Posts in Category: panorama
7/22/2010
iPhone 4 Possibilities
I have been having fun with the iPhone 4 camera. This is the first phone I have owned with anything approaching a real camera: 5mp with a focusing lens, etc.
Couple that with the excellent photo software available for the iPhone and you can have some fun.
The first shot is a panorama of 6 images, 3 across and 2 down, done in AutoStitch. You shoot roughy overlapping images, load them into AutoStitch, and it does the rest. And does it very well. Better really than any panorama software I have used on my laptop.
The second image is a two exposure HDR done in ProHDR. Again, you just shoot two shots, touching the screen where you want to take the exposure readings, first light, then dark, and the program combines them to an extended range rendition. It also has slider controls to tweek the result for contrast, saturation, and warmth.
I generally take the output of these two programs and crop and sharpen, and sometimes adjust the curves, in PhotoGene…also right on the iPhone.
That is a lot photographic power and a lot of photographic potential. Like I said, having fun!
Clicking either image should load a larger version for your viewing pleasure.
6/15/2010
Bar Harbor and the Porcupines: three views (2 with gull)
It was, as I mentioned a few days ago, a blue day on Cadillac Mountain when I visited late in the afternoon last Thursday. It had rained through noon and was just beginning to clear off. This is the view out over Bar Harbor, Frenchman’s Bay, and the Porcupine Islands. You can see the bar extending back toward land from Bar Island (completely above water at low tide) that gives Bar Harbor its name. Taken from the lowest overlook on the Cadillac Mountain road. The gulls work the scenic views as though they bought the concession. This one was quite bold and actually walked up to me and practically stood on my feet when I failed to offer it any tribute. I took its picture. That will have to be enough. 🙂 The Panorama is 8 shots stitched in PhotoShop Element’s Panorama tool: the longest pano I have done to date. The Pano, of course, really needs to be viewed a larger size.
All with the Canon SX20IS. 1) 28mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80, Landscape program, 2) 80mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, Landscape program, and 3) 8 shots at 70mm equivalent @ f4.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80, Panorama mode.
In Lightroom 3, Recovery for the sky, Fill light for the foreground, Blackpoint just slightly right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen Narrow Edges preset. The top shot was cropped bottom and top for composition and to remove distracting road surface.
From Acadia 2010.
6/12/2010
Cadillac / Cranberry Isles Blue Day
Every visit to Acadia National Park is satisfying on so many levels. This is the tail end of a day of rain and storm, with clearing weather coming in from the south, looking off the shoulder of Cadillac Mountain over the Cranberry Isles and out to sea. There is still a lot of moisture in the air and no direct sun on the summit. A blue day. But with a beauty of its own.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom 3, some recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint just barely right, added Clarity and Vibrance, Sharpen Narrow Edges preset.
From Acadia 2010.
And another view. One of my risky tripod-less panos. View as large as you monitor will take. Click the image, and use the size controls at the top of the page.
5/22/2010
Little River Panorama
I tried a pano of this view earlier this spring. The Full Bend in the Little. Since then I have started using PhotoShop Elements Panorama feature, in conjunction with the Easy Panorama mode of the Canon SX20IS. As noted in a previous post, Elements’ pano engine is considerably smarter than the one in the Photo Stitch software Canon provides with the camera.
This shot is 5 shots taken at about 50mm equivalent. Exposure was determined by the camera in Panorama mode, but averaged about F4 at 1/640th @ ISO 80.
Of course I never have a tripod with me. I have started carrying a light-weight monopod, which, for panoramas, is not as much help as I had hoped it would be. I tried this shot three times and every time the last shot was considerably off horizontal. I had to straighten and crop to get a level horizon and lost from every edge to do so. This is the best of the lot. Third try lucky.
Do try it at as large as your monitor will take by clicking the image above and using the size controls at the top of the window that appears.
After processing the shots in Elements for pano, I took the whole thing into Lightroom as a PhotoShop file for final processing. Recovery for the sky, a bit of Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and just a little Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset. Finally, the left most exposure was just a bit dark, even with Element’s intelligent blending, so I applied a Lightroom graduated filter effect from the left to brighten it slightly.
3/29/2010
Laudholm Pond Panorama
I have a detailed explanation of why and how this shot was taken at Playing With Panoramas: sort of… on Point & Shoot Landscape. I was not really after the panorama effect, but I wanted a wider shot than my 28mm equivalent could provide, in order to frame the pond and sky with the white birch stands. Three shots using the Panorama mode on the SX20IS with the zoom at about 40mms, PhotoShop Elements’ PhotoMerge tool, plus final processing in Lightroom, yields this. Of course, to see it to true advantage you need to click the image and open it in the largest size you monitor will show. For comparison, here is the shot with the unaided 28mm on the Canon SX20IS.
From Around Home 2010.
3/20/2010
The Full Bend in the Little
The Canon SX20IS has “Easy Panorama” Mode, which aids in the creation of panoramas by displaying a thumbnail view of your first image beside the second so you can match them up, etc, etc. It is actually pretty clever. They also provide the PhotoStitch application which does a pretty good job of auto assembling the images into one. The only way to get really good panoramas is to use a panorama head on your tripod, which keeps the sensor plane aligned with the segments of an arc so the images really do overlap perfectly. Or you need a panorama camera, which swings the actual lens. I have never owned either. I am not all that into panoramas since I have never figured out how to display or view them effectively. Still, I could not resist trying out Easy Panorama mode on the new camera.
This is four images covering about 100-120 degrees of view. You really do need to view it on WideEyedInWonder at the largest size your monitor will do (click the image to open the WEIW link). The first shot, on the left, is almost due north and the last shot on the right is south of east, tending toward south-east. I used the corner of the wooden rail around a observation deck over the Little River at Rachel Carson NWR as my tripod, and set the lens to 28mm equivalent. You can see the rail at the lower right. Also, if you view it a larger sizes you will see that stitching of the last two images is not perfect. The wooden rail did not make a perfect panorama head.
What is interesting to me is that, long thin format aside, if you looked at the image without knowing it was a panorama, and were not familiar with the location, you might not guess it was a panorama at all. Rivers do bend like that.
For comparison, here is the unprocessed first and last 28mm shot.
Since Easy Pano mode is a mode in itself, set on the control dial as you would Auto or Program modes, you are reduced to the auto exposure the camera provides, but it did pretty well in this tricky light. The last exposure, as you see above was facing pretty much into the sun. I was particularly pleased at how naturally the variation of light in the sky is rendered.
Once stitched, I imported the image into Lightroom for post-processing. Recovery for the sky, Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
Individual exposures were at 28mm equivalent, F2.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80.
I will never be a big panorama shooter. However, given the tools the Canon provides, I may try one from time to time, just not nearly often enough to buy a panorama head!
From Around Home 2010.