VR Panoramas > Taking Photographs

There may be times where you find yourself in a location, perhaps if you stumble on one while on holiday, which just has to be photographed as a panorama! In these cases, while it’s preferable to have all of the necessary equipment, you’ll have to rely on a handheld approach. It’s possible to get good results this way – but a steady hand will be in order…

Here is an example of what can go wrong (this example - taken at the Cerne Abbas hillside in Dorset - was a hand held photoshoot on a very windy and cold winter's day, making it all the more difficult to keep the camera steady!):

Note the "ghosting" that appears on the fence - this is a result of an uncentred lens (and this was the best possible end result, after quite a lot of adjusting to minimize the ghosting in the image!). As you can see, it's near objects that are affected most.

A good rule of thumb is the “50% overlap” approach from one image to another. Basically this means that you take a photograph, then move the camera around so that half of the previous photo is still in shot, take another photo, then move the camera around and so on (in other words 3 photos will cover the same width as 2).

The reason for this is that, when you get to the stitching stage the overlap is used to blend the two images together. The photos should be taken vertically with as wide an angle as possible (this allows for a taller panorama – so you can look up and down to a certain extent).

An important aspect to take into account is that the camera rotates around the lens (i.e. the lens stays in one place and you rotate the camera around it), meaning that the focal point lines up from picture to picture. This is particularly important if you are close to your subject.