As I would read blogs about how newbie photo wanna-bees were lazy, I though how could that be? We have all this technology available to us. As I would read along and see other works, I could see a difference between what I thought was good of my own and what I thought was good from others. I couldn't name it, but it was there.
A few weeks ago, I saw a photo that was a close up of the Wright Brothers first aeronautical effort. It was a great shot. As the photographer was yakking, he mentioned it was a photo stitched shot of x number of shots. It then hit me. Being that close, the lines of the shots should have been bowed. And they were not.
If it were me, it would have been a wide angle shot - and I would have thought noting about the distortion. Lazy, Lazy, Lazy.
After a little research (Google), I found that my own version of Elements would handle the trick. I did a few test shots in the living room (Hey, it's cold outside!) and was pleasantly surprised.
So on our last weekend trip to Le Mazot, I knew what had to be done. The weather never really cooperated but that doesn't matter here. This is about technically getting a good photo.
I used a tripod - one acquired in the early 80's when I was stationed on the island of Okinawa. The tripod takes good level landscape shots, but when rotated to portrait it will not go level. (My plug for a new toy!) In this case it didn't seem to matter. The books say the software is forgiving enough to handle hand-held shots. Anyway, I did use the tripod and did the best leveling I could.
Here are the five shots:
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Using Elements 8 (working with the trial version here) Photomerge Panorama function with the Reposition Only Layout secected, I get this.......
Pretty good for just hitting the trigger 5 times. Does need a little help though. I know from other shots that the trees and the flag pole are not at those angles. The horizon seems to be a bit off as well. time for some more Elements help. Using the Camera Correction function for straightening and level and some cropping, I get this.....
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From here I would put it thought a single shot HDR processing and that would be it. Up to this point, the best shot I had of the house was this. A lot of the lines are warped - not by a lot but it goes back to what I see in other people's works. The moral of the story is - straight lines should be straight.
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