/Marketing purposes and it would be very safe to assume that each of those images would be displayed “as is” and NOT stitched into a ‘panorama’.

Obviously, if one were using a 24 T/S lens for that type of (Real Estate) Interior Architectural work, then the camera would be 135 format (aka “Full Frame”), as It would be counter-productive using an APS-S or APS-H format DSLR with a 24mm T/S lens for Interior (Real Estate) Architectural Images, because of the loss of width at a relatively short SUBJECT DISTANCES.

*

On the other hand – IF you want to make panoramas, at TYPICAL SUBJECT DISTANCES for ‘PANORAMAS’ whilst using a T/S Lens – then you can more easily achieve a wider ASPECT RATIO if you use an APS-H or (better) and APS-C format camera: this CiC Tutorial explains why..

The link above also provides a basic overview of the procedure for the use of a T/S Lens.

*

HOWEVER - If you want to make ‘Panoramas’ of Landscape Scenes, then it is arguable much better to use ‘Normal’ or ‘Medium Telephoto’ Lens rather than a Wide Angle Lens.

BUT - using a W/A T/S Lens and employing only ONE movement of that T/S lens whilst keeping the camera STATIONARY on the tripod (i.e NOT rotating the camera as one would usually for a 'panorama') will allow a wider (or higher) FoV. ^1 (see Footnote)

NB - (‘Movement’ is the technical word for applying either Tilt or Shift)

*

Returning to the question of making a Panorama (i.e. rotating the camera) when using a Shift / Tilt Lens:

Note that any Movement will move the entrance pupil and this creates parallax and spatial rendering problems which need to be solved when, in Post Production, you need to line up the individual frames. This is an important point to note if your main aim is to create “panoramas” at close Subject Distances – of course "close Subject Distances" comprises mostly all Interior Architectural Photography.

*

In simple terms, if your aim is to shoot Architectural Interiors, then the best approach is to get a lens wide enough to encompass the widest Field of View that you will encounter, to allow you to get all that you require in the ONE frame.

*

For interior Architectural Photography, my experience is that 24mm Lens is a very useful tool when it is on a 135 Format Camera – Ex 01 here:



and Ex 02 here:



*

But, a 24mm will not always be wide enough on a 135 Format Camera - I sometimes need to use a 16 to 35 zoom to get all the FoV that I require.

*

I have also used a Fisheye Lens and then used Post Production “De-fishing” programmes, hereEx03a here:



“de-fished” to this:



***

Arguably, the main reason for using a T/S Lens for Architectural Interior Photography is to either allow the correction of converging verticals and /or to allow the creation of a greater Depth of Field than what would be otherwise possible.

However it is important to note that the issue of correcting converging verticals, for mostly all interior shots, can usually be addressed by using an appropriate Camera Elevation and the correct squaring (i.e. parallel to vertical and horizontal image elements) of the lens’s Axes (see examples 01 and 02 using a 24mm Lens). If these techniques are followed then, there is only the need of the application of very minor “Lens Correction” in Post Production.-

Attaining an adequate DoF for mostly all Interior Architectural Photography is usually by means of using an adequately small Aperture.

These points and other considerations mentioned, render the use of a T/S Lens (especially a 24mm T/S lens) generally redundant for mostly all Interior Architecture Photography of the type referenced in the link in the Opening Post.

However, there is one image on that web page where a T/S Lens would be useful (and might have been used) - that image is near the middle of the page at the right hand side of an interior of a split level dwelling, stairway bounded by glass at the right of the image and the stairway leads down into an area where there is an arm chair.

If your aim is to make a "panorama' of interior architecture using a 24mm T/S lens, then the technique I mentioned and as described in the video link in Post #5 would be the best way to go about that - but for all single level room interiors it would be much MUCH easier to use a wider lens.

*

However, if attaining an appropriate Camera Elevation may not be possible if the room has an unusually high ceiling form below (or photographing two levels from the top level) and when all the Vertical FoV is an integral portion of the Final Image. In these cases, a T/S lens is quite a valuable tool.

Here is an example of using a 24mm Lens (NOT T/S) and then using PP to correct the image – note that unlike the neatly rendered and proportioned armchair at the bottom of the stairs in the web page referenced in the OP, some of the tables in the Foyer are distorted in this image below. This distortion could have been avoided if a T/S lens were used, but on the other hand, how many people would have noticed that very slight distortion in the glass topped table, if there was not an A/B comparison between the original image and the final image?



WW

All Images © AJ Group Pty Ltd Aust 1996~2016 WMW 1965~1996

Footnote:

^1 Post #5 references a video by Dave Hudspeth describing this technique.

[inkista]

Best explanation of doing a pano with a tilt-shift lens is right here in CiC's tutorials on shift with tilt-shift lenses:

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...ft-lenses1.htm

Essentially, you just shift all around as you take the member frames, and then you can combine them with simple overlapping in a program like Photoshop. The shifting takes care of all the warping/rotating the more typical panorama technique requires, but the drawback is you have far less coverage than using a panohead/L-bracket and a wide/fisheye lens to make the member images and then panostitching them in a package like Hugin or PTGui. You're limited by how far you can shift, and dSLR shift lens typically only go about 8mm--it's not like using a viewcamera or bellows, where you can shift both the lens and the image planes.

If you really want to get into taking panoramas, and more specifically 360x180 virtual reality panoramas, the more typical tools of choice are going to be a fisheye lens (fewer shots, more coverage) and a panorama head. I'm cheap and prefer a small/light kit, so I use a micro four-thirds camera, a Samyang 7.5mm fisheye, a Nodal Ninja 3, and PTGui. I used to do this with a 5DMkII and a Sigma 8mm f/3.5 DG circular fisheye; but if I were buying today for a full frame camera, I'd probably get the Samyang 12/2.8 diagonal fisheye or 14/2.8 ultrawide instead, or (if I had the cash), splurge on the Canon EF 8-15 f/4L USM fisheye.

The best overall explanations on how to do this seem to have disappeared off the 'net. Eric Rougier's fromparis site is a WIP, The Panoguides forum got eaten by spam. So, the nodalninja.com forums may be the place to go these days. But the internet archive still has Rougier's Technical page. Suggest starting with his Basics post.

[yaniv]

thanks