Shooting In Different Environments - GigaPan EPIC Pro User Manual

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GigaPan Pro User Guide

7.2 Shooting in different environments

Outdoors
Try these tips settings for photographing huge vistas:
1. Examine the scene to identify what will make your panorama interesting and aesthetically
pleasing, such as framing, colors, symmetry, perspective, textures, etc. Take a few individual
photographs to assess exposure and contemplate the rectangular boundaries of what you
want to capture.
2. Gigapan panoramas usually cover a larger area, which means that you will need to learn to
make choices about exposure and focus.
3. Choose an appropriate focal length for your needs. You need a longer focal length such as
300mm to be able to see details that are far away, but changing light conditions or weather
changes may require a shorter focal length such as 50mm to decrease the capture time.
3. Focus on an important element of the scene and manually set the focus.
4. Focus on an element that isn't too bright or too dark, and manually set the exposure. Use a
lower ISO if possible to reduce image noise.
5. Set your camera's White Balance to either Sunlight or Cloudy, depending on the weather. Do
not leave it at Auto. Use an Expodisc, color card, or grey card to set a custom White Balance.
6. Make sure that the sun is behind you. If this isn't possible, hide the sun behind an object.
If you photograph into the sun you greatly increase the contrast and range of eposures
necessary to capture the scene.
7. If you are using a larger lens, ensure that you set 'Motor Rigid' to 'On' and 'Motor Speed' to
'Med' or 'Slow'. Also, set the pretrigger delay to a value great enough to allow the lens to
settle after the EPIC Pro moves and before actuating the shutter.
8. If there is substantial wind gusts, consider placing the EPIC Pro and lens behind a car trunk,
tree, building, or a collapsible portrait reflector. Use a higher shutter speed that is at least
the recipricol of the focal length such as faster than 1/300 of a second for a 300mm lens.