First Foray into Panorama

(Panorama of Savanna, formed by stitching 10 photos. For enlarge view, just click on the photo)

 

This was my first attempt producing panoramic pictures of the breathtaking landscape in Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, and I made some terrible mistakes. Rule number 1, never ever set your camera into Auto Mode and Auto White Balance. When you see the photos with different tones and exposure levels while trying to stitch them together, you’ll get what I mean. The whole process to adjust the brightness, contrast, color, and white balance of all the photos before forming the final panorama was painstaking.

 

(Crater of Mount Bromo, formed by stitching 5 photos. For enlarge view, just click on the photo)

 

Let’s take a closer look into the picture above – a panorama of the crater of Mount Bromo. The brightness of the sky looks uniform, but the color of the ground from left to right appeared to be very different. And it actually tells the viewer that the photo was being stitched, badly! Though photos stitching are not uncommon to many people, nobody actually wants to show others that the single panoramic photo is actually a combination of different photos, at least not with such an obvious flaw.

The panorama below looks more natural. At least, you won’t have the feeling that it’s done by stitching several photos together, right?

All photos are stitched using Panorama Maker 4, a software that comes together with Panasonic Lumix LX3.

 

(Mountain range in Savanna, formed by stitching 4 photos. For enlarge view, just click on the photo)