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Step 1 - Capture the images
The first step in creating a panoramic image is to capture the images. You can use a digital camera or regular film. If you use film, you must scan the negatives or prints to make image files.
File format
The Panorama Factory requires that the image files be TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), JPEG or BMP images.
Alignment
For best results, all images should be made from the same vantage point and with the same camera, lens, focal length, etc.
The camera should be held level, both side to side and front to back. It should rotate around the front nodal point of the lens and should rotate in a level plane.
The best way to meet these requirements is to use a tripod with leveling indicators and use a panoramic bracket to align the lens’s front nodal point. It is beyond the scope of this help file to instruct you in the fine points of meeting these requirements. You may find clues by exploring the references.
Small variations in image alignment are acceptable, but increase the ghosting problem. Certain types of ghosts can be corrected with the Fine tune command, but it’s best to avoid them as much as possible.
Focus
It’s best to make all images with the same focus. The quality of the blend between one image and the next is reduced if there are noticeable differences in focus between the images. This may or may not be a significant effect, particularly if you use a wide angle lens. If you have no way to control focus on your camera, give it a try and see what happens!
Overlap
The Panorama Factory can work from images that overlap from 1% to 99%. You’ll find that if your overlap region is too small, the scalloping effect from image warping will rob you of the very tops and bottoms of your images. Larger overlaps improve The Panorama Factory’s ability to fine tune (de-ghost), but increase the number of images required. There is absolutely no advantage to overlapping more than 50% (although this poses no particular problems to The Panorama Factory).
We recommend a 20% to 40% overlap, but you should experiment and find what works best for you.
Exposure
It’s best to make all images with the same exposure settings. Some exposure variations can be corrected by using automatic exposure compensation, so if your camera has no manual exposure setting you may be OK.
It is particularly challenging to make a 360 degree panorama when the sun is at an angle. For some images you’ll have the sun at your back and for others you’ll be shooting into the sun. In this case you may need to use automatic exposure. In fact, the example panorama used in this manual was made with shutter-priority automatic exposure!
Scanning
If you have to scan negatives or prints, it does no good to control exposure when making the photographs if you can’t control exposure during printing and scanning!
Photographic prints may be suitable only if you control the printing process by making the prints yourself or working with a custom darkroom. You would want all the prints to be made with the same darkroom parameters.
You’ll get the best results if you can control the scanner exposure parameters also. Some scanning software performs its own automatic exposure compensation. Disable this if possible.
Revised: October 12, 1999