Panorama on Rollei TLR

[rxmd]

I've been doing a fair bit of stitching of scanned 35mm images and I think with a Rolleiflex it wouldn't be worth the hassle just to get a few wide images. In the computer it is finicky and requires a lot of postprocessing (cloning etc.) if you want to get good results in the details. In the darkroom it is ultra-finicky and requires a very precise setup if you want it to look good.

I'd take a separate camera for those wideangle shots, either a compact 35mm camera with a wideangle (in my case a Bessa or FED with a 21 or something like that), or maybe a Horizont for the panoramic look.

 

[PKR]

*The Rollei head has 10x36 degree click stops. There is no overlap.
*Photoshop Elements is inexpensive and will do most of what it's costlier stablemate will do. You can stretch and adjust individual frames for better stitching.
*Keep the camera level right around the arc. Check the spirit level at each step before starting to expose.
*Don't tilt the camera down. Keep it absolutely horizontal.
*Watch out for changes in tone in the sky from one side to the other - very hard to adjust afterwards.
*You can take shots midway between the click stops (giving a 50% overlap) but for a three frame panorama you'll use six frames and thus only get two panoramas per film roll.
*Be careful about objects in the close foreground. They can end up misaligned even with the camera level even though the backgrounds line up very well.
* Watch out for vehicles, people, animals etc that are moving. It can make stitching a bit more of a challenge if they can't be excluded.

Leigh; Is the merge tool in Elements 8 the same as in CS4? I have CS4 and LR here and figured most people could get away with LR and Ele 8, saving a lot of money. I think a fresh copy of CS5 is $900. p.

And, to the fellow with the Rollei, I don't know if Rollei makes a polarizing filter for your camera.. Don't use one when doing a panoramic!

 

[JohnTF]

I just found some old Rollei literature in my files.
The RolleiWide has a 55/4 Zeiss lens and takes Bayonet IV fittings - unique to this model. But the RolleiWide and TeleRollei tend to be VERY expensive!

At one time Rollei also produced a wide angle accessory lens called the Mutar 0.7x which gave an angle of view of 69 deg compared to 53 deg of the standard lens. (Which throws my 36 degree statement out the window!) However the resultant quality was said to be down on the standard lens.

Again, I think the best advice is to take some test shots now using the proposed camera setup - see how convenient/inconvenient it is and also see how much overlap you get.

This one is no shelf queen, so he may be able to pass it along at a sane price. ;-) J

 

[Pico]

* Watch out for vehicles, people, animals etc that are moving. It can make stitching a bit more of a challenge if they can't be excluded.

🙂 The sloppy pano above was done just for fun during a casual walk. No tripod. Just a snapshot.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

Leigh; Is the merge tool in Elements 8 the same as in CS4? I have CS4 and LR here and figured most people could get away with LR and Ele 8, saving a lot of money. I think a fresh copy of CS5 is $900. p.

And, to the fellow with the Rollei, I don't know if Rollei makes a polarizing filter for your camera.. Don't use one when doing a panoramic!

Agree on the filter issue!
I've never had a full version of CS anything - I've always found PSE more than enough for my needs but I'd be pretty certain the merge/stitch function is the same. There's not too much left off the basic PSE that anyone other than a professional would need.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

🙂 The sloppy pano above was done just for fun during a casual walk. No tripod. Just a snapshot.

Timing is everything! Nice job.

 

[JohnTF]

🙂 The sloppy pano above was done just for fun during a casual walk. No tripod. Just a snapshot.

With the old pano group shots, a guy on the end would sometimes run to the other end of the group to be in both ends.

Regards, John

 

[Vics]

I would throw a new twist to that. If you can scan on a flatbed, then try to fix the camera in a HORIZONTAL position on the left side, and then calculate the degree rotation necessary to create a small interval between frames, in order to get a sequential panorama like this:

This was shot with an Olympus Pen

Excellent! I love this one. Still sold out to my Pano plan, and glad to hear that Elements will do it. This is turning into a thread!

 

[Vics]

With the old pano group shots, a guy on the end would sometimes run to the other end of the group to be in both ends.

Regards, John

John TF, this is very cool!

 

[JohnTF]

John TF, this is very cool!

Always a joker in every group. ;-)

I have a pinhole shot with my 8x10 of my students in front of the school, the exposure was about one minute, so I would sometimes walk into the shot, and stand for 30 seconds to be the "ghost" in the photo.

On 8x10, a pinhole contact looked very sharp, and with the variety of pinhole cameras we built, the most popular were the ones in round cans -- the image begins to record very close to the actual pinhole giving a panoramic in an oval shape.

I was surprised that the image could begin to form within mm of the pinhole-- Some students made some interesting shots using a film can fitted with a pinhole in the side and some 35mm ortho film inside taped or fitted very close to the pinhole. You had to be careful the film did not shift and block the pinhole.


John