Stitching close up images

Falicfer ask this is a very interesting question in the autostitch group on flicker

Has anyone ever made a successful panorama from macro shots?
Is there a way to achieve good results from it?

Its harder than you think. I figure it is mainly because of parrallax issues that shift the relative position of foreground and background objects making matching very difficult.



1) So my first attempt to find a reasonable solution was to zoom in but take lots of images (and I mean lots) then assemble these.



Even though this is not a true macro subject it is a confind space and I wanted to be able to show all of it at once. The large number of`images meant I did at least get a match across everything, however it is easy to see where some stright lines are jagged and some images still don't match fully. Yet I was happy that I did get a result.

2) When I realised it was mainly the background that was stopping the stitch process when I got close up. I figured I should use depth of field to throw the background out of focus. With a normal lens and close up the depth of field can do this but I decided to try out my telephoto zoom lens "super macro feature". It gives a tighter depth of depth and you get fantastic control over what is put out of focus. The only problem is you can't get closer than about a meter. (around 3 feet) not exactly macro close.


I have a 40cm tall wollemi pine and wanted to take its portrait, so this seem an perfect subject. I stepped back zoomed in and took 7 seperate "macro" photos.



Finally I used autostitch to assemble them and it worked wonderfully.



Well I think it worked well

These images are for use in a new blog I have started called Saving Gwondanaland