How to create Panorama photos with an iPhone
Camera phones such as the new iPhone 4s or Android alternatives are rapidly becoming an alternative for compact cameras. In some respects they're still well behind even the most basic point & shoot cameras, however they make up for this in their portability, connectivity and customisability through apps.
After holding off on getting one for a long time, I've finally made the jump and got hold of an iPhone 4s as the camera that I'll take along almost everywhere I go. For travel, there are so many other features on the phone that make it a great travel tool - GPS with maps, a compas, a torch, not to mention access to apps that can help with geo-tagging images or online guidebooks such as iTravelfree.
This tutorial shows how the iPhone can be used to create high resolution panoramic images that are suitable for high quality prints. It will also work with older model iPhones and iPods that have a built in camera. The image that I've used came out as a 22MP photo after cropping!
As a reference, the image to the right is the same scene taken from a single frame so that you can see how much less you can fit in this way!
1. Taking Source photos
The aim is to take several photos in a way that the brightness doesn't change.
Unfortunately there's no way of locking the exposure in the iPhone's default camera, but this can be done using custom apps. The one I've chose is called "KingCamera" (yep... awful name for an app!). Following the steps on the image, you can lock the exposure so that it doesn't change between images.
Dragging the exposure selector to a bright part of the image will make the whole image darker, dragging it somewhere dark will do the opposite. For panoramas, I usually aim for somewhere fairly bright so that the blue sky doesn't end up looking white.
Once you've got the exposure set up, take a series of images that overlap by about 1/3 until you've got everything that you want in to the panorama.
Note: Although this is listed as a "free" app, its function is crippled by not allowing you to save large versions of files unless you upgrade for $0.99. There's no point using this technique or app with small files! Make sure that you set the preferences so that it saves originals in the "camera Roll" on the phone.
Once you have taken your images, copy them over to a computer for stitching.
2. Stitch using Hugin
I use Hugin to stitch Panoramas. This is a free, open source program. There are versions that work on OSX, Windows and Linux.
In comparing this to alternatives, Ive found that it produces more consistent, seamless results. It has a lot of control over things like blending and the type of projection. It works for panoramas taken vertically or horizontally and for multi-row panoramas. Being open source, you can download and use it free.
- Open files under the "assistant" tab.
- Click on the "align" button & wait for the program to calculate and find control points
- The panorama preview opens automatically
- Adjust the crop if its not how you want it.
- Adjust the horizon point if necessary. Use the "drag" feature to move the panorama around until it looks right
- Try selecting a few different projections in this preview to see how they look
- When you're happy with the general look of the panorama, close the preview
- Click the "stitching" tab and click the "Stitch" button and enter a new file name to save the panorama. This can take a while with big panoramas!
Final Steps
The end product from this process will be a very large image. I usually tweak the image in photoshop or Lightroom to bring out the colours and crop or re-size it ready for use. If you're planning to post the image on the web, you'll probably need to re-size it to make it much smaller!
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