While on vacation, I snapped a series of photos that, together, represent a panorama of Land’s End, the southern tip of Baja California. I’ve done this before – and the pictures sat there.
Stitching together a panorama is a pain in the butt. There’s lots of manual labor adjusting the shots, because camera lenses don’t produce the same image at their center as they do at their edges.
Then, about a week after I got home, I read about a program called Autostitch. First, it’s free. Second, it’s amazing.
All I needed to do was point to the seven photos that individually make up the panorama and click! I did tweak a few internal settings which made my finished product a little higher quality than the defaults.
The finished product is astounding… and I’ve posted a reduced size image because the ‘master’ is too huge to look at on a computer monitor. Remember, this is made of seven individual shots.
If you look carefully at the rocks, you’ll see tiny boats. The rock formation is massive – much larger than implied by just glancing at it.
I’ve sent the big file off to a photo lab for a 6″x20″ print. I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes out. And now, I’m looking forward to the next chance I can take some panoramas. Because of what I understand about this program, I’ll be able to take more interesting, multilayered shots.