Panorama: Meal Leathan Dhail

* The air of uk.rec.walking was filled with the delicate perfume
* of violets, as Brian <[email hidden]> descended on a shaft
* of golden sunlight, and announced:

Quoted message said:

Stitched using the magic of Hugin.

I use Panotools with the Ptgui front end. I tried Hugin+Enblend once, but
couldn't get on with it - it seemed very much 'work in progress' to me.
Panotools is very well established and proven.

Quoted message said:

Comments / suggestions on how to improve the picture are welcome, as I'm
not too happy as how it has turned out. Not sure about this unsharp
masking thing either.

Looks pretty good to me - the only obvious thing is that there seems to be a
bit of mismatch on the skyline to the right of the centre-line. With
Panotools+Ptgui you can save the stitched file as ps with masks (usually
_very_ big!) and manipulate the masks to blend any mismatching. The sky
looks pretty good, with no obvious stitching.

Regarding sharpness - it looks sharp _enough_ to me. If you need an
automated sharpening tool, have a look at Fred Miranda's 'Intellisharpen II'.
The other image processing tools on his site are also worth a look and are
highly regarded.

BTW, how many images are stitched in your pano?

Regards: Jim Ford

Hello.

Finally go around to stitching together some photos I took way back in
October from a walk I took from Callander up to Meall Leathan Dhail.

http://qurl.com/ec9a0z

260kb, 2591 by 330 pixels.

The original is 10362 by 1320!

Stitched using the magic of Hugin.

Comments / suggestions on how to improve the picture are welcome, as I'm
not too happy as how it has turned out. Not sure about this unsharp
masking thing either...

regards

--
Brian

Jim Ford <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

* The air of uk.rec.walking was filled with the delicate perfume
* of violets, as Brian <[email hidden]> descended on a
shaft * of golden sunlight, and announced:

Quoted message said:

Stitched using the magic of Hugin.

I use Panotools with the Ptgui front end. I tried Hugin+Enblend once,
but couldn't get on with it - it seemed very much 'work in progress'
to me. Panotools is very well established and proven.

Well, you see, I mainly run linux, ptgui isn't available for linux.

Quoted message said:

Looks pretty good to me - the only obvious thing is that there seems
to be a bit of mismatch on the skyline to the right of the
centre-line. With Panotools+Ptgui you can save the stitched file as ps
with masks (usually _very_ big!) and manipulate the masks to blend any
mismatching. The sky looks pretty good, with no obvious stitching.

Which is the magic of enblend. I saved the pano from Hugin as seperate
..tiff files. Enblend then assembled these with some math, so you see no
joins in the resulting panorama.

I have noticed that little mismatch though. Must do a bit of gimping to
clone it out.

Quoted message said:

Regarding sharpness - it looks sharp _enough_ to me. If you need an
automated sharpening tool, have a look at Fred Miranda's
'Intellisharpen II'. The other image processing tools on his site are
also worth a look and are highly regarded.

BTW, how many images are stitched in your pano?

9 Images. Must try and mark my tripod in some way so that I can get even
pans, rather than rotate a little, take a shot, guess how far to rotate,
take another shot etc. Oh and some sort of spirit level on the camera or
tripod would be handy too.

regards

--
Brian

Brian said:

Hello.

Finally go around to stitching together some photos I took way back in
October from a walk I took from Callander up to Meall Leathan Dhail.

http://qurl.com/ec9a0z

Quoted message said:

Comments / suggestions on how to improve the picture are welcome, as I'm
not too happy as how it has turned out. Not sure about this unsharp
masking thing either...

The overall image looks pretty good to me, where I might suggest an
improvement is with your cropping. The image has essentially two
"types" of scenery, its effectively two panoramas. 1.) the peaks on
the horizon covering perhaps 60% of your image from the left, and 2.)
the rising hillside to the right and in the middle-distance. These
compete, to my eye, for interest and the midde-distant hillside is
dominat /and/ less interesting. I'd try cropping to keep the peaks in
the distance/on the horizon and remove the hillside to the right.

HTH

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
http://www.thenmc.org.uk/phpBB2/index.php

NMC website: http://www.thenmc.org.uk

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Peewiglet) said:

Wow! It looks great to me!

agreed.
one suggestion, but really a question for others:
I normally tilt the camera down to minimise the amount of sky in the image
rather than set it level. For summits this means I see down as much as
possible. So I find the highest thing near me and tilt the camera so that
(plus some margin) are the top of the image.
Rob

"Brian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hello.

