Overlapping images

Q I know I can stitch several images together easily in Lightroom to make a panorama, but by how much should I overlap each image at the shooting stage? George Bolan

A The technique you describe can be used to create a 360-degree or 180-degree view of a big scene, or simply a largerresolution file of an image that could normally be achieved with a wide-angle lens and a single frame. Over the years I’ve used the technique for both reasons, and I have usually shot each frame with the camera in a vertical orientation. That’s not because the technique doesn’t work with the camera in a horizontal position, but because shooting vertically gives you more room in the post-processing stage to crop the top and bottom, hopefully resulting in a better and larger finished file. The amount by which you overlap depends on the lens you use, but as a rule of thumb stick with overlaps of around 25-35%, and you won’t go far wrong. While Lightroom is very good at stitching images together, you can help it out by keeping the camera turning through a relatively tight arc when taking each individual frame.

Setting up on a tripod and using a panoramic head is obviously ideal, but it’s quite possible to use a normal ball head or even handhold the camera, and still get a decent result. If you are handholding, keep your arms locked close together and move the camera around in as small an arc as possible for each shot in the sequence.