Titano the Strongman

What's due Monday - shots for the Little Planet

As of Wednesday the 20th, you should have already successfully assembled no less than 2 panoramas. One which should be 360 degrees around.

Make sure you accomplish this before taking the next set of images due Monday. You need to take images to create a 360x180 (equirectangular) panorama. In simple terms, you need to take photos covering every direction. This will require three 'rows' of images. Use you widest angle setting of your lens. One with the camera level (use your camera in the vertical orientation for all these shots), one with it tilted up as much as possible while still insuring at least 20% overlap with the tops of the first row. Then same thing but with the camera facing down. It is likely that you will need 10 ish images per row. Maybe more, maybe less. Then, move your tripod and take a shot of the ground where the tripod was and take a shot of the sky above the tripod. Of course, you have to keep the same focus and exposure for all of the shots. 

We will edit these and assemble them in to a 360x180 panorama on Monday. I will then show you how  to change the projection to create a Little Planet image.

This project is deciptively  hard. Take great care when shooting these images or you will find that you have to re-shoot them or spend lots of time fighting with them on the computer. 

Meanwhile, you should also be continuing your research and shooting for the Urban Nature project. 

Hugin - free, powerful, complicated panorama stitching tool

Hugin is a fantastic opensource panorama assembly program. You can use it to create a 'real' little planet as opposed to the polar coordinate derived little planet that I will show you how to create using Photoshop. I will go over using Hugin in class on Monday.

Write up on how to assemble your entire little planet using Hugin. This one is a kind of response/update to the previous tutorial. This is a very nice write up which includes how to work with sets of points when necessary


Here is an Instructables on how to put together a Little Planet using Hugin. 

A blog of a guy who really likes his panoramas. Some nice examples of various projections.

Very nice, detailed tutorial on using Hugin to create a panorama. Includes info on fixing problems that may arise.

Download Hugin. Get Autopano-sift-C. The video immediately below details how to install Autopano-sift-C.

Panorama stitching programs and tutorials

Okay, we are going to make some panoramas! I love panoramas! One day I will offer an all panorama class!

Once you have all your images shot for inclusion into a panorama, you need to use a program to stitch the individual images into a single panoramic image. 

The Photo Merge panorama feature in PS is much better than it was before. You might just want to start there. It can be accessed by going to File > Automate > PhotoMerge.

NeoPanoramic - features reviews of many of the programs listed below. They are worth reading. 

Hugin - a very powerful, feature rich panorama stitching program. It is however, not the most user friendly program. It is free though. Awesome name.

PTgui is a commercial product similar to Hugin but possibly with better support. It is expensive, but very capable. 

There are other programs besides Hugin that you might want to try.

Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE) - Free Microsoft program, simple but powerful. There is however no official support. Support is via a community forum. Of course, it is Windows only.

Gigapan is project to create incredibly high resolution panorama images using a robotic panorama head.

Autopano - high end panorama stitching software. Very powerful, but expensive.

Flaming Pear Flexify - Photoshop Plugin which facilitates making pans in various projections. Does some really incredible things. Great name!

Panorama 360 Action - It automatically crops your panorama to 360 with no overlap.

AltoStorm- Panorama Corrector - a program to clean up panoramic distortions. I haven't used it, but it would seem that you can do the same things in Hugin.

Flickr Group which utilizes a clever utility to display your rectalinear images as immersive images.


Dermander - an online panorama creation utility. It hosts them as well and makes interactive versions. 


Panomonkey - another online panorama creation site with hosting. 


PTStitcher - free program for Mac and PC that can generate full 360 x 180 images. I haven't had a chance to try it yet though. 

Autodesk Stitcher - haven't tried it yet.

PanoramaPlus - inexpensive commercial product - haven't tried it yet...

Kekus Digital Calico Panorama stitcher - haven't tried it yet. For Mac only.

