Sony A900, 70-400mm pan

Posted by Kurt on January 18, 2012 in Images Jottings

I thought I’d post a panorama from the Sony A900 and spectacular Sony 70-400mm lens.  I photographed this scene for a local business that wanted something catchy on their website.  It shows the Santa Catalina mountains north of Tucson, AZ, with Pusch Ridge on the right.  The peaks on the left are covered with snow as they’re higher in elevation than the ridge on the right side.  Distance from camera to subject is between 5-7 miles (8-11km).

The original panorama is 33,659 x 6767, which would print out close to 9′ wide (9m) at 300 dpi!  The resolution of the image would support this, however, on a personal note; I wouldn’t print this particular image quite that large, it’s ok, but not great.  I used 16 vertical RAW images, (although 12 would’ve been enough), sent to Photoshop photomerge using the auto mode.  The stitch is pretty darn good, I can’t find any obvious weird artifacts.  One thing I will say is sometimes Photoshop CS5 will crash when you try to stitch images, and there doesn’t seem to be a fix.  It does’t have anything to do with the file size.

The panorama posted here is the full image, but has been downsized to a third of the original, (to 11,500 x 1998), and heavily compressed.  I had to do that to make the file size manageable, because the level 12 jpeg came out to 58mb.  Also, the website media uploader wouldn’t allow a file size of more than 26 megapixels.  The sky is a little blotchy because of the compression, and I don’t have the image quite level, but straightening it would result in too much of a loss of the sides.

You’re probably wondering why the hell I made an image 33,000 pixels wide, only to be shown at 900 pixels wide on a website right?  Well, I’m not really sure, but it’s always fun to experiment a little, even if it takes an hour to stitch and save in PS.

Specs for the image; Sony A900, Sony 70-400mm F/4-5.6 G SSM lens, ISO 200, F/5.6, 1/250s, 135mm.  Panorama has about 92° of coverage.

Catalina pan

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  • Matthew Durr

    Well if I were a website that needed a panorama, then I’d be more than happy with this. Great post. Such a pricey lens though…oh well, I’ll keep dreaming. :D

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      Oh but you don’t need that lens, the plastic 35/1.8 or 85/2.8 would be just as good as long as the subject is closer.

      • Matthew Durr

        good point.
        Speaking of the G lenses though, I wish I could find a review somewhere out there with someone who has the 70-200 f/2.8 G and uses it with the LAEA2 on any NEX. Considering that for sports photography, as manually focusing my Tokina 80-200 f/2.8 can be a pain.

  • Marc

    This beautiful result with so much compression? Fantastic! Still VERY much detail. The stitching was also resolved perfectly by Photoshop. I believe the pictures were taken in the late afternoon/early evening, very nice light and shadows.

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      Thanks, taken about 15-20 minutes before sunset.

  • Aslanjandima

    Good quality and great picture !!! I recently sewed for fun from the four images is one, but due to the fact that he left the white balance in automatic and use autopano of color – has turned out rubbish! People, when you stitch a panorama – put the white balance manually on the numeric value in Kelvins, or color will drift as in my the photo. And do not use these stupid automated programs like Autopano. If you did everything right – program will still spoil the result . Sorry for the terrible english ..

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      If you don’t have a decent panorama program, you might try Microsoft ICE, http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/ which is a free pan stitching utility, it works almost as good as PS, and supports huge files.

      • youraveragepasserby

        Thanks for sharing this. Didn’t know about microsoft research before either.

      • Aslanjandima

        Thank you very much! This is really what I need! I dont would have thought to look for such a program from Microsoft. In our region a dislike for Uncle Bill :-)

  • Aslanjandima

    In the summer, I once looked up and saw the crazy sky .. I only had Sony A100 and Minolta 50 1.7 .. I do not remember how much I made pictures. Only regret is that I placed little land

  • Anonymous

    Wow!

    You must have lucked out in terms of air movement and distance haze/distortion. The image is incredibly sharp, not something that normally happens when shooting that distance. Was this perhaps early in the morning, before the sun began heating up the air?

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      Taken just before sunset. You’re correct about the atmosphere, it was very stable at ground level; we had rain/snow the night before, with a very cold day, so no dust or heat shimmer, somewhat unusual for southern AZ.

  • Roberto Gardella

    WOW, spectacular!! Love my 70-400G too…. :)

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      Thanks!

  • Hans

    did you ever try this with a longer focal length and vertical shots? I have used the 70-300 a lot for panorama’s and found that at longer fl, the a900 introduces shutter induced shake ( mirror locked up). was wondering if you ever noticed this.

    • http://photojottings.com/ Kurt Munger

      Yes I have, however, if you have a solid and stable tripod with a good mount, and wait a few seconds after the first shutter press in MLU, you shouldn’t have much of a problem. Since the 70-300mm doesn’t have a tripod collar, it has a balance issue. That’s one reason I keep the 70-400mm as my only telephoto lens, even though I don’t use it professionally very much. It is big, heavy and expensive, but it gets the job done!