First attempt at the Brenizer method

I finally went out yesterday afternoon to try my hand at the Brenizer method, which I´ve seen used well by others previously. Someone on here posted a picture of their car a few weeks back, which worked really well. So I wanted to try it out so that I´d be prepared when a situation came along that would work well.

More info & some good examples can be found here: http://blog.buiphotography.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-direct...

I used the M85 f/2 lens wide open, camera in manual mode to maintain exposure at the same values, WB set as daylight (you can´t leave it on auto for this technique), jpegs at a lowly 2mp. The first pic is the result of 19 photos I think, and the second is from 9, but I left a gap so it´s cropped to about half of what I´d hoped for. I used Autostitch software with a few tweaks to the settings. The sharpness of the M85 is not great wide open, but at just 2mp with each shot being only a small part of the whole, it wasn´t a problem, and as you can see, the colour & contrast of this lens really shines. As the shot wasn´t high-contrast, there were no worries with the substantial blue fringing that this lens can produce.

I think this is a useful technique to know how to do, so that I´m prepared when a good opportunity comes along and I can make use of it. The only thing to be careful about is making sure not to leave any gaps.

[IMG]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/jonnymacd/Various%202/pano1v2-1.jpg[/IMG]


[IMG]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/jonnymacd/Various%202/pano2-1.jpg[/IMG]

A usefull link, thanks for the info.
As you say it may take a bit of practice.

Davex.

It might sound strange but this isn't a fix value with Pentax it actually just limits the Auto mode to whitebalance you get with Daylight.
So it might be better to use custom white balance instead.

Sorry Stefan, I didn't edit your post, I pressed the wrong button!

It can be a fixed value if you set the camera accordingly.

Setting custom white balance is one easy solution. There should also be a Menu setting that stops the camera from fine-tuning the Daylight setting.

The K10D at least doesn't have that option so it wouldn't work on all camera's and Jonathan is using a K200D which isn't that much younger.

Still no matter what, you should keep an eye on the white balance with these sort of things.

On the K20D it's a Custom setting called "WB Adjustable Range" and it needs to be set to "Fixed" to stop the camera adjusting the WB when it's been set to say "Daylight"

Going back to the original technique, I'm not sure it's worth the effort. It may be for some images, but it's an entire project on its own and not really a "dabbling" technique.

Still, anything that we enjoy exploring has to be a good thing.

Wouldn't you get almost the same effect with larger formatt camera's?

I think I may have already tried something very similar a while ago. Wanting to photograph a large snow-covered tree in my garden with my then-new DA 35/2.4 I ended up taking four shots then stitching them together with Hugin.

It isn't much harder than a simple panorama once you've done a few. On the K-5 it is possible to use movie mode to cover the intended parts of the scene. Then software like Panorama Plus can take frames out of the movie and use the Autostitch engine to make the final image, all automatically.

The exploring thing is very true, otherwise why would we take extremely long exposures or try to capture bee's knees...


Yes, in some cases. The apparent depth of field can be similar to that of a large-format camera, but this technique can also be used to produce images with a much wider field of view than achievable with most large-format cameras.

Regarding the original post, yes it is hard to avoid missing pieces! It gets harder as the effective field of view gets wider. As with many wide-angle shots it can benefit from getting closer to the subject, this also allows the background to be thrown even further out of focus.

I've been hoping to do some for a couple of weeks now, but every day has been too windy for the stitching of any foliage to work reliably.

I'm curious. Am I missing something?

What does this method/programme do that PanoramaPlus doesn't.

regards
Bernard

Yes, I would have got a more OOF backgroud if I´d chosen a subject closer to the camera, but I´d have needed more shots to get the same field of view. I might have another go, seeing what I can get with a subject close to the minimum focus distance (around a metre for the M85).

A more involving subject, such as a person, would make a more interesting shot, but as a trial I think this has worked well.

The only difference between this method and a normal panorama is that this technique uses a lens for minimum depth of field, rather than maximum, to isolate a subject using focus, but with a relatively wide field of view. This isn´t possible on APS-C even with an extremely fast wide-angle lens.

I will hopefully rope my girlfriend into posing for me soon to get a more interesting subject.

If anyone has any strategies for making sure I don´t miss areas, suggestions are welcome. So far the only one I´ve come up with is using a wide-angle lens to get a snapshop of the scene first, print it, then check the Breziner shots against it as I go, or when I´ve finished.

Yes it takes practice... and small missing pieces like on the right of the first one can generally be filled-in with a bit of cloning.

For a person I'd start by quickly covering the whole area that has even a small part of the person in while they try to hold still, overlapping to the immediate area round the person. Then I'd do the whole scene in a row pattern going left-right, drop down half a frame, right-left, drop down etc etc. The person doesn't have to hold particularly still for these, the main thing is to keep the criss-cross rhythm to ensure no gaps.

Then discard ones with the person in from the general run, so that the person-specific ones from the beginning are the ones used (where they were hopefully staying still). I must stress that i haven't tried this, but that's what I'd do

It looks nice under the right circumstances... but I've done this in Photoshop using the Lens Blur and a correct depth map Certainly quicker than doing the pano + join!

Or there's Topaz Lens Effects that can do it too. There's a $49.95 offer on at the moment as well

Don't get me wrong - I'm not stopping people from experimenting! But in a commercial situation acquiring the correct PP tools and skills is certainlye cost-effective and controllable

Matt