Before we moved to Paris I nearly sold my Nikon manual focus fast apertured lenses. In fact, I did sell the incredible 180mm f/2.8 Ai I owned. Fortunately, I kept nearly everything else, including the 24mm and 35mm f/2 Ai lenses, a 50mm f/1.4 and the very sharp 85mm f/2 Ai.
While visiting the Montparnasse Cemetery to say thank you to Soeur Rosalie, I took just a few moments to try my hand at making three images. So far I have processed two of them and find that I'm very pleased with the results.
The technique is rather straight forward. Take one Sony APS-C sensored NEX5 and mount up that nice Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and shoot it wide open (you might need a ND or Polarizing filter to knock down the exposure in full sun). Put the camera into Manual exposure mode and meter the most important part of the scene. Use that exposure for all shots in the sequence that follows. Take a series of overlapped images somewhat near the primary subject, spilling the scene well beyond the subject so as to make sure you have covered the scene with enough room to work with. Stitch the images using Hugin's latest version of open source software or the University of British Columbia's "Autostitch" trial version. Save a sufficiently large result of the "Ransac'd" output (I like 6000x6000 pixels for the level of resolution I get in the final processed images). Process to taste.
Yes. I think the technique works.
It reminds me of shooting 4x5inch large format film using old fast optics shot wide open. I LOVED those old cameras and lenses and sometimes miss the technique. Alas, in the digital age my output has increased so dramatically that I can't go back. So I'm very happy to have found a hybrid approach that helps me achieve the kinds of things I used to dream of doing in 4x5.
All it takes is a little vision and away you go!
While visiting the Montparnasse Cemetery to say thank you to Soeur Rosalie, I took just a few moments to try my hand at making three images. So far I have processed two of them and find that I'm very pleased with the results.
The technique is rather straight forward. Take one Sony APS-C sensored NEX5 and mount up that nice Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and shoot it wide open (you might need a ND or Polarizing filter to knock down the exposure in full sun). Put the camera into Manual exposure mode and meter the most important part of the scene. Use that exposure for all shots in the sequence that follows. Take a series of overlapped images somewhat near the primary subject, spilling the scene well beyond the subject so as to make sure you have covered the scene with enough room to work with. Stitch the images using Hugin's latest version of open source software or the University of British Columbia's "Autostitch" trial version. Save a sufficiently large result of the "Ransac'd" output (I like 6000x6000 pixels for the level of resolution I get in the final processed images). Process to taste.
Yes. I think the technique works.
It reminds me of shooting 4x5inch large format film using old fast optics shot wide open. I LOVED those old cameras and lenses and sometimes miss the technique. Alas, in the digital age my output has increased so dramatically that I can't go back. So I'm very happy to have found a hybrid approach that helps me achieve the kinds of things I used to dream of doing in 4x5.
All it takes is a little vision and away you go!
