In this photography lesson we look at another one of the digital camera features-stitch assist. Stitch assist mode is now available on many advanced digital cameras and is designed for shooting panoramas in sections.

These sections are then stitched together into one single and seamless photograph. The stitching process is done on your computer with special software which is sometimes included with the camera. You can also purchase software programs which allow you to do panoramic photos with any standard camera.

Photographers have been shooting panoramas for years. The scene would be shot as a series of single photos, then joined together into one panoramic picture.

How well the final image turned out depended greatly on the skill of the photographer or lab technician. Computer software changed all that.

Computer software programs are available that allow seamless panoramas to be made with a regular camera. The stitch assist feature on digital cameras, combined with this software, make creating this type of shot quite easy, but a few quidelines will help insure that the final image looks like one single photo, or “seamless”.

Guidelines For Shooting Panoramas

• A wide angle will cover the entire scene in fewer shots, but will also make everything appear smaller and more distant.
• Turning your camera vertically to shoot a horizontal panorama will provide more height in your image, but will require more shots to cover the scene.
• You need to keep the camera as level as possible for each picture. Using a tripod with panning head is ideal.
• The camera should remain in the same spot for the entire sequence. Rather than change your position, you will rotate the camera horizontally or vertically for each shot.
• Overlap each image in the sequence by a minimum of 30% or more horizontally and keep the vertical alignment around 10% or less.
• It is helpful to include a distinctive object in each overlapping section. This will make it easier for the software to know how to combine the images.
• Watch the lighting carefully. The software will do a fairly good job of balancing out the light, but it is better if you avoid extremes.

Depending on your particular camera and software, these quidelines should give you a good starting point. Good panoramic phototgraphy is a speciality, and there is a lot more to know about it if you want to explore this area of photography.

Here’s to better photography…

Al Hannigan