Panoramas from start to finish: Using Adobe Lightroom to stitch a stunning panorama

 

 

While on a trip to the Faroe Islands, photographer Nigel Danson had an equipment malfunction with his wide-angle lens. As a landscape photographer, it's an oft-used lens, so what was Danson to do?

To replicate the field of view of his broken wide-angle lens, Danson utilized a simple and elegant solution, shooting panoramas with a longer lens. In this case, the "longer" lens was a 50mm-equivalent prime lens. By shooting multiple images and then stitching them together, you can capture a wider field of view than with a single shot and as a bonus, your final image will have a lot of megapixels.

There are some challenges associated with the technique. You certainly need a tripod and you need to ensure your gear is level so that when you stitch shots, you'll minimize the amount of the frame that has to be cropped. Further, if you are shooting in low light or in windy conditions, the overall scenery can change quickly enough that from shot to shot, it's not a natural transition and your final stitch can look a bit odd.

Once you have your shots out in the field, it's time to stitch them together on your computer. In Danson's case, he uses Adobe Lightroom, which has a built-in feature for merging images together into a panorama. You can learn how to create a panorama in Lightroom in the latter portion of the video below.

(Via Nigel Danson)