SF Panorama @ Night

[ptrikutam]

Hi All,

It's been a while since I posted here. I have been doing a few panorama / night shots lately and I recently made a panorama of the San Francisco skyline.


Canon Rebel T3i, with a 35mm Fixed lens.
ISO 100
ƒ/11
30sec


Huge Version (50mb, 24699 x 4116).
All Other Sizes

This is actually a composite of ~30 photos (shot in raw) then merged together in Photoshop. I also upped the exposure about 1 stop from my original shot, but beyond that no editing of the shot.

Any thoughts? Advice?

I was thinking about splitting this up into a few frames and getting them printed to hang side-by-side in a long hallway in my house. This may not be the right forum for that, but does anyone have any advice?

[Shadowman]

Large version looks good. You may want to consider viewing distance when printing, if you hang at eye level every little flaw is visible.

[ptrikutam]

Thanks!

Yeah, viewing distance will be very close, but the picture itself will be 2 canvas wraps of 16" x 48".

Do you think flaws will be visible at that resolution?

[Bobobird]

I looked at both the 2048 and the original size version. Yes to seeing flaws in both if viewing close. Mainly noise in the sky and general softness of the buildings.

Admirable effort though.

[ptrikutam]

Gotcha. Anything I could have done to make the picture sharper / reduce noise?

[ptrikutam]

For what it's worth, I sharpened/edited it a bit and here's the final result: http://www.flickr.com/photos/92050588@N05/12980457473/

Here's the original size: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7355/1...70f67426_o.jpg

I think the buildings look a lot sharper when close up and but the sky is still grainy (if not more so), but it could be my imagination...

[Bobobird]

Gotcha. Anything I could have done to make the picture sharper / reduce noise?

Much better now.

[NorthernFocus]

I ALWAYS print proofs before a final print of really large images. The proof doesn't have to be the whole image but should be printed at the same resolution. I hang them where I plan on placing the final version and look at it for a few days before spending the funds on the final version. You can print poster prints fairly inexpensively for proofing. Just a thought.

[Shadowman]

For what it's worth, I sharpened/edited it a bit and here's the final result: http://www.flickr.com/photos/92050588@N05/12980457473/

Here's the original size: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7355/1...70f67426_o.jpg

I think the buildings look a lot sharper when close up and but the sky is still grainy (if not more so), but it could be my imagination...

Better, still grainy, if you try another level of noise reduction limit it to the sky area.

[Manfred M]

I'm surprised by the amount of noise in this image, give that you shot at such a low ISO setting. It's not just the sky, but through all of the shadow detail as well. I suspect that a hot sensor from the 30 second exposures might be the culprit. I know with my camera, if I were to shoot jpegs, long exposure noise reduction functionality kicks in at exposures over 1 sec. I wonder if dark frame subtraction, applied manually with the RAW output might help (I suspect you have done something as I don't see any "hot" pixels when I scan your work).

When I look at the histogram, you might, it's biased to the left and the blown highlights are the lights in the scene. I wonder if ETTR (and living with the blown out highlights) might be worth considering too. I'm looking at some of the nightime panos I shot a couple of months back and somehow, the noise in the sky and in the shadow detail seems to be a lot lower that what you are getting:

Reshoot - Centre Block and War Memorial

The one of the National War Memorial comes in at 11954 x 3262 pixels (works out to a 40" x 11" print at native resolution at 300 ppi), so it is a bit smaller than yours, but I was shooting at 5 sec at f/5.6 at 24mm on a full-frame camera. I wonder if opening up a couple of stops to reduce exposure time might help. At the distance you are shooting, everything should be in focus at infinity anyways.

Regardless, nice pano. I would not break it into two separate shots if it were my image I were printing and mounting it on my wall, I don't think it would look quite as good.

[Wavelength]

Great composition.....