While there are film camera systems that are designed specifically to shoot panoramic images, digital photographers are currently without an equitable product. Making the task even more difficult is the fact that many of the professional-level digital SLR cameras still have a focal length multiplier, which in many cases makes a 20mm lens behave more like a 30mm lens. Using a wider lens (around 14mm) often isn't the answer, as generally speaking most lenses in this category exhibit too much distortion of the image.

One way to achieve the effect of a wide angle lens or to create a panoramic image is to take multiple shots of the same subject and digitally stitch them together on the computer. Stitcher 3.5 is a professional stitching program that does just this task. Stitcher 3.5 lets the user build high quality panoramic images for use in print, film, web, or for use in coordination with 3D software. Even if you are not into creating full 360Þ panoramic images, Stitcher's powerful rendering engine allows you to stitch a few high-resolution files together and render them as a single flat high-resolution image.

This 10x36" print on the Epson Stylus Pro 7600 contains amazing detail even under the scrutiny of a loupe due to the stitching of eight 6-megapixel files to create this single high-resolution file. Photos © 2002, Cris Daniels, All Rights Reserved

How The Process Works
There are a few important factors in creating quality panoramic images on a computer. Realviz recommends that for best results, that the photographer uses a tripod and a panoramic pan head. Through my own testing, I found that this was the only way to walk away from a scene knowing I had images that were captured correctly for stitching. While hand holding the camera is possible, there is also a much larger possibility that there will be a few frames that won't stitch together perfectly. There also may be some frames less sharp than others due to camera shake. So while it isn't mandatory to use a tripod and panorama head, if you are serious about getting the best images (with any panorama software) it is a worthy investment. For this test I used a Bogen 3036 tripod and a custom-built panorama head.

It is also quite important that the camera system that you are using has manual controls for both focus and metering. I used three cameras during this review, the Nikon Coolpix 950, a Fuji S1 Pro, and a Nikon N90. Shooting panoramas with each camera is a little different, but all of the cameras had the controls needed to turn off autoexposure and autofocus systems so that images would show a seamless blend when stitched.

System Requirements
Stitcher 3.5 runs on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. The Windows version of Stitcher requires Windows 98SE, Me, 2000SP2, NT4, or XP. The Macintosh version runs on either OS 9.1 or OS X v10.1 and up. The recommended hardware requirements call for at least a 350MHz Pentium II processor, or a G3 300MHz processor and 128MB RAM. Because Stitcher 3.5 is so calculation intensive, creating panoramic images is a much easier and faster process when using a fast computer. The total time it takes to assemble each panorama is completely dependent on the speed of the host computer, so in this case it isn't possible to have too much computer speed. Because Stitcher 3.5 runs in OS X for Macintosh, I reviewed the program on a Dual 1GHz G4 Mac running OS X Jaguar.

Panorama from Nikon Coolpix 950 with wide angle adapter, f/7.41 at 1/189 sec, ISO 100.

The User Interface And Options
The Stitcher 3.5 interface is simple and clean. Essentially there are three main windows, the tool bar, a layout window where the panorama is assembled, and lastly the "Image Strip" window that displays thumbnail images of the files that you are going to use in the current project. Beginning a project is as simple as importing images into the "Image Strip" area. Modifications such as rotation can be performed at this stage so that users do not need to open each image in a separate editor prior to working with them in the Stitcher application.

Assembling the panoramic image is a straightforward process. Images are dragged into the assembly window, oriented properly, and the user presses the enter key on the keyboard telling Stitcher to attach these two images. The whole process repeats itself until the panorama is complete. There are options in Stitcher to adjust the stitching camera properties, and to correct image distortion caused by camera lenses. The corrections that Stitcher uses to correct for a particular lens can be saved as a camera profile for use on future panorama projects. This is convenient for photographers because for each subsequent project that is shot with the same lens the distortion figures for that particular lens have already been calculated and need not be computed again.