Panoramic garden images

Alan_L · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:03 pm

Ever since I've had a digital camera I've been taking photos of my yard that I never would have previously with my film camera, and luckily this always included "stand in one place and take photos in a circle around me" shots (360 degree panoramas).

Then I use photo stitching software (that either came with my camera or I downloaded for free) to create the panoramic shots. It's amazing how easy this is to do and what good results you can get.

I did the first one in 2000 with my pretty blurry 640x480 camera, and even those turned out pretty good. Although I don't have images from every year, I have most of them (at least the ones where I made changes to the yard), and am so glad I do.

It's a fantastic way to compare the changes in your yard, get a sense of the entire space, and remember old plants that you no longer have, even if you didn't take the time to snap a close-up image of every plant.

You don't have to do a full 360 either -- just snap a few images side-by-side, stitch them together, and you have a nice wide-angle shot without needing a wide-angle lens. You don't have to be really careful about taking the images either -- the software is good enough now to handle some rotation, different exposures, etc.

If you've never done this before, give it a try! (At the very least take the images -- you can always stitch them together in the future.)

Spectabilis · **Posted:** Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:33 pm

Can you post those pictures?

boonut · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:21 am

I experimented with stitching several years ago to document a new bamboo... I just put the plant in a pot on a lazy susan and took pics as I rotated the pot and ended up with an animation. Don't ask me to find it... to long ago.

I too would like to see the pics of the panorama.

ocimum_nate · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 1:58 pm

i thought about doing the same thing this year when I discovered the software ability as well.

I took this series of pictures over 15 years ago and was able to put them together with this software. I plan to do something like this with my back yard when it gets growing this year.

Roy · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:25 pm

ocimum_nate wrote:

i thought about doing the same thing this year when I discovered the software ability as well.

I took this series of pictures over 15 years ago and was able to put them together with this software. I plan to do something like this with my back yard when it gets growing this year.

Well, I would have to say that you are a pretty good seamstress or the software is pretty good.

Thuja · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 4:27 pm

I've tried it too. Inserted into movies, you can get a slick effect panning across the whole image.

Alan_L · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:48 pm

Here's one:

The black around the edges is due to uneven panning, compensation for lens distortion, etc. Since this is just a reference for me and not an image I'm going to print or put on a website, I don't bother cropping it into a nice rectangular shape. (I don't want to lose parts of the image). I'll need to remember to use the tripod for this sometime this year, and also STAND IN THE SAME SPOT so I can do comparisons. I don't think I've ever taken 2 from the same spot.

Unfortunately, you can only see my 'Rufa' (near the pink roses) and one culm of one of my Yellow Grooves (hanging into the right edge of the image).

Here's another:

If you look closely, sometimes you can see the "seam" where the images overlap, but this is a minor drawback I think and doesn't always happen. (My other Yellow Groove in the "boat" looking raised bed near the right side of the image.)

mr.mike · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:25 pm

Alan - That looks more like a coffin to me! :lol:

ghmerrill · **Posted:** Sun Feb 01, 2009 9:55 pm

only a true bamboo enthusiast would pre-plant his coffin!

Alan_L · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:20 am

It's more boat-like when viewed from the side.

Thuja · **Posted:** Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:06 am

Alan-- Great looking garden you have there.

mantis · **Posted:** Mon Apr 13, 2009 2:13 pm

I took a few panoramics at the new property yesterday. I don't have anywhere to serve large images, so you just have to pretend that they are big. :oops:

View from the road:

Front tree:

Side of the property:

View from the front corner:

Picnic area:

Alan_L · **Posted:** Mon Apr 13, 2009 2:24 pm

Very nice! What a sense of the space you get from these shots. Everybody needs to go stich together some pano images of their yard. It's really invaluable, especially in a few years.

Quote:

I don't have anywhere to serve large images, so you just have to pretend that they are big.

Photbucket has a "limit to 1 MB size" option -- that's what I use. You should be able to get a pretty big image in 1 MB, especially if you lower the JPG quality setting a little bit when you create the image. (Don't know what Photobucket does to get the filesize down to 1 MB if it's higher than that when you upload, so I usually just make sure it's below 1 MB before I upload.)

Matt in TN · **Posted:** Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:00 pm

This is great! What software are you using to stitch these together?

Alan_L · **Posted:** Sun Jun 14, 2009 1:03 pm

My old Canon point-and-shoot came with stitching software on the CD, but lately I've been using the autostitch demo http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

I've been thinking about getting a commercial stitching app like Autopano Pro (which uses autostitch technology) but haven't tried the demo version yet.

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Panoramic garden images

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