Panorama Landscape Photography At It's Finest

[@ember_notes]

We need more Hardcastle Towers! The church is looking GREAT!

[@danielcherry3748]

Yes please!

[@westvirginianlivin9871]

Totally agreed.

[@RickMentore]

Sponsored videos are fine, as long as you declared said videos are paid for and you give an honest opinion! Your videos are adventurous, educational and humorous, you deserve to be paid for your efforts!

[@neilt]

So someone *finally* got in touch 🤣🤣🤣

[@KirkDurstonquest]

You were being very modest when you described the pano of your house as beautiful. The composition brought me to tears. I would say it is not only the crown jewel of your career, but it is a feat that will inspire landscape photographers for centuries to come.

[@kirstymcleod6647]

still waiting for the next instalment of Hardcastle Towers.... 👀

[@gabeevans88]

The single hair on the pop filter was the star of the show! 🤣

[@DavidSorensenPlus]

Most tutorial video’s I can’t watch to the end. They get soooo boring, and waaaay to technical, and you need to watch them fifty times to remember it all. This one is straight to the point, without the boring stuff, and even adds some brilliant humor. Luminar can be happy!

[@richcower]

That was good, nice piece of software. Get a hose up on that roof and you could have included one of your waterfall photos.

[@JasonLorette]

Not ever getting sick of waterfalls...we need a new Hardcastle Towers episode! Luminar Neo is interesting for sure!

[@JohnnyMotel99]

I see you have so many good things in Nova Scotia, awesome landscapes, a gorgeous house, a beautiful wife....and a swarm of mozzies

[@zeballos5757]

Amanda is very helpful in her cameo appearances 😆

[@nickellion3657]

Another great vid. Laughed my ass off especially in the shooting section of your home. For the record I'm never tired of your waterfall shots.

[@mauriciolee7349]

Thank fototripper for being HONEST by disclosing this is a sponsored video. I love it when you demonstrate Luminar Neo panorama stitching is better than Photoshop.

[@kenpowell3558]

Hardcastle towers has come on a lot and looking good since your last video

[@fototripper]

hahah. I know. I'll get a video out as soon as I can

[@OldGirlPhotography]

Really nice to see the pros using something other than the Adobe suite (and being impressed!). And absolutely love the final grand landscape - great to see the progress. Also impressed that you wee perfectly level with every shot - annoyingly hard to do with a ballhead. Looking forward to the play by play on Hardcastle Towers.

[@PhotoTrekr]

When Photoshop went to a subscription based model, I went to Capture One and Luminar. Most of the time I use Luminar Neo now.

[@chrisjames1924]

I pay £8 a month for Capture One Fuji. It's a bargain!

[@merkin22]

No issues with you switching up 'format' once in awhile, especially with content this good. And of course, this episode had it's moments of shenanigans, of course :) Thanks as always for taking us along for the ride and sharing your insights!

[@roscot40]

“Bobby dazzler…”😂😂 Not heard that in years. Great video as always and looking forward to a roof video on the Hardcastle Towers channel…

[@rolandrick]

Can’t wait until that HT project is finally finished. 🤩

[@scht19]

Another great job Gavin. The Church is looking good.

[@kaneclements7761]

That was really impressive. Hardcastle Towers looks like it is coming along nicely. An update episode would be great.

[@samwilson4012]

Great video as always Gavin - one of your most exotic locations ever! Thank you for always being so authentic and honest with your reviews and sponsorships. I personally don't have a problem with you doing sponsored stuff as you are trying to make an income out of this - I'm sure my comment doesn't really matter but thought I'd share my 2 cents worth anyway

[@rolandrickphotography]

Hi Gavin just as hint, use Lr or ACR for stitching, not Ps, you’ll get by far the better results. You also can use directly use the raw files and get as result a stitched DNG containing all RAW information, you can edit it like a raw.

[@stephenpartridge686]

I do panoramas all the time, I find a simple nodal point bracket makes all the difference, if you just use the ball head it will make it more difficult to get a good pano due to the "swing" of the front of the lens!!! Interesting video like always!!

