The main problem is that they become too skinny to see if you have a really wide one. I tend to make them the size I think suits them and trust to luck - but that's probably not the most earnings-effective strategy.

The main problem is that they become too skinny to see if you have a really wide one. I tend to make them the size I think suits them and trust to luck - but that's probably not the most earnings-effective strategy.

Thats right, they get too thin if they are very wide and the customer cannot see what is on the thumbnail.
It is my experience that large files 16/9 sell better. Then people can cut them thin if they want.
Anyway, it is important that panos have a striking and ballanced compositions, not golden sections as in normal formats.
Compositions with voids can be ballanced.

Panoramas are one of my specialities..  With regard to the OP's questions:
1. I've been told that when the aspect ratio exceeds 5:1 or 6:1 or more, it becomes very hard to sell them.
2. There was a discussion in the Alamy forums about the "digitally altered" question.  No definitive answer from Alamy, but my opinion is that digitally stitched = digitally altered, shot with panoramic camera = not digitally altered.  Point is that stitching inherently requires you to include/exclude in the overlaps... 
3. "Traditional" definition of "panorama" is aspect ratio of at least 2:1

Full size panoramas are used as full or half-page spreads; downsized they're used for web banners - but these are most easily made by cropping a normal single image, no need to stitch.

You should be using at least a panoramic head to avoid parallax, but you can use a macro rail instead for single-row panos.  You will need a spherical head (on your tripod, no surgery required) for multi-row panoramas.  Most appropriate outlet for these is a specialist agency; these panoramas can be a lot of work, and I very much doubt RF pricing will generate a positive return.

Water and other moving objects makes panoramas quite tricky.

You should find the Alamy discussions quite easily with this search term

site:www.alamy.com "digitally altered"

in google

Regards

Nobody makes any money with panoramas, don't bother, far too much work. You'd never catch me wasting my time with them.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/UM/redmond/groups/IVM/ICE/

Is commercial use allowed?

Quote from: fotoVoyager on February 13, 2013, 11:33

Nobody makes any money with panoramas, don't bother, far too much work. You'd never catch me wasting my time with them.

I disagree, some sell well.  They don't have to take long to do.  I don't sell any on alamy though.  They really should improve the thumbnails for panoramas.  It's been discussed a few times in their forum.

I would ignore fotovoyager he's a newbie, bless him, doesn't know what he's talking about.

Quote from: sharpshot on February 13, 2013, 12:38

Quote from: fotoVoyager on February 13, 2013, 11:33

Nobody makes any money with panoramas, don't bother, far too much work. You'd never catch me wasting my time with them.

I disagree, some sell well.  They don't have to take long to do.  I don't sell any on alamy though.  They really should improve the thumbnails for panoramas.  It's been discussed a few times in their forum.

I would ignore fotovoyager he's a newbie, bless him, doesn't know what he's talking about.

Ha! You made snort my beer through my nose.

.

My mistake, I humbly apologize for not seeing the irony in the previous posts. Sorry!

Steve

And how would anyone know from an anonymous name on a forum? Although I did guess it was sarcasm even without a smiley.

For the other question:

If you ask for "standard" panorama size, it can be anything, but conventional is 4 x 12 (or 6 x 18, or 3 x 9...) one tall by three wide But there's no restriction, you can do what you want. The idea is that in the days of film, that was about what someone would find in frames and prints.

I have some on the wall, they are 12 x 36 because that's the poster size frame that I find at church sales.

Some people consider 360 to be a panorama, so have at it.

1:3 ratio is the old standard.

Wow.  Fotovoyager.  Just looked at your website and have been clicking the the 'stories'.  SUCH beautiful work.  Congratulations on your fabulousness. 

Wow.  Fotovoyager.  Just looked at your website and have been clicking the the 'stories'.  SUCH beautiful work.  Congratulations on your fabulousness. 

+1

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/UM/redmond/groups/IVM/ICE/

Is commercial use allowed?

Oh, do they say anything prohibiting it? Argh! My previous manual stitching procedure kept most of my to-be-pano shots sitting in the HD. I've only built a fraction of what I had in hand because of the amount of work required!

You should be using at least a panoramic head to avoid parallax, but you can use a macro rail instead for single-row panos.  You will need a spherical head (on your tripod, no surgery required) for multi-row panoramas.  Most appropriate outlet for these is a specialist agency; these panoramas can be a lot of work, and I very much doubt RF pricing will generate a positive return.

