Jeff - Beyond your very words, the visuals in your posts continue to astound me!

This is very cool.. I have downloaded the trial version and will be anxious to see how it works..

But does the time, energy, and possibly the cost of the programs  make it worth more than just a good wide angle lens on a camera?  Something to think about.

Jason... what I'm most impressed by is how it handles very complex details. I can only imagine this will look even better with a tripod, but I wanted to test it without just to prove it's skill.

Kaye... let me know if your experience is the same as mine. 

I made 22 panoramas from my last hike. Here's another. I specifically took this one because of the bushes that cut across several photos. It aligned them perfectly.

Lexa... The Kodak has an amazing ultra wide angle lens that I'm very happy with. But even that can't get everything in sometimes. The Kodak also has built in stitching, but sometimes that is difficult to align, especially with outside scenery in bright light. From a time standpoint, I very quickly shot all of the photos. The energy was selecting each group of photos to stitch. And the cost was $39 to own it. 

My Canon came with a Photo Stitch program and I love it! Especially when trying to capture a stunning 180 degree water view!

Rich, I have a Canon Digital Rebel and the same PhotoStitch software as well. It's one of the easier programs to use. The limitation, is that it only works on one plane, horizontal. It won't recognize the vertical stitch. For most panoramic images, it works great. The added dimension that this provides is very compelling. 

Jeff, sorry, I was too busy looking at your pretty pictures.  What did you say?  ;o) 

No, that is REALLY cool.  I need that to do a pic for my new blog, actually ....

That is amazing! My Cannon has the photo stitch also but I thought it may be too complicated for me (It is in the camera and there is a program too). We have a huge tree here that only a wide angle can catch. It took 10 shots to get all of the tree and I never did try to get the photo's together. (The tree is a 4-500 year old live oak)

Jeff, I read this from your RSS feed this morning, I like it. I also use the 750 so I am going to work on it. In the past I tried a tour company that required stitching, and I didn't care for it. I hear VA's can do it for you,  but I moved on. However, this looks so simple, I will try it out today !!

Jeff - This looks like a great program and you can't beat the price.  

Very impressive Jeff. How DO they do that?

Fabulous photo imagery as usual Jeff. I always look forward to you informative posts. I have the cannon as well a 630 and love the simplicity of use. But have always been disapointed at the horizontal stich only.

I can't wait to begin using the new software. I could have used it last week during the rose festival for the carnival rides.

I think I am your biggest tech groupie Jeff!  Every single post you post has such take home value!  Thank you so much for sharing!  Janie

Sarah... this would work great for that. I have an idea for you, by the way. 

Lysa... the canon software is not difficult, but it does not do what this software can do and sometimes requires you to tell it where the similarity points are in the image. 

Missy... the free demo direct at their site will surprise you, because there is just nothing to it.

Maureen... the other Mac version has a ton of features extra, you can download a trial of that as well.

Bryant... this is from their website: "AutoStitch panorama software takes a step forward in panoramic imaging by automatically recognising matching images. This allows entire panoramas to be constructed with no user input whatsoever. Our system needs no special knowledge about the camera that was used, and it can even recognise multiple panoramas in an unordered set of images."

Herb... the ability to take photos up, down and sideways in your field of view is what is really impressive.

Janie... you're welcome. 

I will have to check it out and play with the demo version.

Here's another pano. I took these photos as I was walking into the Los Angeles AR Gathering. It took me all of 15 seconds to snap the 12 photos used to create it. Why? Because you don't have to be exact in your overlaps. It recognizes the image similarities for you.

I tested this a great deal before posting this. Here is another I took on our donut walk last Saturday. From the sidewalk, I would never have been able to get the full house and landscaping in the pano with just horizontal stitching in the camera or with the Canon software. The pano would have required only three photos in the camera, but would have cut off the top of the roof and the bottom third of the landscaping. This was 12 photos, 4 wide by 3 high.

This software is amazing.  You're always alerting us to these really cool new programs.  Thanks so much.  I think I'll play a little with it now.

Jeff: I am blown away! Thanks so much for sharing yet another terrific tool that can be put to immediate use. And it's MAC compatible. Yippee!

Jeff, thanks a mil for the info. I had given up on the panos with the v705. This may be our answer.

Jeff,

I have been playing with this all day long. It is a fabulous tool. I have discovered a couple of things. If you give it a picture that does not seem to fit into the puzzle it will try to create something of those that fit.

