Panoramas without a wide-angle lens

Have you ever wanted to take photos of a huge landscape? These are panoramas (in case you didn't know).

There are two ways people normally take them:
1. With a wide-angle lens
2. Without a wide-angle lens

So I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I just contradicted myself. Well, that's not true at all. You can take create panoramas with a simple point-and-shoot (PAS) camera--digital or film--or a more complex digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera.

Some of you might also be thinking: why go through all this work when you could just get a wide-angle lens. While that's true, people wtih PAS can't because you can't interchange lenses, and not everyone with a DSLR owns one or wants to buy one. So long as you have the right software and equipment, this is free.

Step 1 What you'll need

You'll need several items to accomplish this:
1. Camera: use either a PAS or DSLR. Camera phones and webcams are shite so the photos will come out accordingly. I use a Canon Rebel XT with an 18-55mm lens
2. Software: for this Instructable, I'm using Photoshop, but others will work as well (I don't think MSPint will cut it). I think Adobe has a free web-based version of Photoshop online that might do the trick*
3. Scenery: you'll want something nice and big. My photos were taken at Ocean City, MD
4. Tripod (optional): if you can't hold your camera very steadily, use a tripod, but I never did for these photots

*I noticed recently that I've got a program on my computer called "Panorama Maker 4" by ArcSoft. I have no clue where I got it from or how good it is, but considering the name, I guess it makes panoramas.
Or something.

Comments

[laynein]

I rarely stitch for panoramas. All I know is Hugin recommended by Flickr, Acropano picked by Giveawayoftheday. And I think hugin is good for professional users, on the contrary Acropano is designed for beginners.

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.acropano.com/

[christop]

Nice Instructable. I've been putting panoramas together for a while now, and I've been using Hugin, which is free (both in cost and in freedom, as it's open source). Hugin can do auto-stitching, lens correction, and vignetting correction too. The latest versions can do everything almost automatically for you. You still have to take the pictures as you have shown in this Instructable, of course. :)

You can go to http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ to download or read more about Hugin.

[CaptInsane]

Thanks for the reply and the nice comments. I'll have to check out Hugin

[eagle1423]

a 18-55mm is a wide angle zoom lens

[codwithchips]

hi you have put together a very well thought out tutorial easy to understand& very descritive congrats

[CaptInsane]

Thanks for the positive feedback

[Deadly Computer]

Windows Live Photo Gallery actually has an excellent Panorama stiching ability.  I was quite impressed with it, and it's free, you should try it out.  Photoshop is too complicated to manually line up more then a 2 photos.  And I never liked the ArkSoft program.