Autostitch - a free, simple panorama program for Windows only.
TUTORIALS
Hack a Day's Guide to Making a Small Planet

PhotoExtemist guide to making a 360 x 180 Planet using Hugin

An idiots guide to making a small planet

Flickr discussion group on making small planets

Flickr discussion about using Hugin for stereographic projections

Complex tutorial on using Hugin to create an equitorial pan and then making it a sterographic projection

Sweet little planet with northern lights

Simimilar one to above

Wikipedia article about stereographic projection

How to create a handheld Equirectangular panoramic image then make a small planet using Flexify

Tutorial translated from German

Photojojo Tutorial on the process with a section on making one from a single image

A great collection of various projections

Here is a tutorial on creating "Little Planets" using the Polar Coordinates method in Photoshop. 

A Introduction to Equirectangular Photography

Cubic Convertor Free program for making QTVR images

Nice series of videos on how to take and assemble 360 x 180 images. 

Artomatic 419!

This is the space. Eric said it's in an old church that had been converted to a basketball court. I will discuss volunteer requirements in class today. 

How to correctly shoot a series of images to be combined later into a Panorama

*By Tuesday, shoot two sets of images to be combined into a panorama- don't edit them yet, just focus on shooting them correctly*
 
How to correctly shoot a series of images to be combined later into a Panorama

Seder Burns

1. Use a tripod. Using a tripod helps to insure accurate alignment of images. If you plan on using Hugin to assemble your images on the computer, I suggest you overlap each image somewhere between 30-50%.
1. 3 way tripod heads are preferable as they allow you to change just the horizontal axis independent of the other axis. If you use a ball head, it must have the option of rotating along the horizontal axis independently of the other axis.
2. You should level your camera when possible. Leveling your tripod insure that horizontal lines stay that way. If you have a built in level, use it. If you don’t have a tripod with a built in level, you can purchase a hot shoe mounted, dual axis, spirit level (around $35).
3. Using a tripod allows you to use a small aperture to increase depth of filed when desired without having to worry about blurry images due to camera shake.
4. If you have the means to do it, determine nodal point of your lens and pivot on its axis. This is most easily achieved by purchasing a commercially made panorama tripod head.
2. Use a cable release, electronic release, remote release, or self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any potential blurriness caused by shaking the camera. If one image is blurrier than the others, then your panorama is ruined.
3. If your camera has a mirror lock up feature designed to minimize vibration cuased by the movement of the mirror, use it. This is different from a mirror lock up feature designed to flip up the mirror for the purpose of cleaning the sensor. Some cameras such as the Nikon D100 have an anti-shock feature that causes a delay after the mirror flips up to allow the vibration from the mirror to dissipate before the shutter opens.
4. Determine your exposure and then lock it in. If your camera has manual exposure capabilities, then set your exposure and don’t change it from shot to shot. If your camera doesn’t have manual exposure capabilities, try to find an exposure lock button and keep it pressed in while shooting each image. This insures consistency between each shot. This is super important.
1. When determining exposure, consider the brightness values of the whole scene. As always, determine your exposure for the highlights. Set your exposure based on the brightest area in which you wish to preserve full detail. Don’t worry if the shadows look very dark. You can always open them up later using software, but you can not restore blown out highlights.
2. Consider bracketing. Of course, I mean bracket the whole series and not from frame to frame.
3. When taking panoramas outside, be mindful of rapid changes in brightness caused by shifting cloud cover. This can result in stitched panoramas with abrupt changes in brightness and color.
5. Manually focus your camera for a given distance and do not refocus between each shot.
1. If you have a DSLR, you should focus manually. If you have trouble focusing manually, then use autofocus to focus the first image, then turn autofocus off to shoot the other shots. This will insure focus doesn’t change from image to image.
2. If you have a point and shoot style digital camera, then you can usually manual focus by selecting a distance at which to focus from a menu.
3. Carefully consider the distance at which you focus. Also consider your depth of field. Choose a small aperture for greater depth of field when desired.
6. To facilitate clean stitches, try to use the longest focal length you have available. This will necessitate moving further away from the subject. I realize that this is not always possible when shooting within confined spaces.
7. In order to minimize distortions caused by parallax, shoot directly at the things that are closest to you. Placing close objects directly in the center of a shot keeps them away from edges and seams where they are most problematic.
8. Use a lens hood to prevent/minimize flare. If you don’t have a lens hood for the lens you are using, then go buy one for it.
9. Manually set your white balance. Otherwise auto white balance may change setting from image to image. I suggest you set it for the dominant light source. If you are shooting under mixed lighting, you may want to set the white balance using a white or gray card (see your camera manual for instructions on how to do this).
10. Shoot in RAW file format. This will allow give the greatest image quality and the greatest latitude in editing.
11. I suggest that you sketch what you anticipate the completed panorama will look like. It is a real challenge to create a compelling panorama image. It is much larger frame to make use of. Often, only part of the image is interesting.
12. Don't use a polarizer. The effect of polarizers varies according to the angle to the sun. So, the effect will change as you rotate the camera. I suppose you could use a graduated neutral density filter, but you would have to insure that you are absolutely level.