[@stephenpartridge686]

I made my own from a piece of flat aluminium bar and a couple of cheap ebay parts, fits in my pocket and makes the world of difference!!!

[@jpdj2715]

You could do the shooting a lot better. If you look at your panning rotation in the video, then you may see that the angular speed of rotation in the image in the foreground is different than in the background. This is caused by not rotating the camera-lens combination in the so-called "nodal point" of the lens. You need one simple accessory to be able to fix that and a simple procedure to find the nodal point of your lens. The accessory. It seems you have an Arca Swiss compatible L-bracket on the camera and the matching Arca Swiss compatible quick release on the tripod head. You only need one extra piece of kit: a nodal slide. With this slide or rail between the ball head and the camera, you can slide the camera fore and aft and with that you can set the nodal point precisely over the rotating point in the ball head. I presume you have a ball head on your tripod that has a rotating top plate. If not, you need more. The procedure to find the nodal point. You need two thin sticks for this. I would use two studio light stands for it. Place one of these near the camera and the other one a couple meters farther away. Make sure the farthest one is out of sight in the camera because the nearest one covers its view. Now when you rotate the camera and the two sticks become independently visible, you are not rotating in the nodal point. Use the nodal rail to find the nodal point now. The farthest must not become visible in rotating the camera/lens. Make sure to document the numeric markings with that specific lens. Modern lenses may have floating (zoom) elements and internal focusing (floating elements too) and it is good to verify that the nodal point is, or isn't, the same for each focal length and focusing distance. (Note that a "prime" that has no focus breathing is a zoom lens.) What's the point? A better alignment in the foreground that makes for easier stitching. You have a fast workstation in the 98th performance percentile, like I have and don't care about faster or whatever, as the software solves the problem very fast. Well, the software needs to figure loads of details out of how to correct foreground mismatches and there's no guarantees that it will work out fine. Preventing at shoot time is better than fixing in post.

[@fototripper]

The last thing I'm carrying up mountains is extra gear like a nodal point attachment. Unless Brent brings his...

[@DanielKennedyaeos]

I agree with @jpdj2715 I use a very lightweight nodal slide with markings on it for my different lens's exit pupils. I also used to use a nodal ninja. It eliminates 90% of all artifacts or failed stitches. I'd say it's almost essential for multi-row where there's a risk of parallax.

[@jpdj2715]

@@DanielKennedyaeos - thank you. A single nodal slide is extremely light indeed. For multi-row I have a 3D head that allows bringing the camera in the nodal point both horizontally and vertically. That thing is not very heavy but has some serious heft. The best thing I did in the process of adding this gear, is to replace the Manfrotto proprietary quick release from my magnesium ball head by a panorama disk with Arca coupling so as to get panning on top of the ball head, where we need it, rather than at the bottom of the head. The weight I save with the Mg ball head is more than the nodal slide adds.

[@fototripper]

Maybe I'll get one and do a video comparison of the results vs without.@@jpdj2715

[@Shutterbugsontheroad]

Love your humor ! A great team!

[@FAMUCHOLLY]

Demonstrating how to shoot a panno while feeding the mosquitos... real talent!😅

[@MichaelSeneschal]

Seriously, this is such a great YT channel. You definitely should have 85k subscribers and not 84.4k like you have now. Not many photo channels are funny, this channel is definitely the most entertaining.

[@Nenad9785]

he should have a milion God knows he deserved, one of the best channels

[@MichaelSeneschal]

@@Nenad9785 I know. That’s what I said, only in a joking way since 85 and 84.4 are so close. I guess it’s not funny if the joke needs to be explained.

[@zeballos5757]

Agreed! I always have a good laugh when I watch this channel. I know a lot of photographers and they are way too boringly serious. There’s no room for that in photography 😆

[@Nenad9785]

That will 5 bucks, Gavin :-)

[@mariannebranch8585]

I love using Luminar Neo! It’s a great editing software! So glad you’re using it!