Wow, a lot of technical info. Maybe it's the landscape panoramas I've built, the best ones were shot with a non-wide angle setting, so I don't have big parallax problems? Some with wide angle lenses do present a lot of distortion. The other day I shot in a stadium and I was at a corner. The stitching itself looked good, but the overall look was a bit odd - one would say the stadium was not oval.   Still, the wide view is appealing.

I haven't tried multi-row yet, but I planned to.

Quote from: Pinocchio on February 13, 2013, 11:10

You should be using at least a panoramic head to avoid parallax, but you can use a macro rail instead for single-row panos.  You will need a spherical head (on your tripod, no surgery required) for multi-row panoramas.  Most appropriate outlet for these is a specialist agency; these panoramas can be a lot of work, and I very much doubt RF pricing will generate a positive return.

Wow, a lot of technical info. Maybe it's the landscape panoramas I've built, the best ones were shot with a non-wide angle setting, so I don't have big parallax problems? Some with wide angle lenses do present a lot of distortion. The other day I shot in a stadium and I was at a corner. The stitching itself looked good, but the overall look was a bit odd - one would say the stadium was not oval.   Still, the wide view is appealing.

I haven't tried multi-row yet, but I planned to.

There's nothing particularly different about multi-row panos, except they may not look very much like the panoroamic shape. This is one that was forced on me by circumstance (long lens and a close subject) http://fineartamerica.com/featured/ancient-olive-paul-cowan.html

It was hand held, no expensive tripod head involved, and even though the subject was close parallax error does not seem to have been an issue. I think I selected "spherical" as the stitching mode.

You're absolutely right about telephotos working better than wide angle lenses on these. They have much less edge distortion.

Youtube has an entertaining and enlightening set of 6 videos by an Irish fellow called Florian Knorn; these show creation of a 360-degree panorama shoot to final.  No tripod for him, he's mastered the philopod and has a fisheye lense he likes.  No kidding...  Just search for "Florian Knorn"..

Regards

Pinocchio, CS4 offers a limited range of different projections. It's in the File menu >automate>photomerge and in the dialogue box it offers perspective/cylindrical/spherical etc.

I think the problem with wide angle lenses is that they already apply a rectilinear correction (assuming it's not a fish-eye) based on the centre point of the composition. If you have a large angle between the two images you try to merge and they have already been quite heavily corrected then there is going to be a mis-match between those correcitons. With a telephoto, you get a larger number of images with much less correction between the centre and the edge, so the stitching program has less work to do trying to match them.

Wide-angle lenses can produce panoramas that look curved, and can be hard to straighten.

Like this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adelaidephotos/8404232228/#in/set-72157632549995542

Not very marketable as stock, I guess, but still a fun image to play with, maybe marketable as a poster. Sky needs adjustment.

In fact PODs are one option I am considering for the panos.

I use Photoshop to stitch my panoramas. The upgrade to CS6 is worth the money for the excellent wide angle distortion correction tool - it really makes it easy to correct the bendiness you get in some panoramas.

I shoot handheld (though I've had a lot of practice) unless exposure times necessitate a tripod. I think you only need to worry about parallax for interiors or very close up stuff. Many of these errors can be corrected in post.

Madelaide, Hugin might be useful for that lake of yours.

I think I tried hugin a long time ago, the name is familiar. In which way would it be useful, for the general look or the polarized sky?

I think the very-wide-angle look may be the attractive point in a pano, more than just an image that looks like a regular one that is cropped. It' s bit too much in the previous, but I like it here:

Hugin is better in terms of offering a huge number of different projections, if you need them, and it doesn't get stuck the way earlier versions of PS do (not sure if the later ones also get confused) because you go in and organise the matching points in the images yourself. But it takes a lot more effort.

I stitched this using the fisheye option in Hugin http://fineartamerica.com/featured/venice-looking-east-paul-cowan.html which helped get around problems with bits of the tower I was in intruding too much into the picture, I don't think PS does fisheye projections, does it?

Paul, thanks.  I've briefly looked at Hugin before, but always doubted that it would be better than Photoshop.  However, your shot of Venice looks great, so I'll download a copy and see how it does on a few of my shots that Photoshop hasn't really been able to master.  Cheers.

Has anyone used a giga pan head?

I have the original in the closet if anyone needs one. Reasonable...

I shoot handheld or on a tripod, longer lenses, like people have mentioned, not wide angle.

If you read the original gigapan instructions, it was full zoom, some people shooting with extenders on the P&S cameras. Pretty much manual to avoid the changes in exposure and sometimes, manual focus sometimes works better too, except for the outer edge shots.

