Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Brenizer Method
- Thread starter VI
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's not really and My Canon 5D MKII cost me $2,800ish new when I bought it at release. A digital MF camera and lens would probably run me close to $10,000-$15,000. That's as much as I'm hoping to pay for my next car.
Not to mention you can do the same with a $400 DSLR and $300-$400 prime lens.
Last edited:
I guess I've been doing this for a while but just thought of it as using photomerge in PS. I don't really do portraits or weddings so I never thought about it in this specific context.
For landscape shots I do it all the time when you don't want much foreground and you want a wide image full of something like a mountain range. Shoot vertically and zoom in till you get the composition and aspect you want on the mountain then shoot multiple shots spanning the area you want and stitch them back together.
I do this sometimes when climbing and I can't move or get enough wide angle to get everything I want in the image. It's less successful though because it's not a very controlled environment.
I guess this version is unique inorder to gain a wide view (with empahsis on the subject) and a very shallow DOF (bokeh). The pics are nice and AQUADock your real quick sample turned out not too bad. The only negative I've experienced with photomerging is just the time to process and the file sizes you can end up with.
For landscape shots I do it all the time when you don't want much foreground and you want a wide image full of something like a mountain range. Shoot vertically and zoom in till you get the composition and aspect you want on the mountain then shoot multiple shots spanning the area you want and stitch them back together.
I do this sometimes when climbing and I can't move or get enough wide angle to get everything I want in the image. It's less successful though because it's not a very controlled environment.
I guess this version is unique inorder to gain a wide view (with empahsis on the subject) and a very shallow DOF (bokeh). The pics are nice and AQUADock your real quick sample turned out not too bad. The only negative I've experienced with photomerging is just the time to process and the file sizes you can end up with.
Pano with people! But yes, image stitching with a longer shallower DOF lens to get a MF look or wide angle with shallow DOF. Even with a MF/LF, you couldn't probably get some of the extreme DOF pictures people do with this technique.
I bought a Canon 450d for an ex for under $150 and the 50 f/1.8 for $70. That's a little short, but you can get a cheap MF 85 f/1.4 or so for probably close to that. Film ain't cheap! Not to mention developing it. I, like a most people don't have the means to develop their own film and not to mention that I can shoot and stitch an image in probably about 5-10 minutes from start to finish depending on number of pictures.
But that's an entirely different discussion.
Here's one I did a while ago, it's by no means perfect, there are some obvious stitch / colour / content aware fill flaws that I still need to fix.
Click the image for full resolution, from there you can zoom in further.
~95 images, zoomed to 75mm @ f/2.8
Will be keen to try more of these at 200mm f/2.8 once my E-EF Metabones adapter arrives.
Click the image for full resolution, from there you can zoom in further.
~95 images, zoomed to 75mm @ f/2.8
Will be keen to try more of these at 200mm f/2.8 once my E-EF Metabones adapter arrives.
Nice shot, but that post vignette looks horrible in the sky. Use curves or something else than just black to simulate it, because the sky would blow out even with a lens with serious fall off, or at the very least it wouldn't go to neutral gray. Looks really bad.
Fwiw, most 4x5 lenses operate between f11 and f64. There's the rare xenotar (and less-rare aero-ektar) that's sharp at f2.8, so that's equivalent to like a 50mm f0.7 on FF, but generally depth of field is similar on 6x6 and large format to 135.
A lot of great 8x10 here:
http://www.lauramcphee.com
Not always super shallow focus.
Here's one I did a while ago, it's by no means perfect, there are some obvious stitch / colour / content aware fill flaws that I still need to fix.
Click the image for full resolution, from there you can zoom in further.
~95 images, zoomed to 75mm @ f/2.8
[url=http://www.benjireef.com.au/pix/_stitch.jpg]Image[/URL]
Will be keen to try more of these at 200mm f/2.8 once my E-EF Metabones adapter arrives.
Looks good. I found the 70-200 f/2.8 to not look as good as my 85 f/1.8 when trying this but I just started so I have a lot more to test out.
Thanks for the advice. I see what you're talking about now when going back and looking at the original shots. I did this with the Canon 85 f/1.8 and at f/1.8 if vignettes terribly, so I could see in every single frame that this image is made up from what it does to the colors and corners.