Also It does not seem to want to take them outside of there natural order.

So if you have pics 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

and you want to stitch 1,3,5,7 It says no pics found.

This is on the free download version. Don't know if it will do it on the Purchased version.

Herb, the order of the photos does not matter. I've tested it in numerous orders and it simply finds them. In your example, if image 2, 4 and 6 have connector information that would complete the pano and tie them together, that would be a problem. If you point it at a folder, it will ignore the phots in the folder that are not part of the panorama.

Jim & Maria... play away!

Roberta... yes, that made me happy as well.

John... this should do the trick.  

Thanks for the GREAT post... I also have a Canon digital Rebel, and had no idea that it had photostitching software.  I can't wait to try it out.

Jeff,

No problem this time. Could not duplicate the problem so must have been operator error.

Jeff, a great tool... can't wait to test it out.  Does the free demo work with the software programs that you mentioned above?  Or, do you just buy up to a program after testing on the free demo?

Irina, the free demo from their site is fully functional. I can't speak to how long that will be true, but right now it works beautifully if you're on a pc. There is no real interface for it, but you don't really need it. It just works.

Sandi... yes it does. Give it a try, but give this a try too. Compare.

Herb... thanks for letting me know! 

This is a great tool and I it is one of the easiest sticthing programs that I have ever used.    

Jeff,

I have to share this photo with you. After spending most of the day creating Pano after Pano with great success I found myself on the banks of the Willamette river looking at downtown Portland. This shot took about 16 or so photo's. I did not bother to duplicate any of the shots just took them one right after the other.

The Black spot almost center of the Panorama on top is a photo left out of the collage. That Photo I must hav moved the camera because the image was all blurry. So this is the result. HAHAHAHA. Because I zoomed in a little I will have to re shoot everything and start from scratch. No big deal but I should have previewed the image before leaving.

Herb... that is an excellent example of how this tool works. It would have been a GREAT panoramic shot. :)

Jeff - I recently acquired the Canon Rebel EOS Digital/SLR 10.1 mp.  I used to be pretty good with a regular SLR (ya know - those old things that use film!) and am truly enjoying the digital version.  There is a serious learning curve though.  I do enjoy having the best of both worlds though - the ease of digital and the clarity of 35mm.

The software that came with the camera has a stitching program that is included in the Zoom Browser.  It's a free download at http://www.photo-freeware.net/zoombrowser-ex.php 

The stitching portion is relatively easy, IMO, but then my experience with this technique is limited.  If you have time check it out and let me know what you think.  Thanks! 

Carol... Zoom browser is simply accessing the PC version of PhotoStitch from that application. It's one of the easier programs to use. The limitation, is that it only works on one plane, horizontal. It won't recognize the vertical stitch. For most panoramic images, it works great.

Jeff - Thanks for the feedback.  I'm still new to all this digital technology and 'stitching' was a term I was not familiar with until about a week ago!  I think I live under a rock sometimes.

I am thinking about taking a course in digital photography just so I can get a better feel for all the various techniques and the lingo. 

Jeff, I just played with the autostitch and it's amazing!  This is such a great tool to incorporate with our Real Estate Shows.  THANK YOU so much for sharing!!!

Irina... yes it is. I love its simplicity. And the results are great. 

Jeff, I'm amazed at how these little programs can do such a better job than the "big boys" like Photoshop.  Don't get me wrong, I still bleed Adobe red, and Photoshop is an amazing tool.  BUT their photo-merge sucks ass.  I shot a 16 photo panorama with my Nikon D80 on a tripod of my street (I listed my next door neighbor's home) and merged it with Photoshop CS2.  The results were HORRIBLE.  I thought I would be unable to use the photos.  But I searched for "free" programs on the 'net and came across PhotoVista Panorama with a 30 day free trial.  It's $69 bucks if you buy it.  The result was a flawless stitch.  Chalk one up for the little guy.  You gotta think that Adobe will buy one of these guys and integrate their product with Photoshop at some point right?

John... as with blogging, finding a niche and hitting it hard is sometimes the best approach!

This is great and I can't wait to try it myself! 

Alma & Vincent... you'll dig it. The following comments will illustrate why.

I love the wide angle lens on my Kodak v705. No surprise there. Here is a photo I took with the wide angle at the Ventura Harbor on Sunday.

Not bad.

Here is the same vantage point stitching together 6 wide angle photos.

