photoartflightImpressive Cloud Formations @ Davidson’s Mill Pond Park
Posted on November 20, 2022
A few weeks ago we went to Davidson’s Mill Pond Park to take a walk through the woods. On the way to the path going through woods we noticed the cloud formations were very large & impressive. So I shot a series of multi-image cloud panoramas and some single image cloud views with my OM-D Mk1 with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens. Even with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens with a FOV 180 degrees I had to shoot multiple image panoramas to get the cloud formations in the shots. Because I was using a FishEye lens I had to de-fish the images with the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop before being able to blend the images for the panoramas. The Featured Image was a 3 Image Panorama taken with the OM-D 1 with the 7.5mm lens.
De-Fishing Multi-Image 7.5MM Fisheye Lens Panoramas
Posted on October 5, 2022
I like photographing multi-image panoramas and assembling them in Photoshop. Lately I have been doing a lot of panoramas with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on an Olympus OM-D1 which has an image of 190 degrees field of view. But before I assemble the Panoramas I have to De-Fish the Fisheye Images in PhotoShop. To De-Fish the images I use the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop. Loading all the images in layers in one Photoshop file and using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter for each layer to de-fish them before the final blending. Below is an example of de-fishing the image taken with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on a m43 Olympus Camera. The Adaptive Wide Angle Filter I believe is set up for Full Frame Cameras so you might have to experiment on the Scale setting. It also helps when using the fisheye lens to have the horizon line somewhat in the center in the image. You have less Fisheye curvature this way to correct.
Once you have the De-Fished the images go to Edit, then Auto-Align Layers. Next use Auto-Blend layers for the final image. If shooting hand-held and you have some white areas around the edges you can select those areas and use “content – aware fill” to let Photoshop fill in those areas or crop in to eliminate them. The Featured Image is 5 landscape images panorama aligned & blended in Photoshop.
Making Panoramas With Fisheye Lenses
Posted on February 12, 2022
One of my favorite lenses for shooting images for panoramas is the 7 Artisans 7.5mm Fisheye lens for m43 cameras. It is supposed to have a 190 degree Field of View on a m43 camera but I believe it is a little less than that. But for shooting panoramas it really does not matter and is wide enough for my needs. But using a Fisheye lens for multi-image panoramas you have to de-fish the fisheye lens images before you blend the images for the final panorama. I do this in Photoshop using the Adaptive Wide Angle (Filter > Adaptive>Wide Angle.) All Images here were taken at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville NJ.
It might take a few tries before you get the “Feel” for using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter for correcting the distortion in Fisheye lenses. Also it is pretty much setup for Full Frame Cameras so on m43 cameras (or any other format besides Full Frame you have to experiment on entering Focal length, etc. You would think Adobe would have a setting for Camera Format.
Atlantic City Early AM Panorama
Posted on February 8, 2022
An early morning panorama of Atlantic City from the Wildlife Drive at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville NJ. This is a 3 image panorama shot with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens on an Olympus OMD-1. Before I could make the panorama I had to de-fish the Fisheye images in Photoshop using the Adaptive Wide Angle Feature under the “Filter” Selections along the top right selections. Once they were de-fished I loaded the 3 images into a layered Photoshop File and selected all 3 layers and used “Edit – Align Layers” for the 3 images, then once they were aligned I used “Edit Blend Layers” for the Final Panorama.
Plainsboro Preserve Lake McCormack Panoramas
Posted on November 11, 2021
It was a nice day yesterday so we went to the Audubon Plainsboro Preserve to take a walk and get some fresh air. I was traveling light and only took my Olympus OM-D mkI with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens. There was hardly anyone there so I was shooting some landscape images along our walk. There was still a few colorful Fall trees but most of the trees were bare along the path. As we were passing a short trail that lead down to a nice view of Lake McCormack I decided to shoot a couple of multi-image panoramas of the Lake. The Featured Image is made from 12 handheld horizontal images. Then I shot 10 vertical images for a higher panorama view of Lake McCormack. I have found that when using a m43 camera you need to overlap the images more than a Full Frame Camera. When I got home I started to work on my images for the panoramas. First I had to De-Fisheye the look of all of the images before I could use them to blend in the Final Panoramas. I just made an action to run & de-fisheye each image in the series. In Photoshop going to the Filter command at the top, then choosing Adaptive Wide Angle Filter that will usually correct the Fisheye look of your images. You also have to enter the Focal length of your fisheye lens before you use the filter. But this filter is set-up for Full Frame Cameras. So I entered 15mm which is the equivalent Field of View of my 7.5 mm lens on the m43 Olympus, basically 2x with the Olympus. Then I loaded the de-fished images into a Layered Photoshop file and selected all the layers. Then on the top commands go to Layer and choose Align, then merge Layers to complete the blending of the images.
