Posts in Category: panorama

Winter Laudholm Farm

Laudholm Farm, Wells ME

Laudholm Farm, Wells ME

It is one of those triumphs of the conservation spirit (and rare common sense) that a combination of public and private agencies managed to “save” Laudholm Farms from development. The land is held jointly by the Wells National Estuarine Research Center and the Laudholm Trust, and between them they have managed to preserve both a large and diverse ecosystem which includes two healthy tidal rivers, marsh, woodlands, upland pastures, etc. and the magnificent buildings of a true, late 1800s, Maine Salt Farm. Quite an accomplishment. I am truly thankful to have such a valuable resource in my back yard! It is a great place in every season…and with the Friends group renting snowshoes, is one of the more accessible winter outings in our area. I love it!

This is a two panel shot of the farm buildings. The top panel is a wide sweep panorama and the bottom is from the same spot in a more conventional 24mm equivalent view. Together they give a good impression of the farm in winter.

Sony HX400V. As above. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.

The Wide View. Happy Sunday!

Parker River NWR, south end looking north north-west.

This is a portrait orientation Sweep Panorama from the Sony HX400V. Is is about 120 degrees of sweep, from just south of west to just east of north. Winter light on the marsh and snow squalls under those clouds as they come in. Patchy sun highlights the foreground while the tree line is still in shadow. And the massive clouds over all. Not a compelling image…but pleasant, and rewarding.

Sweep Panoramas, especially the more natural looking panoramas taken with the camera held vertically during the sweep, provide, still within the frame, something very close to the naked eye view of the world. We are used to looking at photos that range from normal wide angle to tight telephotos…photos that approximate our “focused area of attention”…photos that frame just as much of the world as we generally pay attention to. In a sense, every photographer offers a digest of the world…with the focus…the area of interest…preselected for us as something worth looking at. A portrait Sweep Panorama like this one challenges our photographic senses. We don’t know quite what to make of it. Where are we supposed to look? And that is the whole point. Sometimes there is interest in looking at the whole thing…the sweep of the landscape…the play of light across the land under, as in this case, a dramatic sky. Sometimes the attention needs a wider focus…sometimes there is reward in a wider view.

We tend to go through our spiritual lives in the same way…recording a digest of the high points…paying attention to what has obvious interest and meaning…when all the time the sweep of the spirit through our lives is like the sun playing across the landscape under a dramatic sky. There is reward in pulling back to enjoy the wider view. And challenge. We are such focused creatures. When the view becomes too wide we struggle to make sense of it…but it is, I think, worth the extra effort. It returns us to our point of true perspective, where we are, relatively speaking, pretty small in the grand landscape. This is good. Humbling, but good. God would not have given us eyes to see the wider view if God did not intend us to use them. Yes, we are in our focused attention…but yes we are also in the sweep of life around us. It is good to be reminded. I think. Happy Sunday!

Winter Marsh at High Tide

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My weekend photo-prowl took me along the Kennebunk Bridle Path at high tide on a winter’s day. These are two panoramas taken, back to back, from the bridge over this unnamed little stream a few hundred yards from where it flows into the Mousam River. Each image stands on its own as effective panorama of an interesting and atmospheric winter scene. Stacked one on top of the other, as they are here, I am hoping it truly evokes the place and time.

I am still experimenting with the Sony NEX 3NL’s implementation of sweep panorama. Because the Sony has a electro-mechanical shutter and I cut my sweep panorama teeth, so to speak, on cameras with electronic shutters, I am having a bit of learning curve. Electronic shutter cameras (with smaller sensors) use the rolling shutter from the video function to “paint” the image to memory one line at at time. The operation is very smooth…just as though you were panning a video across the scene. The Sony is more like taking a series of photos which then have to be to stitched in camera to form the panorama. The shutter goes kachunk, kachunk, kachunk all the way across the pan. It is somewhat disconcerting, but now that I have had some practice, I can not argue with the resluts. The files are huge and the detail is awesome!

Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom, at 24mm equivalent, in Sweep Panorama mode. Both images processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 and then assembled in Pixlr Express.

Snow and Snow Geese

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Can you tell where the snow in this Bosque del Apache NWR panorama leaves off, and the Snow Geese begin? Most of what you see in the corn field is geese! I would estimate something over 10,000 in this field alone. View the image as large as your monitor allows. 🙂

Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Sweep Panorama mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 using the new HDR Scene filter.

