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I'm experimenting with a new way to display a panoramic when I want to upload a full-size or extremely large version. I thought I'd give Zoomify a try and a stained glass window panorama seemed the perfect pano to try it on first. I'm intersted in putting up the larger version for stained glass as I know my mum will be interested in the details of the painting. I spent this weekend and some of tonight stitching and Photoshopping the pano which consists of 3x3 images taken some time ago in St. Mary's Church in Berkley.

While on my way to somewhere else I popped into the church to see if there were any cool stained glass windows to take photos of. The church has 15 windows with stained glass and I took a single picture of all of them. After doing that I figured that I'd try and take a panorama of one which quickly turned into two which then rapidly turned into taking a panorama of all 15. Since it's taken about 48 hours to produce this one I think I might wait a bit before starting the next one!

I was quite rushed at the time as there was due to be a service starting and indeed my final pics were taken only about 20 minutes before the service actually started!. It was a good learning experience and there are a few things I'd do differently if I was to attempt this in another setting...

1. Provision enough time so you don't have to rush. You'll want the time to be able to think about what you're doing rather than just snapping away.
2. Place the camera at a higher position. Because it was an improptu shoot I was stuck with the height I could still see through the lens on my camera while standing on the floor.
3. Use a greater depth of field (higher f number). You can see where the panel is not quite in focus on the left hand side.
4. Take more care in positioning the camera centrally to the window. I did a reasonable job of this I think but it's still not quite in the middle. and it mean I had to do some distortion work inside Photoshop to get it to look right.
5. Take some bracketted shots. Near the tops of the window I ran out of contrast on my RAW files. I 'developed' my RAW files three times for this image - at -1, 0 and +1. I didn't try and push it any more as there was no more information when pushing higher on the blown out highlights at the top. I'll need a lot more time if I'm bracketting shots as well next time.

I've left the edges of the window stonework not entirely blacked out in this image whereas I'd normally black the whole lot out. I did this because of the stones that obscure the base of the window. I thought it would look odd if I blacked them out. I'd be interested to know what you think.

The perspective on the window I've also left as if you were looking up at it ratber than correcting it for a front on view-point. It just looked weird to be corrected. I'm guessing that with a higher camera position it wouldn't be as noticeable. Does anyone know whether stained glass artists fixed their windows to an altered perspective so that they look correct when viewed from below like Michealangelo's David?

I hope you enjoy looking at the detail...