[@chrisjames1924]

I use Capture One for stitching my Fuji files and it works like a dream. Even handheld the results are always bang on.

[@Supergoldfish101]

Could you try to merge these samples in Lightroom? From what I read, it's not the same as PS.

[@mark2shooter]

I think that stitching the RAW files in Adobe Camera RAW works very well for me. And you get a stitched RAW file instead. Better than the PS app/program. Have you tried?

[@robertstonephoto]

There's another difference... the roof and edge lines using Luminar are curved while these lines in PS are still rectilinear. The two made different choices as to what distortions were 'acceptable'. PS would do a better job with more frames (with over 50% overlap), probably Luminar would too. Thanks for the interesting comparison!

[@DavesRvRepair]

Nice instructional video 👍 I always appreciate the jokes and shenanigans as well. Makes for a really fun experience.

[@NeilArthurs]

Smashing video and some great examples you used there. It's been on the radar for a while that bit of software but have never pulled the trigger on it, you certainly have provided some food for thought 👍 Cheers

[@rolandrickphotography]

Hi Gavin just as hint, use Lr or ACR for stitching, not Ps, you’ll get by far the better results. You also can use directly use the raw files and get as result a stitched DNG containing all RAW information, you can edit it like a raw. The longer the lens the better the results. Works also perfect with wide lenses, because of their distortion you need to take sufficient shots and stitch in cylindrical or spherical mode. „The“ stitching tool is PTgui Pro. Nothing can compete. Honestly, that plug in looks like they collaborated with PTgui and integrated it. But that’s just wild guessing.

[@JWesleyHouse]

Very informational and entertaining! What is the monitor arm you have connected using the phone as a monitor for the Sony? Thanks so much!

[@phynx2006]

Sing us a song, your the Pano Man , sing us a song tonight, well were all in the mood for a Pano and you've been editing all night. 🤣🤣🤣👍😎

[@willardkennedy6021]

I have used Photomerge in Photoshop for years. Buying the Luminar merge tool today after watching your video. Thanks!

[@Icearnaudov]

you can just use the ruler tool to measure the horisontal line 🙌🏻🙏🏻 great videos ! really enjoy your work!

[@terrylstarks]

Gavin you tickled my bell with this one!!!!! I enjoyed this a lot!!!!!!! Thanks!!!!

[@robj1366]

Another very entertaining and educational video, thanks.👍

[@JimVajda82]

Appreciate the subtle trolling by complaining about the bad sky and not even mentioning Luminar’s sky replacement tool.

[@peterfritzphoto]

You had me at 'Bum Butter'.

[@ralphguppy]

Great real world assessment! On a related topic have you ever ventured out to stereo images for landscape 3D perspective? Can’t find too many references that this technique but it might be fun to try?

[@steffore1]

This weeks was great and I like Neo 👍🏽

[@rolandrickphotography]

Hi Gavin just as hint, use Lr or ACR for stitching, not Ps. - By far the better results, you can use directly the raw files and get as result a stitched DNG containing all RAW information, you can edit it like a raw file. The longer the lens the better the results. Works also perfect with wide lenses, because of their distortion you need to take sufficient shots and stitch in cylindrical or spherical mode. „The“ stitching tool is PTgui Pro. Nothing can compete. Honestly, that plug in looks like they collaborated with PTgui and integrated it. But that’s just wild guessing.

[@BoneTime]

Thanks, I purchased the tool last week. Hadn't installed it yet. Now I must. BTW I'm in love with Amanda. So there's that to deal with.

[@brad_in_yyc]

Oh man, I'm so glad you showed Hardcastle Towers for the pano shot. Because I went and shot a waterfall near Abraham Lake this weekend and almost thought, "Boy would Gavin love this shot. It's too bad he's not here." And you've, thankfully made it so I don't feel guilty for shooting it because you loved shooting the church so much. Thanks Gavin! 😊

[@leeellerker1855]

Glad you’re back I thought you’d snuffed it, love from Yorkshire

[@jeffreywatson396]

A great video as always! Tom H had some good tips on panos as well 😊

[@felicityrostron9406]

Aounds like a good program. The renos look like they are progressing, would love to see a walk through

[@brettpatching]

Thanks for this Gavin. It started me on a trial of this and other apps and was most impressed with PTGui.