Kolor Autopano Pro blends and merges and corrects for parallax, so you don't need a pano head and special nodal point rotation. That's nice for big wide pans and 360s, but that's not what these 100 degree view and less involve.

This one was taken without a tripod with a 400MM lens. (just to be clear, I use a monopod) Much easier for hiking and easy to clip on a belt or use for a walking stick.

Mississippi: (14200x5480) 77MP anyone?

Mount Hosmer, Iowa: (only 54MP)

And A Gigapan taken with a 40D hand held.

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/16045

I used a polarizer in the photos shot for the other lake, I'm sure. I have noticed in my manual stitched workflow that this can be an extra problem, because even with the same exposure, tones may vary in the overlapping areas.

You definitely shouldn't use a polariser for any stitched panorama.

You do see that variance in blue luminance across the sky on wide angle panos anyway but a polariser will make it much worse.

Yes, that's it.

You're better without a polariser. The sky is polarised at different degrees at different angles from the sun so even if it didn't create a complete mis-match you would still have strange variation across the sky.

I tried ICE with some of mine and it just says 0% and nothing happens. Probably my old XP computer with 2GB memory, or the files are too big. Uninstalled, and I'll try again fresh tomorrow. I thought it worked a year or two ago. Odd.

Quote from: shotupdave on February 16, 2013, 00:25

Has anyone used a giga pan head?

I use it - great tool. Can't use Hugin on my Mac, it hangs the box... and Photoshop exports need really attention - sometimes I had  ghosts, sometimes exposure problems - it takes too much time to fix for me. Don't know other software.

Quote from: shotupdave on February 16, 2013, 00:25

Has anyone used a giga pan head?

I use it - great tool. Can't use Hugin on my Mac, it hangs the box... and Photoshop exports need really attention - sometimes I had  ghosts, sometimes exposure problems - it takes too much time to fix for me. Don't know other software.

I am thinking purchases one, can you show some examples?

I tried ICE with some of mine and it just says 0% and nothing happens. Probably my old XP computer with 2GB memory, or the files are too big. Uninstalled, and I'll try again fresh tomorrow. I thought it worked a year or two ago. Odd.

I use it in my WinXP, 3.2GB memory PC with very full HD. Is that an installation error?

Race, you should have used a 6x17 camera with a 70mm Schneider Super-Angulon and all your film stitching problems could have been solved for less than $10,000 

its interesting to see what you guys have come up with, its quite a while since I made any panoramas.
I used photomerge as a plugin in elements.
Worked fine with most files.
It proved to be important to work manually to get the same exposure on all the photos and to not choose a scene where light was too different in either side.
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/88729/88729,1277043221,1/stock-photo-hdr-panorama-of-medieval-town-and-harbor-in-denmark-55563907.jpg
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/88729/88729,1273421957,1/stock-photo-tree-against-the-sunset-boegestroemmen-denmark-52684495.jpg

I suspect it's my computer and possibly install error or that I tried starting with a 46 image panorama taken with the 40D, all full size and it croaked.  I have uninstalled and will re-install and try again when I have some time to that. I like autopano pro so much, even if it's a few year old version, that using ICE would only be just to watch it work. Whatever it is, I'm fairly sure the problem is my creation.

That reminds me, here's how I made panoramas before digital.  I wish I could find the negatives for this bridge construction site.


Under another bridge?

Quote from: madelaide on February 18, 2013, 18:30

Quote from: RacePhoto on February 18, 2013, 01:28

I tried ICE with some of mine and it just says 0% and nothing happens. Probably my old XP computer with 2GB memory, or the files are too big. Uninstalled, and I'll try again fresh tomorrow. I thought it worked a year or two ago. Odd.

I use it in my WinXP, 3.2GB memory PC with very full HD. Is that an installation error?

I would upload this one to FAA, not joking

Race, you should have used a 6x17 camera with a 70mm Schneider Super-Angulon and all your film stitching problems could have been solved for less than $10,000 

What are we all fancy pansy now, a scissors and scotch tape isn't good enough? LOL

What's funny is there's one up on Alamy taken with a G6, but stitched eight images, 3 rows x 5. (then cropped) It's sharp enough and was large enough for their old 48MP minimum.

I'm still all about fun and enjoying making photos. Today 3D, tomorrow maybe a panorama, in March, things exploding or breaking, taken with high speed strobes. Then in April a time lapse. I have a head strap for the GoPro now. There's no end to the variety and challenges.