Finally go around to stitching together some photos I took way back in
October from a walk I took from Callander up to Meall Leathan Dhail.

http://qurl.com/ec9a0z

Excellent picture, did you do a 360° version?

Interesting time to show this pano, I am off tommorrow to do Ben Vorlich and
Stuc a Croin, hopefully I should get a pano from the top to add to my
collection http://www.stuartstuart.fsnet.co.uk/hillwalking/panoramas.htm

* The air of uk.rec.walking was filled with the delicate perfume
* of violets, as Brian <[email hidden]> descended on a shaft
* of golden sunlight, and announced:

Quoted message said:

Well, you see, I mainly run linux, ptgui isn't available for linux.

The only use I have for Windows is for Photoshop. I've used The Gimp in the
past, but it still wasn't up to Photoshop.

Quoted message said:

9 Images. Must try and mark my tripod in some way so that I can get even
pans, rather than rotate a little, take a shot, guess how far to rotate,
take another shot etc. Oh and some sort of spirit level on the camera or
tripod would be handy too.

I'm working on an automated system for panos using a microcontroller driving
a stepper motor. The breadboarded version is roughly working and I'm shortly
going to make the pcb and put it in a box for field trials. I hope to get it
useable for Scotland next year. Something else to carry, though! 8^{

Regards: Jim Ford

Regards: Jim Ford

SteveO said:

The overall image looks pretty good to me, where I might suggest an
improvement is with your cropping. The image has essentially two
"types" of scenery, its effectively two panoramas. 1.) the peaks on
the horizon covering perhaps 60% of your image from the left, and 2.)
the rising hillside to the right and in the middle-distance. These
compete, to my eye, for interest and the midde-distant hillside is
dominat /and/ less interesting. I'd try cropping to keep the peaks in
the distance/on the horizon and remove the hillside to the right.

HTH

Thanks for the reply.

I'll try remaking the panorama with just the main peaks, and leave out the
rising hillside on the right.

--
Brian

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:28 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),

(Rob Milne) said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Peewiglet) said:

Wow! It looks great to me!

agreed.
one suggestion, but really a question for others:
I normally tilt the camera down to minimise the amount of sky in the image
rather than set it level.

I usually go the other way, maximise the amount of sky, the reason
being that I find the ethereal nature of sky always a fascinating foil
to the "unchanging" form of the landscape. Unless I'm taking pics of a
specific landscape/element o'course. But that's my preference, no
reason why your's should be the same.

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
http://www.thenmc.org.uk/phpBB2/index.php

NMC website: http://www.thenmc.org.uk

SteveO said:

Quoted message said:

I normally tilt the camera down to minimise the amount of sky in the
image rather than set it level.

I usually go the other way, maximise the amount of sky,

But doesn't that make it harder to stitch the photos together? I've
always found that I get the best results when I keep the horizon dead
centre (spirit level on camera).

Depends which software you're using of course, but the tilt factor just
adds one more variable to make it trickier to join them up.

The sky or land can of course be cropped later. Using a vertical format
with a wide-angle lens will give you lots of sky and land, thus lots of
potential for cropping.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Brian said:

Must try and mark my tripod in some way so that I can get
even pans, rather than rotate a little, take a shot, guess how far to
rotate, take another shot etc.

I do 50% overlaps, so I just look at what's in the middle of the pic,
then rotate until that's on the edge of the pic.

Quoted message said:

Oh and some sort of spirit level on
the camera or tripod would be handy too.

Buy a spirit level for the camera, Jessops do them, it fits onto the
flash hotshoe. Can be attached different ways for vertical and
horizontal shots. Best to have the spirit level on the camera rather
than the tripod, since the head may be tilted. I've got spirit levels
on my tripods too, but I still need to do the main levelling with the
camera.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Saunders said:

SteveO said:

Quoted message said:

I normally tilt the camera down to minimise the amount of sky in the
image rather than set it level.

I usually go the other way, maximise the amount of sky,

But doesn't that make it harder to stitch the photos together? I've
always found that I get the best results when I keep the horizon dead
centre (spirit level on camera).

No, I don't find that. Not sure how I manage it, mind you, but my
skies mostly seem to work out - always need a bit of 'shopping, but
they work out.