[@kurts_aviation]

Great Vlog Gavin I have been using the Luminar Software for a while now I think its very good the Stitching Software is very new to Luminar but like you say it does a great job.

[@mondohand71]

Really dig the windows on your church. Nice vid G man. 🙌🏽

[@peterwu8471]

I these less-then-joyful times, I love your channel. Something good.

[@larrysalaets7088]

Wonderful tool, thanks for the demonstration! On a side note or two, have you removed the cat hair from your mic? And ... did that mosquito get you? 😁

[@andrewlloyd-seetim1271]

I think that the photoshop version of the pano of Hardcastle Towers is really a representation of the future state of the church post renovation. Get to work on adding that amazing and unique feature 👍

[@autofocusrossswansea9362]

Gavin, you should hire a tilt shift lens and use the shift function. With one of these lenses, the camera stays still on the tripod and the lens moves (using shift only, not tilt). This avoids the swivel which causes some trouble sometimes when stitching. Shift gives you twice the width of a normal 36x24mm sensor image, but in two images for post stitching. You get perfect alignment every time. The downside is cost, the Nikon lenses are 1700 quid new and around half that for a fair used one. If you want more than two frames you can still rotate the camera and use shift again, so you can have 4x widths and only move the camera once - a way around the nodal point problem more or less. Look up the Nikon 24mm f/2.8 PC-E lens and watch a few you tube how to guides on the genre - it is not an easy lens to master but well worth the time. They tend to be used by professionals so if you buy used be careful, it may be very well used even though it looks like new! Best to buy a new one if you can manage that.

[@wendynewing8834]

Absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much. I will definitely be using the link below!

[@DennisBater]

I use Camera Raw with excellent results! Like Brent Henderson, I use a combo Pano setup with no problems. Luminar Neo is just another monthly payment I don't need! I love your videos but I don't think you sounded totally convinced either! 😇

[@DarrenJSpoonley]

Nice vid there Pal, its opened my eyes up to whats possible

[@vincentfalardeau141]

Great advice, thanks for sharing! By curiosity, what brand of microphone are you using? I know that it is not a Neumann or Audio-Technica, but can't figure it out, thanks.

[@JeffWeymier]

Great video Gavin. I just go Luminar Neo a couple weeks ago and love it.

[@egi75]

I like your sense of humor, both of you! great fun 🙂

[@mikenorton2727]

Hi Gavin and Amanda, Hope you save the old roof top with picket fence-Historical ??? Maybe a future out house. Could save the picket bits.

[@benruset]

Nice to see Jason, Chris, and myself all had a little cameo in this video. I could have used this trying to stitch the panos I took when I was up there.

[@MarkSmithPdx]

Gavin, this got a big thumbs up from me as I am sure once Brent sees this exquisite panorama, I am sure he will quit photography altogether knowing that he could never approach this level of panoramic artistic ability. I just recently began using Neo after struggling getting photoshop to swap my star track sky in my nightscape images. It did a poor job no matter how hard I tried and Neo did almost perfect. Great to see Neo has this other use case in Panoramas. Photoshop has been really limited to projection types and in my experience quite lousy with vertical panos. My only other option that I've found for the PC has been ICE (Image Composite Editor). I think it was an Intel proof of concept and is no longer supported and hard to find, but it gave you many different projection types. Love to see that Neo is expanding to fill that need.

[@rolandrickphotography]

Hi Gavin just as hint, use Lr or ACR for stitching, not Ps. - By far the better results, you can use directly the raw files and get as result a stitched DNG containing all RAW information, you can edit it like a raw file. The longer the lens the better the results. Works also perfect with wide lenses, because of their distortion you need to take sufficient shots and stitch in cylindrical or spherical mode. „The“ stitching tool is PTgui Pro. Nothing can compete.

