Hi folks! The plans are all set to take my family out west this spring, Sedona Red Rock district, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde are all planned stops.

I'm taking my D50, with the kit 18-55mm and 55mm-200mm lens. What I am looking for is a lens that will give me a W I D E angle view. Even at 18mm I feel the angle is too narrow. Cheap is good, and I may even be able to 'borrow' a lens from someone, I just need to know what to ask for. I know some of the older Nikon lenses still work on the D50, without some of the auto-features.

Thanks for any input!

i suggest work on panoramic shots for that ...

I had my d50 for a week before we went out to the bad lands in south dakota and rolled the dice on some panoramic shots ... just wish i had worked on them before i went out ...

There are very few lenses wider than 18mm, and most of those are fairly recent.

The Tokina 12-24mm, Sigma 10-20mm, and tamron 11-18mm lenses are all relatively affordable ($500 range) and offer a much wider field of view with great optical performance.

I guess part of the problem is the D50 1.5x "crop factor", which as I understand it makes the 18mm behave more like a 27mm (?)

In any event, $500 is out of my price range, so i will try my hand at some home-made panoramas. Unfortunately, Im not a photshop wiz (I dont even have photoshop) so my imaging software skills are pretty limited.

BTW, I was out at the badlands last year. I got some nice sunrise & sunset pics, but I didn't even try to do a panorama! :(

I am not a wiz at photoshop ... but when i took the series for my pano's I didn't know how to stitch them together .. so I did some searching and found several programs that did it automatically ... I ended up downloading a program called "autostitch" it is a free never ending demo ... there are settings in the options you need to work with to get it full size ... but it does a nice job ... nice thing is you have time to practice ...

I have read to
- use a tripod
- overlap about 20% of your shots
- i have seen great results by turning the camera to portrait ... something to try ...
- watch for moving objects
- use manual for everything (aperature - shutter speed - focus) set it and leave it .. just turn the camera

here is the link to the program
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

here are 2 shots i did out in the bad land area ... 1st is taken on the east side of devils tower ... 2nd is taken in custer state park ... if i remember correctly the 1st is 3 pics stitched .. the 2nd is 5 ... then some work done to them in photoshop ...

http://www.quast-family.com/albums/southdakota06/pano.jpg

http://www.quast-family.com/albums/southdakota06/panorama.jpg

AWESOME!! I will check that out, Thanks!

Thanks for the info on autostitch!

I use Photoshop Elements 2.0, and while it has "Photomerge", I have not been real impressed with it.

i have done limited stuff with autostitch ... but it does nice work ...

just remember to get full size images you need to go in and edit the settings ... they are really sized down for faster work ... i have yet to find a way to make the settings stay so i need to change them every time ... hassel but like i said the prog does nice work and for free i can't complain much ...

I've used the autostitch program for some stuff that I have tried with panoramas. (Apparently the demo does eventually expire, but you can just re-download it.) I was fairly impressed with how they turned out, not really any huge visible seams or mismatches between the separate shots. I also agree about it being slightly annoying to have to change settings every time, but like previously stated, its free and does a pretty good job.

Heres a couple that I have done with it:

First one is a 180 from the end zone, 6 shots total.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/347898231_d294dc9579_b.jpg

This second one is a 360 from center field, 13 shots total, I believe.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/346408888_f91552054d_b.jpg

Stupendous Man, when you get back, look me up.

Canyons are difficult to capture correctly- depending on your definition of the word. As humans have evolved, they have developed the ability to discern subtle differences in tones in areas that have similar shades of color. The camera, unfortunately, has not. So while the eye sees this:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/zachtlr/BoostedCanyon.jpg

This is what the camera captures:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/zachtlr/DullCanyon.jpg

Now, obviously the first image is a modification of the second- done in Photoshop. I will leave aside the argument of which is the "correct" image. To me, photography is about capturing memories, and memories deal with what the eye has seen.

So, if you don't have Photoshop, I will be happy to work any images you wish- upon your request of course.

If you do have Photoshop, I'll be happy to teach the process of boosting the colors. It's a bit more complex than adding saturation, but not THAT complex. This goes for anyone else on the forum as well. If there's enough interest, I could just post them in the form of a tutorial.

-Joe U.

Joe - I think if your going to type it out anyways .. it would be nice to see a tutorial .. maybe post it in the view finder ... there is also a thread there for photoshop ....

PMW them come out nice ... I don't know why the program expired I got the same thing .. went to their FAQ's and it said something about a new version forcing the expiration ... beats me

here is one i did last weekend ... handheld:thumbsup: vertical and 11 shots !!! all done in autostitch with a bit of post afterwards in ps

On behalf of all the beginners (especially me personally) I would like to see the tutorial...I have photoshop elements on the way...and I have played a bit with autostitch by taking full 360s of rooms in my house...It works awesome! I cant wait till our vacation!

I posted the tutorial in the 'Digital Imaging and Computers' forum. Here's the link:
http://forums.photographyreview.com/showthread.php?p=196095#post196095

Hope it helps!

-Joe U.

nice tutorial !!! will take a closer look when i got more time !!

Hi,

anyone tried a panorama piece of software called "hugin" ? - I have tried to use it and it looks very powerfull...what's the opinion of this software ?

irishwoody

I would say try "Panorama Factory"