Meeting House Landscape Touch-UpS
Posted on October 27, 2021
I wanted to show how to clean-up some annoying items that are in the way when photographing some landscape images. Here I went to the Meeting House in my community to show a visual before & after. I was using an OMD-1 camera with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens. I did not need to correct for the fisheye distortion because I purposely centered the Meeting House in the center area of the image which minimizes the Fisheye Bowing Effect of the 7.5mm lens. In Photoshop I selected the area with the distracting leaves with the Photoshop Lasso Tool with a feathered setting of 10 pixels, which will create a softer edge on the retouching area layer. Then I used Copy, then Paste to have the leaves on a separate layer in Photoshop. Having the leaves on a separate layer you can then use Filter > Noise> Dust & Scratches to remove the leaves. When using the Dust & Scratches you have to enter the Radius amount & Threshold amount you want. Here I used a Radius of 43 & a Threshold amount of 48. While using Dust & Scratches you will see a preview of the effect before you commit to doing it. If you need more or less just enter a higher or lower number. Even after you run the filter if you want more or less effect go to the history and go back and you can adjust your amount. If you go to much it will look a little smeary, too little you will still see some of the leaves. You can also see the effect in Preview before using it. Basically you are relying on the Preview for the amounts you need to use. Using Dust & Scratches might take a few tries, but comes in handy now & then.
Davidsons Mill Pond park Panoramas
Posted on September 15, 2021
We went to Davidsons Mill Pond Park to take a walk and see if there were any interesting photo subjects. I was traveling light & was just using my iPhone 11 Pro and an Olympus OM-D M1 with a 7.5mm Fisheye Lens. The landscape panoramas in this post were all taken with the OM-D with the 7.5mm Fisheye lens. The 7 Artisans 7.5mm Fisheye lens on a m43 camera supposedly has a Field of View of 190 degrees, but on the Olympus m43 I think it is a little less than that. Before assembling my multi-image panoramas in Photoshop, I used Photoshop’s Adaptive Wide Angle Filter to de-fisheye the images used in all the panoramas. The Featured Image is made from 4 Horizontal images of the front view of the Small Pond along the roadway. Because I was using a Fisheye lens I also overlapped the images more than usual to have a better chance of them aligning for the final image.
Brigantine Cloudscapes & Landscapes
Posted on August 26, 2021
The cloudscapes were Great on our visit to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville New Jersey. For the Landscapes I was using 3 different setups depending on what I was trying to show in my images. For really wide views of clouds & landscapes I used an Olympus OMD-1 with a 7.5mm Fisheye lens (180 Degree FOV) or my iPhone 11 Pr0 with the 1.5mm (Full Frame Equivalent Field of view ~13mm) or the 4.3mm lens (Full Frame Equivalent ~26mm). I corrected the Fisheye lens Distortion of the 7.5mm Fisheye lens on the Olympus in Photoshop using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter that is accessed under the main “Filter” listing on the top menu Pull Downs. For the far out or distant landscapes with flocks of birds I was using a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Canon R (Some with a 2X Teleconverter giving me a 300mm to 1200mm).
The Featured Image is a 3 image panorama taken with a 7.5mm Fisheye Lens on an Olympus OMD Camera.
Multi-Image Fisheye Images
Posted on April 20, 2021
Here are some more Fisheye images taken with the 7.5mm 7 Artisans Fisheye lens on a m43 format camera. The featured image is one of my first multi-image Fisheye Panoramas. This is a 2 image Fisheye Pano taken on a gray day & light rain. With the 7.5mm Fisheye lens it seems that manually “blending” the images with a “soft” edge mask works best for assembling the panoramas in Photoshop. I then used the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter under “Filters” in Photoshop. I used the 15mm setting because the “Filter” is set up for Full Frame Digital Cameras. So the 7.5mm m43 lens would be an approximate 15mm field of view equivalent. If I ran it at 7.5mm I would get a jagged circular image in the middle of a white empty background. After you use the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter you can then fine tune your images using the “Warp” feature in Photoshop for even more fine tuning. Once you get used to using a Fisheye lens your results are more predictable and they are fun to use.
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