[@michaelsinger3336]

Gavin, it would be very informative if you tried these same pano stitches in Lightroom. Everyone insists that LR and PS-ACR are the same engines, but I have found that LR's stitching results are far better that PS's. LR also lets you preview three different algorithms, as well as varying levels of border warping, before committing to the stitch. Keep up the good work!

[@playoflightphotographicsllc]

Hmm, will have to give it a try. I've been using PTGui with perfect results, but the UI is a little clunky.

[@briansorrells8126]

Excellent video and information! I enjoy tinkering around with the Luminar program and for me, there are some basic tools/functions in it that work much better than Photoshop. Fix, export, finish.

[@arcticshots2321]

I always use LR for stitching, never PS, would be interesting to compare Luminar with that.

[@drewarmstrong4325]

Lightroom can stitch a lot of things. Photoshop can do even more. PT Gui is the grand master. I have Luminar Neo and am workling on learning that one as well. Not working on a pano I am trying to do that could not be stitched by Photoshop. Have not tried PTGuiPro yet. That one is a pain so I only use it in an emergency...

[@Gavin-Akroyd]

Awesome Video Again Gav.

[@chrisburnard5157]

Something different, still great content and learning. Thank you.

[@brendan190770]

Thanks Gav - I'll be having that !!

[@michaelj.1121]

Nice job on the Pano - did you ever check out Microsoft’s free „ICE“ ? JPG but user interface looks quite like what you showed. If Adobe fails ICE has usually succeeded for me.

[@rongallacher8216]

Hi Gavin , just watching this video. How come you removed that nice good of the church ? It looks great , anything wrong with it ? This is a great video. 👌👌👌👌

[@richardsmith5021]

This looks really interesting. The results look really great. I've shot panos in landscape and stitched them together in LR and haven't been overly excited with the results. Besides the obvious advantage of using Luminar Neo that you demo'd Is there an advantage to shooting panos in portrait mode vs landscape mode?

[@fototripper]

It depends on the composition you're after. Shooting in Portrait often allows for a bigger frame and allows you to capitalize on pleasing lens distortion for certain subjects like mountains.

[@spidersj12]

What gauge needle and thread do you use for your stitching? 😏 I use ON1 PhotoRAW but you do need a minimum of the photos with at least 30% overlap. 50% overlap tends to work better for the algorithm. I like ON1 for the most part, but Topaz Denoise AI do does a better job than the NoNoise AI in ON1.

[@davidligon6088]

Very interesting. I do a lot of panos. I find Lightroom does a better job of stitching than Photoshop. However, Lightroom has a 512 megapixel maximum image size which does not allow more than about a 4 x 5 shot pano of A7RV images. Do you know if Luminar Neo has such a limit? Another thing I often have issues with are flowers blowing in the foreground. Wonder how Luminar deals with that. I may have to try it.

[@fototripper]

Good question. I'll have to test that out next time I do a multi-row pano.

[@mikefaulkner3163]

Hi Gavin, great tutorial as always! Quick personal question… what brand is that Grey Henley shirt your wearing? Cheers!

[@fototripper]

I have no clue mate.

[@keithpinn152]

Hi Gavin: Thanks for creating and sharing this video. I am always looking for better ways to complete panos and this might be the ticket. Keep well. Cheers, Keith Pinn

[@mothra10]

Love your cat.

[@daveabernathey]

Are you doing panos because you miss Brent as much as us? 😂😢

[@blivieriphoto]

Great video Gavin! House is looking good! So I have to ask, what is that little dwarf house in the left part of your shot? Is that a little she-shed for Amanda? lol Its very cute.

[@fototripper]

Just an empty shed.

[@rayspencer5025]

I quit Photoshop years ago due to the high cost/subscription nonsense, and the clutter of all the stuff I didn't ever need. I had been using Paintshop Pro since the old days, and still do. I have been also using Luminar for almost 2 years. And yes there is coming an A.I. fill tool in Luminar. I expect it any day now.

