Three panoramas from 3 Willow Lane.

Today I picked up my on-again, off-again relationship with making panoramas using Photoshop’s automated photomerge feature.

I’ve sort of become the unofficial staff photographer for my housemate Ryan Harb‘s permaculture project: turning our front yard into an edible forest garden. Today Ryan was out in the yard working, with occasional help from neighborhood kids who dig dirt, and I thought taking photos was a good way to get out of actually pitching in.

Click to enlarge.

Here’s my first attempt: a roughly 90-degree pan composed of eight images stitched together. Not too bad considering I was using a stump as a monopod, but nothing special. Here, Ryan and his child labor little helper do some digging.

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This one is take two. From the other side of the yard (you can see Ryan in the far left), I doubled the amount of frames to 16 and took a much wider angle (about 130 degrees). By now I had my tripod, but given my ineptitude in using it, and the bending of the frames that occurs at such a wide angle (it’s worth mentioning I used the Spherical setting on all of these), I had to do a little bit of cropping and use the manual healing tool at the bottom corners. Nothing that really changes the context of the photo, though.

I like the slight fish-eye feel you get at such a wide angle; it’s enough to know that things are a little skewed, but not so much that you feel like you’re looking at a carnival mirror.

Click to enlarge.

Here’s the last panorama, a full 180 degrees composed of 14 frames. Notice the roads on the far sides of the image – those are actually the same street, which runs parallel with our property line. The 180 pan, combined with the spherical stitching, makes it seem as if the street is wrapping around behind you.

All three images were shot with my Canon Rebel xsi and the kit 18-55mm lens. To see the images full-sized, check out the “Panoramas” set on my Flickr account.