Quoted message said:

The sky or land can of course be cropped later. Using a vertical format
with a wide-angle lens will give you lots of sky and land, thus lots of
potential for cropping.

Agreed, I usually shoot portrait format /and/ make sure that, not only
is there enough overlap (40%), there's enough around all borders to
get rid of... both of which I found the value of by doing things the
hard way initially ;-)

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
http://www.thenmc.org.uk/phpBB2/index.php

NMC website: http://www.thenmc.org.uk

Thanks for the replies.

I have recropped the panorama:

http://qurl.com/k8lh7c

--
Brian

"Stuart" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Brian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hello.

Finally go around to stitching together some photos I took way back in
October from a walk I took from Callander up to Meall Leathan Dhail.

http://qurl.com/ec9a0z

Excellent picture, did you do a 360° version?

Interesting time to show this pano, I am off tommorrow to do Ben Vorlich

and

Quoted message said:

Stuc a Croin, hopefully I should get a pano from the top to add to my
collection http://www.stuartstuart.fsnet.co.uk/hillwalking/panoramas.htm

Just added the pano from Stuc A Chroin, you can just pick out Meall Leathan
Dhail.on a bearing of 318°

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

SteveO said:

Quoted message said:

I normally tilt the camera down to minimise the amount of sky in the
image rather than set it level.

I usually go the other way, maximise the amount of sky,

But doesn't that make it harder to stitch the photos together? I've
always found that I get the best results when I keep the horizon dead
centre (spirit level on camera).

Here is an example of what can go wrong if you don't keep the camera level.
http://www.stuartstuart.fsnet.co.uk/misc/temp.jpg there is no pictures
missing just the center ones are too high!

My excuse. Despite the fact that the blue skies indicate nice weather, the
conditions were shocking. the 40 knot wind had me struggling with my
balance, the wind noise was such that I was unable to hear if I was clicking
the camera, and the wind chill so intense that my fingers felt wooden and I
was not sure that I was pressing the button.

The joys of Scottish winter hill walking!

* The air of uk.rec.walking was filled with the delicate perfume
* of violets, as Stuart <[email hidden]> descended on a shaft
* of golden sunlight, and announced:

Quoted message said:

My excuse. Despite the fact that the blue skies indicate nice weather, the
conditions were shocking. the 40 knot wind had me struggling with my
balance, the wind noise was such that I was unable to hear if I was clicking
the camera, and the wind chill so intense that my fingers felt wooden and I
was not sure that I was pressing the button.

I had the same problem on Bynack More this summer. The view on a good day is
wonderfull, but on the day I chose was overcast and uninspiring. Because of
the wind chill and gloominess I gave up after a while and sought shelter at
the Barns of Bynack. One of the reasons for making a motorised system is
that I want to be able to set it up and at least put my hands in my pocket
while the camera get on with it!

Quoted message said:

The joys of Scottish winter hill walking!

And Spring, Summer and Autumn!

Regards: Jim Ford

How's about the same panorama from Geal Charn, Drumochter taken on
Saturday in two formats :

JPEG :
http://www.pkeenan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/geal-charn-drumochter-20nov04.jpg

Quicktime:
http://www.pkeenan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/geal-charn-drumochter-20nov04.mov

Mini TR:

Easy day - Geal Charn and A 'Mharconaich.

Maybe a dozen people on the hill excluding our party (two plus dog)
First time walking in that area. First decent viewing of Ben Alder.

Snow too powdery for crampons but a steadying axe essential
for icy downhill stretches.

Views were, on the whole, to die for.

--
pjk

Quoted message said:

Just added the pano from Stuc A Chroin, you can just pick out Meall Leathan
Dhail.on a bearing of 318°

Ooops - looks like I picked a bad day to go to the Rugby..... Wow!

Today was foul.. Orienteering in Livingston. Lost contact with feet
then lower legs after about 5km. Paths OOB due to verglas from
freezing rain......

Richard Webb

"RJ Webb" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Just added the pano from Stuc A Chroin, you can just pick out Meall

Leathan

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Dhail.on a bearing of 318°

Ooops - looks like I picked a bad day to go to the Rugby..... Wow!

Today was foul.. Orienteering in Livingston. Lost contact with feet
then lower legs after about 5km. Paths OOB due to verglas from
freezing rain......

Richard Webb

Same here in the Borders, amazing amount of verglas on everything, even the
dog fell over.......bizare