Creative Manipulation

Natalie Cole singing a duet with her deceased father Nat King Cole.

Phototampering through History:

Photo-manipulation through history-a time line.

Photoshop Disasters - Great blog about bad photo editing.

Boing Boing article on crazy Ralph Lauren model retouching fiasco.

Ralph Lauren fires model for being too fat.

Another article about the Ralph Lauren fiasco.

Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo.

Research on detecting faked photos.

Recent Ann Taylor retouching ridiculousness.

More on Ann Taylor.

Brian Walski's composite "news" photo.

Kate Winslet "furious" over claims her photo spread where manipulated.

Ikea Catalog - More Pixels Less Pine Wall Street Journal article about the futre of Ikea's catalog production

H&M swaps head photos onto digital bodies

Looklet.com the company behind the H&M technology

Glamstorm Super scary stuff

Portrait Professional - terrible, terrible stuff

Printer Profiles

Here is a link to download the printer profile for the Epson 4800 using Premium Semimatte Paper 250. 

On a Mac, copy the file to  library/colorsync/profiles  - I may need to sign in to allow you to save the file there

Urban Nature / Urban Wildlife - updated

I have arranged for us to have an exhibition at the Toledo Metroparks National Center for Nature Photography.

You will begin working on this right away. I strongly suggest that you start by doing research. Additionally, start making note of the various animals and such that you see around the city/suburbia. Deer, squirrels, and song birds are the obvious ones, but what about bats, possums, coyotes, raccoons, rats, etc that you don't always see but you know are around? What is growing over Southwyck mall as well as all the others abandoned places in the area?

You will have to do some real research on this. I don't know how to find coyotes at night. You will have to figure it out. You may need to get permission to photograph somewhere. It may take time to procure permission. You will need to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible.

The idea for this show comes from the BBC/Natural History Museums Wildlife Photographer of the year competition. The Detroit Zoo regularly has the traveling exhibit on display there where I have seen it in the past. There is an Urban Wildlife category that I find most interesting. They define the category thus:

Urban Wildlife
Images must capture the magic of the commonplace. They must be surprising, stirring, revelatory compositions that focus on nature’s occupation of the man-made environment.

Here is a link to three of the winners in this year's competition.

I love it. However, given the time frame I am broadening the scope from wildlife to nature in general with an emphasis on wildlife when possible.

Some things that I would like you to consider:

How do urbanites experience nature?

Nature in the urban environment.

Collision of cities and nature.

Essentially, I would like you to consider how you and other city/suburban dwellers experience nature. Consider the idyllic representation of the deer in the pond at dawn surrounded by mist and the sun rising versus the reality of the deer in the backyard eating mom's garden.  
 
I suggest that someone contact the appropriate UT folks to photograph the peregrine falcon that lives in the tower on campus.