Landscape photography
Panoramic photography
Panoramic photography using multiple exposures combined into single HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographs and stitched together in PtGui allows you to capture more of what you see.
First of all the ability to combine images into an HDR photograph is a technique in itself. Usually 3 or 5 images are shot at different exposures.
This allows you to capture all of the information in the scene from the brightest highlight to the deepest shadow in your panoramic photography.
Then using software, I use HDR Efex Pro 2 from Nik Collection, these images are combined into one final shot.What the software does is to use the best exposure from each part of the scene e.g. for the highlights the area in the shot with the best exposure is used, likewise for the shadow etc.
This means that the final Panoramic photography image is able to contain a greater dynamic range, the “High” dynamic range picking the best part of one of the 3 images and combing them together.
In this image not only did I shoot 3 images for each final HDR image but I also shot the landscape using a panormaic head.
The set up requires you to mount a special panoramic head on a tripod, then take a series of images across (panning) the scene over lapping them slightly, I took 5 images for each layer in the landscape photograph “pan”.
I also shot 5 layers so after each set of images the head is tilted up or down and the shot sequence repeated, 5 shots across the view.
This means that the final image is made up of 75 individual shots, 3 exposures at different settings for each single HDR image x5 shots across the frame, these are combined into 25 HDR images, the 25 HDR images are then stitched together in PtGui to create the final landscape and travel image.
Confused ? Panormaic photography can be a little confusing at first but once mastered you can take some great panoramic landscapes as well. Get in touch if you would like to learn more about panoramic photography and I can help guide you through the steps required.
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