[@timothysears6970]

Love the video, love the channel!

[@w0lfyovi294]

There's one tool that's even better than an active stylus: Trackball mouse (I use the Logitech MX Ergo), because you use your thumb instead of your entire hand to move the cursor and the model I mentioned has a side button called Precision where it turns down the speed of the pointer where you can make the finest and tiniest of adjustments. Since I got that mouse (it was a very difficult week of getting used to navigating with it) I stopped using my active stylus from my laptop and now it works brilliantly with a Mac Mini as well. I can't live without my trackball mouse now and wish I had used it sooner.

[@fototripper]

Is there a link?

[@cjk1943]

❤ I love the video I use that software now

[@rolandrick]

Hi Gavin just as hint, use Lr or ACR for stitching, you’ll get by far the better results as in Ps.

[@fototripper]

I believe ACR is used when launching Photomerge from Bridge as shown in the video.

[@westvirginianlivin9871]

You should make the one of the church available in print. Or do a giveaway print of it. Lol. You know people will want it.

[@lphilpot01]

Here in Louisiana we, too, have totally clear skies. Have for months. So there - Come down and shoot a few panos. 😀 Of course we also have the "bonus" of 42C temperatures. Yay! ...not 😵‍💫

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

Do you ever use Lightroom's pano function? It gives you 3 profile choices in preview. It also gives the option of either auto-cropping, cropping with a smart autofill, or no crop. I've actually never used the Photoshop pano tool and I likely won't after this review. Also: you're way overdue for another episode of Hardcastle Towers!

[@kairoarolsen1255]

We know that you have to advertise to live, and this was perhaps the most "visible". But we believe you have enough integrity to go for products you can stand for. In any case, we follow you and love what you do. By the way, how is the renovation going? Sorry for the bad English, but hope you understand.

[@margaretannhalleck1326]

Have you compared panos in Luminar Neo to PTGui? BTW, I love Luminar Neo!

[@fototripper]

No. I used to use PTGui but I heard they went under?

[@geekinthegarden3927]

Looks like a great bit of software. I rarely do panoramas and when i do I've used Hugin You could install the old roof onto the top of the Bigfoot so that you have a tower and balcony on the go. Think along the lines of the addams Family's car.

[@karlgunterwunsch1950]

You are much better off using Hugin, it may have a clunky UI but at least it works and it can deal with parallax shift - unlike the POS that he's using...

[@rnspowell]

This pano stitch doesn't surprise me. Luminary is giving Photoshop something to work for. They thought they had the market but Luminar is taking over. Watch out Photoshop, there's a new sheriff in town.

[@freedomslight9580]

It seems like you don't need to have one. But I'm curious what would happen if you have a piece of kit like an actual pano/nodal head for your tripod combined with this program?

[@fototripper]

Sounds like a future video...

[@daviddyephotography]

nodal rail is usually unnecessary unless you are doing complex multi layer panos. the lens size widw vs tele has the biggest impact along with being level. parallax really only crops up with multi layer panos

[@DennisBater]

@@daviddyephotography a nodel rail is very useful if you have foreground objects and using wide angle lenses. I use the same setup as Brent Henderson and it works great!

[@daviddyephotography]

exactly, depends oon how wide angle and vertical panning amount with closer subjects or horizontal movement with wider lenses and before the nodal rail can be effective you must test it with each lens to deternine the correct location on the rail that will eliminate your paralax@@DennisBater

[@denisturcott5131]

I own two cameras and one is a 7D and the other is a 7DII. I use a 15 to 85 mm lens to shoot panos. I get all kinds of grief with it. If i use my 70 to 200 2.8 lens I get great panos and no grief. This is a full frame lens on a crop camera, Since i shoot mostly at f8 to f16 and I overlap my shots by at least 40% they stitch together with out a problem. I have made images with as many as 44 shots stitched together and they turned out amazing. I stitch them together on an old PS 3 software with no problems. Some of the best selling images are those done with my old everything. No butt cream needed. LOL