Old Falls Panorama

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One of the fun things about a camera with sweep panorama is that, even when you are not after a true panoramic effect, you can still quickly and easily break out of the bounds of your widest zoom to catch more of the scene in front of you. At 23mm equivalent field of view, I had to choose the center, left of center, or right of center view of Old Falls and the foliage. With sweep panorama on hand it was a simple matter of flipping the camera up on end and sweeping it around from left to right to capture the whole scene. This is only about 100° and the vertical camera makes the image unusually tall for a panorama, so the effect is more super-wide. I like it. It gives the falls scale and includes more of the fall color.

Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Panorama mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7 and then reprocessed for a bit more impact on the laptop usinge the edit tools in Google+ Photos.

Opening in the forest.

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On my Sunday morning photoprowl, I discovered that the folks at the Kennebunkport Land Trust have installed all new signage at Emmon’s Preserve. The new trail maps alerted me to sections of the Preserve I never suspected existed, and trails I had, obviously, never walked. Well, there is a fix for that! 🙂

I picked a new trail, largely because it included what was labeled on the map as “the Batson River Bridge.” I like rivers and I like bridges. And the bridge was impressive: A long arch of shaped aluminum, very modern and very efficient, and just wide enough for two hikers to pass abreast. The trail on the other side of the Batson is called “The Learning Trail” and is a cooperative effort of the Land Trust and the Alternative Education Program at Kennebunk High School. It is a great trail, with lots of interpretative sings and its own website, which you can access via QR codes on each of the signs. How great is that!

This is the view down a little brook, complete with its own boardwalk, that makes an opening in the forest canopy about half way around the loop of trail. It is a vertical sweep panorama taken with the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. I love the effect!  Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.

A Day along Back Creek

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

This is an 180 degree plus sweep panorama from the shores of Back Creek where it meets the Mousam River, a few hundred yards from where the Mousam meets the sea. As you can see, I was there digiscoping, but I got distracted by the sky. 🙂 I never really get tired of watching the camera paint the image one line at a time as I sweep the camera around. There is a technological magic to it, and I can not argue with the results!

Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Panorama mode. Processed in Snapseed, on the Google Nexus 7 2013. (You really should see it full sized…click on the image to enlarge it to the width of your screen.)

England in any weather: Happy Sunday!

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We have had every kind of summer weather England has to offer at Rutland Water in the past 3 days. In fact most days we have had them all in a single day 🙂 This is a sweep pano showing the little cove where the optics tent (on the left, I am here for the British Birding Fair) is located, around to the Anglican Water Bird Center on the right. It is typical English weather. About to rain or just finished raining.

Still this is a view that has a lot to interest in any weather.

Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Sweep panorama mode. Processed on the Google Nexus 7 in PicSay Pro.

And for the Sunday thought. I know how blessed I am to be here in England to experience the beauty of these days at Rutland Water. And this, my birthday week, I realize how blessed I am to be here on Earth to experience the beauty of this life. I am not sure I give enough back, but I am sure this is part of what I have to give: these images and these musings.

Lord’s Point to Great Head

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I really enjoy the sweep panorama feature of the Samsung Smart Phone WB250F and I enjoy it most when I hold the camera vertically to produce the wide but tall effect. It overcomes everything I don’t like about panoramas and captures everything I do like 🙂 I am especially liking the effect since I learned to lock exposure on the segment of the sweep I choose before beginning the sweep. Simple trick but it makes a huge difference in the results.

This is the bay between Lord’s Point and Great Head in Kennebunk Maine, with what is left of Strawberry Island forming the long twisty spit of rocks out into the water. Strawberry Island is now protected by the Kennebunk Land Trust.

Camera as above. Processed in PicSay Pro on the 2013 Nexus 7.

Forest for the trees…

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This is a vertical sweep panorama. I was looking at the dead pine in the center background and the image builds itself around that, but the most interesting thing to me is the distortions introduced in the surrounding trees by the sweep process. It is a bendy world the sweep panorama mode captures 🙂 The only difficulty in this kind of vertical sweep is getting your head back far enough without falling over.

This is at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge on the trail at the headquarters.

Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.