And here is one where I just stuck the camera out my driver side window and shot the photos. I know, not a very interesting photo, but I did it to prove a point. That this is a quick and simple process. Obviously no tripod. Had to be done without lining anything up and was done while stopped at the light. 

I like panoramic shots good stuff.

Thanks for the heads up on these software packages, I will have to be sure to go out and check them out.  Now if I can combine this technology with some virtual tour bells and whistles, then I can replace the virtual tour subscription I have been paying for.

Rick... thanks.

Linda... you'll love the ease of use on this one.

Great Post... What kind of camera are you using?

Jeff

Windermere, Florida Real Estate

Your tools just keep getting better and better.  I'm photo challenged but this is so cool I'm off to try it.  Spectacular examples!

Thanks for the heads up.  Pretty cool stuff.  The images are really awesome.

Jeffrey... I use the Kodak v705. You can see more examples here:  http://ca2wv.blogspot.com/

Michelle... thank you. This one is pretty simple. Definitely worth the try.

Stacy and Jackie... thank you. 

Way cool tool....

I will have to look into it. Is the full version only available in other products?!?!

Jeff - is your profile pic the kinder, gentler Jeff Turner? (great shots of Ventura Harbor, BTW) Any chance of getting Matt to include Microsoft in the fruit system for equal time?

Man. I'm definitely going to have to check this out. I'll let you know how it works out. Thanks yet again for another informative blog, Jeff.

Randy, I've been using it for my entire cross country trip with my family. Not having to use a tripod to get a decent pano is why I like this so much. All the panos on our family trip blog are being created using this: ca2wv.blogspot.com

Here are a couple that aren't on that blog that I did yesterday on a hike at Coopers Rock.

As you can see, the details of the woods are complex, but it stitched perfectly without any intervention on my part. 

And here is one made using the camera on the iPhone.

Thank you very much for sharing, that was good information.

Looks like the iPhone takes a decent photo!  I'm impressed! 

Thanks for all your instruction and knowledge.  Always good to have a 'go to' guy.  :) 

Carol... if you have good lighting, the iPhone does a good job. Here is a pano created using photos from the iPhone a couple of days ago.

Jeff,

I'm amazed.  Purely amazed.  Did you have to do any 'tweaking' on the photos or are they as-is?  

BTW - glad your vacation has turned out so well.  Thanks for sharing!!

Carol... no tweaking.

I'm truly impressed!  Thanks for sharing!

Wow is all I can say!

Jeff, very cool. Thank you.

I've always done my stitching manually. Something like this could really speed up the workflow.

Cheers, -B

Excellent software.  1 caveat. Make sure if you are uploading these photos to the MLS or other standard size image places, you will have a very distorted or cropped image.  But other than that - wonderful.

Phenomenal!  I will purchase this one...

Michael... glad you're enjoying it!

Bryce... I know you'll be using a tripod and that will make the job even easier.

Adam... always good avice.

Troy... you'll love it.  

Here is one I took quickly while at a meeting at Inman Connect. Obviously no tripod. :) Again, all automatic. The only truly noticeable issue is the vase in the middle of the table. 

Jeff, I was looking for software like this and searched for 'panormic' on the blogs and just knew you'd come up at the top.  This is absolutely AMAZING!  I dowloaded the trial version and uploaded 7 photos and it LITERALLY took 30 seconds and I had a great panoramic view of an acreage I just listed.  I can think of so many applications for this, and I thank you so much for sharing it.  GREAT TOOL!

Sounds cool, I had the best panoramic software, it came with a JVC camera I bought a long time ago, but when other agents did panoramic, they either looked so skinny and warped, or like an earthquake hit the place and broke it in two. This program I had did it all smoothly, I have to look it up. But this one looks good too. The stacking ability is key here.

Ryan and Ross, the beauty of this app is it's ease of use. If you combine with tripo, the results are very, very good. Most of my examples are just hand held. 

Jeff, I'm anxious to try this one out.  The Photostitch program that came with my Canon seems to have a great deal of trouble with the crown molding that I run into all the time.

Jeff, I agree... ease of use is key here. I was amazed at what it did in just 30 seconds and have been playing with it ever since.  I've come up with some fun creations.  I'm looking forward to trying it out with a tripod outdoors to capture some nice panos of some of my farm areas.  Thanks again!

The photos of the tile floor and the hardwood flooring are certainly far better than anything you would get from either the Kodak V570 or the V705.  That software looks like a steal at only $39 for a Mac.