An Insight Into Photostitching


The first step in creating a photostitch is to take the photographs. For this photostitch (The River Cam in the Mist at Magic Hour), I wanted to create as large an image as possible, so set my camera to maximum zoom – this would lead to more photographs being required to cover the subject matter. I then fixed the camera’s shutter speed, aperture, focus, and white balance, to ensure that all photos in the series look as similar as possible in colour and exposure. A row of photos was taken along the top of a mental grid, and then the next row down etc. until the whole scene had been covered. Photostitching requires overlap between each column and row of photos, so that the images can be lined up accurately.

Insight into the photostitch

The next step uses software to calculate how the images overlap, and to find control points that appear in more than one photograph. Depending on the output options, the resulting image(s) may still have very visible seams where the source photos overlap – this is most often due to vignetting, where the corners of a photograph are dimmer than the centre. While it is sometimes possible to get a near-perfect image straight from the software, I tend to choose to output a multi-layered Photoshop file, and then carefully blend between the layers so that no seams are visible; this is what can take many hours, even after creating control points and working in the photostitch software.

Insight into the photostitch

I think you’ll find that the results are well worth it though. 23 photos and 5+ hours later, here’s the 81 megapixel image.

Clare Bridge in the mist at Magic Hour
Move your mouse over the image to see a crop of the full-resolution image.

Misty Magic Hour

Seeing that it was still foggy at midday when I headed out for some Christmas Shopping, I took my camera with the intention of getting some photos of Cambridge in the mist. Sure enough, as I reached the peak of Garret Hostel Lane bridge, the following pictoresque sight awaited me; along with several other people taking photos.

This first photo is my favourite – it’s a composite of 23 photos, seamlessly stitched together (taking over 5 hours) to create an 81 megapixel image.

Clare Bridge in the mist at Magic Hour
The River Cam in the mist at Magic Hour

Punting under Clare Bridge in the mist
Punting under Clare Bridge in the mist

Clare Bridge at dusk
Clare Bridge at dusk

Looking towards St. John's from Garret Hostel Lane
Looking towards St. John’s from Garret Hostel Lane

Psychosemitic, featuring DJ Filastine and Y-Love

Another of Psychosemitic’s fine events, this time in the great venue 93 Feet East, on Brick Lane. Starting the evening was DJ Filastine, who mixed live sampled-drumming with standard DJing. Impressive skills. Next up were Y-Love, a hiphop threesome of Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, whose infectious choons feature English, Hebrew and Aramaic lyrics. Check out MySpace.com/ylove and you’ll be hooked. Before the crowd got to carry on showing off their moves on the dancefloor, a belly dancer showed how Middle-Eastern dancing should be done.

DJ Filastine
DJ Filastine

Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love
Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love

Belly dancing
Belly dancing

Belly dancing
More photographs from Psychosemitic’s event are available on CantabPhotos

Bright Frosty Morning

On a bright and frosty December morning on my way to work, I was able to enjoy some prime time taking photos in the wintry wonderland of St. John’s College Backs. I’ve taken many photos of the St. John’s Backs in the snow, but this is the first time I was able to catch a slightly wintry view in bright sunshine, rather than overcast snow-clouds.

Frosty Leaves
Frosty leaves

Ripples formed by droplets from melting frost
Ripples formed in the Cam as melting frost dripped from branches overhead

Frosty grass on the banks of the River Cam
Frosty grass on the banks of the River Cam

Frost
Close-up of frost on a stone bridge

St. John's New Court refracted in droplets
As the sun melted the frost on tree branches, water droplets formed pretty refractions of St. John’s New Court

Panorama of St. John's Backs
A 71 megapixel panorama of St. John’s Backs on this bright frosty morning

More photographs from this wintry set are available on CantabPhotos

Oi Va Voi @ Cambridge Junction

Oi Va Voi returned to the Cambridge Junction, almost a year since their last gig, but this time touring with their latest, eponymous, album. Performing in the main stage this time, they brought out old crowd-pleasers “Yesterday’s Mistakes”, “Refugee” and “Od Yeshoma”. New favourite “Yuri” made an even bigger impact with the fans in its encore re-playing. As was the case at their last gig, the band had a new vocalist and violinist. Bridgette Amofah seemed like she’d been singing with the band from the beginning, and the new violinist provided yet more anecdotal evidence for my hypothesis that Oi Va Voi’s female violinists are rather photogenic (see photos of Haylie Ecker and Sophie Solomon for further evidence).

Oi Va Voi's violinist

Oi Va Voi's new vocalist, Bridgette Amofah

Oi Va Voi's Steve Levi

Gil Karpas @ Cambridge Junction

Oi Va Voi returned to the Cambridge Junction, almost a year since their last gig. Again, they were supported by Gil Karpas, who improved upon last year’s great performance with some excellent guitar-playing to accompany his jazzy vocals.

Gil Karpas

More photos of Gil Karpas, supporting Oi Va Voi @ Cambridge Junction, November 2007 and December 2006

Hanukkah Photoshoot

I was commissioned to take a photograph to promote Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, to be used in the Jewish Chaplaincy’s fund-raising campaign. The only catch was that the request came a month before the festival started, so I couldn’t take photographs of the actual celebrations. I gathered a few willing volunteers to light the candles for the camera, the result of which can be seen below, and in the Chaplaincy Board’s campaigns.

Hanukkah celebration

Cambridge Fireworks on Midsummer Common

Taken from the wonderful vantage point of the Jesus College Boat House – the reflections in the Cam and the stunning compositions make these some of the best firework photographs I’ve taken. Also very helpful was a friend’s tip about setting the camera to bulb mode, so that shutter speeds could be easily adapted as the fireworks varied.

Fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks

KT Tunstall @ London's Roundhouse, Halloween 2007

After a hugely-successful tour of the USA, the multi-platinum-selling artist KT Tunstall is back touring the UK for her second album, Drastic Fantastic, and the highlight of her tour was always going to be playing one of London’s largest venues, and on Halloween. I last had the opportunity to photograph KT on her last UK tour in 2005, also on Halloween. Her die-hard fans also knew that Halloween was the best time to see KT, as she and her band dress for the occasion, with stage decorations to match. Similar to two years ago, KT had “Witch” written across her top, and there were pumpkins, cobwebs and skeletons on stage, with deathly make-up for the rest of the band. For the encore, the whole band came on in Power Ranger outfits, specially imported from Japan, and KT performed a rocking cover of “Walk Like An Egyptian”. Due to the venue’s strict no-SLR policy in the crowd, I was only able to photograph the first three songs.

KT Tunstall

KT Tunstall's backing singers, Cat Sforza & Gita Harcourt
KT’s new backing singers, Cat Sforza and Gita Harcourt

KT Tunstall

KT Tunstall

More photographs of KT Tunstall’s Roundhouse concert on CantabPhotos.com