I just used Photoshop's lens correction tool for this. I'll have to adjust my technique next time since you pretty much have to remove the vignetting from all the photos before you stitch them together.
Quasi related question and I beg forgiveness for thread hi-jacking...
Is anyone using anything else other than PS for photostitching and what's your favorite?
About the only thing I use PS for now is photomerge and after this thread I opened it to mess with last night and the license had expired. Long story short...my wife is a designer and all of our home computers have all of her work software on them. The CS version on my laptop was the last paid and installed version and now they have switched to the cloud/subscription stuff. I'm guessing that's why it asked me for a new license. I'd rather just find new software to do the stitching with as I don't use any other part of CS. I use Aperture and Nik for just about everything.
Is anyone using anything else other than PS for photostitching and what's your favorite?
About the only thing I use PS for now is photomerge and after this thread I opened it to mess with last night and the license had expired. Long story short...my wife is a designer and all of our home computers have all of her work software on them. The CS version on my laptop was the last paid and installed version and now they have switched to the cloud/subscription stuff. I'm guessing that's why it asked me for a new license. I'd rather just find new software to do the stitching with as I don't use any other part of CS. I use Aperture and Nik for just about everything.
Opinions and all, but if you're after the MF/LF look and don't have the money or means to purchase the equpment and/or develop the film then it's certainly not a waste and it doesn't take very much time at all.
In my opinion, those examples above look like **** and seriously, you're all wasting your time.
Either shoot with the proper equipment or get better at photography. The guy I'm about to link to has nailed THAT look with a DSLR with no trickery.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mitcht
I have to say I'm not a huge fan of this method either. I feel like you can get really close to this look with a 24mm f/1.4... and for all the time you're spending in Photoshop, it would probably be more cost effective to rent the lens and call it a day.
If you're talking strictly for kicks and giggles, I guess I see the fun of trying to make a big megapixel image... but I'd rather build a lego world or something with my time. haha
I think this guy pulled it off nicely, but I'd still prefer a fast wide lens.
Oldie_but_goldie by info@yenba.de, on Flickr
EDIT: I didn't realize I got to the MitchellTancio image via TheBadGuy's link... I assumed it was in the flickr Brenizer Method pool... my bad.
If you're talking strictly for kicks and giggles, I guess I see the fun of trying to make a big megapixel image... but I'd rather build a lego world or something with my time. haha
I think this guy pulled it off nicely, but I'd still prefer a fast wide lens.
Oldie_but_goldie by info@yenba.de, on Flickr
EDIT: I didn't realize I got to the MitchellTancio image via TheBadGuy's link... I assumed it was in the flickr Brenizer Method pool... my bad.
Last edited:
But that's the thing, it took me about 60 seconds to put all the images together for one I was working on yesterday.
I hate to make assumptions about your work, but it sounds to me like you're not stitching very many shots if you are able to get it all together in 60 seconds... Part of the draw supposedly is being able to create a huge megapixel image, right?
I just ran outside and took this, and then added the faux depth of field with Photoshop. No stitching. I really can't see what yours made with the Brenizer Method has over mine... To me they both look like they have a faux depth of field, and lack any sort of Medium format look.
I say all this simply for discussion... if you're satisfied with your results, that's all that matters, right? Just sharing my perspective.
Attachments
That's because the last one I did was stitched with 1024 pixel JPGs.
But, there were about 20.
I've only done about 3-4 of these so far and the largest had 80 21mp RAW files. Even then it only takes several minutes for these to process. I've done all of them on a nearly top range rMBP.
You'd really have to go through something like the Brenizer group on Flickr to pick out the best examples. When done right it looks amazing. The shot with the girls is the first shot that I attempted with this and I have some ideas. Mainly I shoot people and I like to use lighting setups for certain looks. I really want to try merging the two.
And with your image it really does look like a filter was added as opposed to doing it "in camera". If it was a true DOF effect caused by a lens, you'd see the photo in focus across the plane where the subject is in focus and not just the center of the photo with everything else out of focus. Kind of like a real tilt shift photo vs. a post processed photo to look like it was done with tile shift. Not to mention the quality of bokeh from a good lens vs. the processed effect.