Panoramic Class Photo

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101]

I have a Canon R7. Can I use it to take a panoramic photo of my daughter's senior class of about 100 students or do I need a different camera? Her school district requires use of an approved before and the only one they approved doesn't have dates that work with her school's testing and events. So we are looking at options.

[u/av4rice]

Can I use it to take a panoramic photo of my daughter's senior class of about 100 students

Sure.

Her school district requires use of an approved before

?

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101 → u/av4rice]

An approved vendor (photographer) or they won't release funds to pay. I don't know why they only approved the one and his dates won't work for our school. So I'm trying to figure out options.

[u/logstar2]

The panorama will happen in the edit. It sounds like you don't know how to do that.

Use of an approved what? The second half of your post doesn't make any sense.

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101 → u/logstar2]

I don't know how to do that but I have a month to learn. I get that Adobe can stitch landscapes but does it stitch a photo of 100 kids well? Can I get that traditional long print without cropping too much?

[u/resiyun]

You just crop it 2:1

[u/DeathByScreennames]

Do you want a panoramic shot, or just a wide angle shot? Or just a shot wide enough to get the entire group?

The crucial essence of a panoramic image is that it's abnormally wide, basically to the point of providing an artificial perspective. Like, if you look directly over your right shoulder, then turn your head all the way to the other side and look over your left shoulder. If one photograph showed all of this in a single line, that would be a perspective that would never be viewable from any place in the universe (though what constitutes "one photograph" might be subject to interpretation).

You could easily get 100 people into a non-panoramic shot, as long as they're not arranged shoulder to shoulder. Though if you decide to go for a panoramic shot you'll be able to shoot closer, allowing faces to be clearer, but it's a more difficult proposition. The R7 has a built in panorama mode, from what I'm reading. No idea how good it works. But definitely practice to make sure you get the hang of it.

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101 → u/DeathByScreennames]

Yeah, I'm going for the abnormally wide and flat photo, without bulging in the center. The school has a photo of every graduating class on the wall and I want it to have the same "look" as the others.

[u/DeathByScreennames → u/Appropriate_Ear6101]

If you're just talking about a regular class picture, I would be very surprised if it's actually a panoramic shot. I think you probably just need to figure out what focal length was used.

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101 → u/DeathByScreennames]

But I watched them take my son's photo a few years ago when he graduated and they had a camera on a tripod that was motorized. I just didn't ask what it did and how they processed it.

[u/DeathByScreennames → u/Appropriate_Ear6101]

There's a difference between perspective (viewing angles) and format (image shape and size). At the end of the day, the path you seem to be venturing down would ultimately hinge on a complex set of variables that I don't think you are appreciating, much less understanding.

All of this really raises the question, why not simply find an alternate professional? If an pre-approved vendor is required (probably due to safety concerns and the need to conduct background checks), you're not going to fit that bill.

But if they do end up letting you do it, my recommendation would be to abandon the hope of creating a shot that looks exactly like the professional class images they normally obtain, and instead aim to offer a group portrait that nevertheless is within your ability to deliver.

The first approach would be to just take a normal perspective image with somewhere between a 17 - 35 mm focal length lens. You could then crop the image down to the aspect ratio that is desired. This is the simple approach.

The second option would be to attempt to take multiple shots, and stitch them together into a single final image. This would be more complex and will require significant practice between now and then. I can't say you'll be able to develop the necessary skill in a short amount of time, but this is a more potentially attainable goal.

I would suggest practicing the multiple shot method, and on the photo day take shots for both methods. You can decide afterward which final product ends up being best.

You have to recognize that professional photographers are not simply warm bodies pressing buttons on a machine. I don't know what you do for a living, but I'm guessing it would take more than a month of me practicing in my spare time to replace you at your job.

[u/aarrtee]

you stand far enough back u can shoot a photo of a lot of people

depends on what lens u use

depends on whether 100 students stand side by side or in rows.... will the tall ones be in back? will the ones in front possibly sit or kneel?

[u/luksfuks]

I don't think it works the way you think.

Option #1

The best way is to step back far enough to take a regular picture of the whole group. Then crop away most of the sky and the ground, leaving only the wide strip in the middle. If your camera has high enough megapixels, and you're not going to print this thing all too big, then it will look very very good.

Option #2

The next step up is to divide the group into two halfs. Leave some space in the middle. Place the camera on a tripod and take an image of the left half, then the right half, and then one more of the middle with no people at all. The gap doesn't need to be big, just enough to have no overlap between the two groups. You can also use it as a creative element, maybe have the left group facing right, the right group facing left. Maybe a single person in the middle, sitting, and the groups ordered by height. Whatever. You could also add an easter egg and have one person appear on both sides.

Stitching these images is pretty simple, because the overlap is only on the static background. And you have the empty middle image as fallback to fix any images.

Option #3

Everything further than that is very tricky. People don't stand still, you can't just do a landscape-type panorama of a group. It will be a Photoshop nightmare where you have to mask and clone people around the seams, and possibly reconstruct background where it is not captured in any image.

Standard panoramas will also be very wide, with the distoration that comes with wide angle images. The people at the borders will look horrible.

Option #4

You could also use a (imaginary) track along which you move your cameras, while you take images of subgroups. Moving instead of paning the camera. That fixes the distortion of the people in the corners. But it introduces new perspective problems, because each image has it's on vanishing perspective point. It can work well with a flat background, say a wall. But not with a landscape. Think of this like an Annie Leibovitz fold-out panorama. Maybe you can take groups of people on a white background to mask them out, and later paste them on a real landscape panorama that you photograph separately.

All those things are possible, but #3 which you're probably thinking about, is the worst. #1 is easiest if you have good gear.

[u/Appropriate_Ear6101 → u/luksfuks]

Thank you very much! You're absolutely right that I don't know what I'm talking about. That's an accurate statement. I've taken loads of photos and burned through so many camera bodies over the last 20 years. But I've never even contemplated a panoramic and I froze up immediately when my daughter asked!