Another 360° panoramic forest photo of Donadea forest park

[Enda Cavanagh]

Hi guys

Here you see another 360° panoramic forest photo of Donadea forest park. It was my third visit to the forest and each time I came to this location, I missed the opportunity to get the correct light to bring the whole place alive. The main focal points are the vine covered trees in the foreground. The leaves had not yet appeared on the ivy and they appeared to me as a series of veins running up the trees. The sunlight brought out the amazing textures in the scene. I originally processed the image as a colour landscape photo because of the sunlight but I just did a black and white conversion and it so much nicer as a black and white landscape photo. I know some would prefer the color and some would prefer the black and white. I have seen both in print and it works better for me in black and white. You can click here to view it in a larger size You can see it here in a nice large size here.


All comments about the watermark will be ignored!

[Paulo Bizarro]

Very good work.

[churly]

Nice work as per norm!  As always I would love to see a wall sized print.

A question - Is there a geometric reason why you are shooting 360 degrees, which inevitably gives mixed lighting clues as opposed to a smaller angle?  Just curious.
Chuck

[Enda Cavanagh]

Nice work as per norm!  As always I would love to see a wall sized print.

A question - Is there a geometric reason why you are shooting 360 degrees, which inevitably gives mixed lighting clues as opposed to a smaller angle?  Just curious.
Chuck

Thanks Chuck
Ya you have to see it in print. 
I always shoot in continuous lighting, whether it be overcast or sunny to give the image consistency. I just love the idea of completely immersing myself in the scene. The overcast images took around 90minutes to 2 hours. Each scene involved at least 148 images. 37 positions x 4 or 5 exposures. The longest exposure was at times 90 seconds. The slowest around 1/2 or 1 second. So each exposure involved me cocking the shutter and counting 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand etc because I shot using the view camera. Each group of 4 or 5 images were blended together and stitched using PT GUI. I love the whole process. I find it very therapeutic and exciting.  I don't truly know if the image has worked until some time later once the images are stitched. I love visiting the locations I shoot and picturing the whole 360  and unfolding the scene in my head. The images are an examination of the wonderful forms of the trees that I photograph. You just do not get the shots on a computer screen. That's the downside of the wide aspect ratios. It's not how they are meant to be viewed. The image here is just 1/26 of the original image. I have printed the forest mounted on acrylic up to 6m wide and you are completely immersed in the scene.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Honestly - in the web display that image doesn't do much for me.
I believe its the kind of shot you have to see as a large print.
Its a pity, I myself have some shots with the same problem, where I like the prints a lot, but the jpegs just don't work.
I think its the scale at which the contrast and edges of the image are working, and the small size kills a lot of these in some shots.

[Enda Cavanagh]

Honestly - in the web display that image doesn't do much for me.
I believe its the kind of shot you have to see as a large print.
Its a pity, I myself have some shots with the same problem, where I like the prints a lot, but the jpegs just don't work.
I think its the scale at which the contrast and edges of the image are working, and the small size kills a lot of these in some shots.

True Christoph and I'm not sure how to get around that. I alway encourage clients to call over and look at the large 9ft piece I have at home and we can view the others on a 50 inch HD Tv but the feel of the images is lost on a computer screen, especially now that more and more people are using tablets and smart phones when viewing sites 

[Enda Cavanagh]

The original file is about 2.6m wide at 300ppi. I cropped the image and at 90 ppi to view it at 100% on a monitor. You can view it here to get an idea of what it looks at a larger size. I compared the image uploaded and in photoshop and it appears to softer uploaded. The images I uploaded generally always appear softer when uploaded. Does anyone know why that would be? Is that just something one has has to accept for images on the web.

[sdwilsonsct]

Great image, and enthusiasm.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

True Christoph and I'm not sure how to get around that. I alway encourage clients to call over and look at the large 9ft piece I have at home and we can view the others on a 50 inch HD Tv but the feel of the images is lost on a computer screen, especially now that more and more people are using tablets and smart phones when viewing sites 

I think its the matter of local and global contrast.
When viewed at a large scale, the more smallish features of the image, like roots, twigs, leaves and such can be distinguished.
If you want it to work on a small scale you need to work on the global contrast in a way, that the large feature, like trees and tree shadows become more distinct and identifiable.
I'm afraid you can't get around that, in fact you need to edit the image for being viewed at a certain size / from a certain distance/viewing angle.
When I work on a large file, like a MF scan (100 Mpix), I do contrast adjustment on different scales and view the image at print size (33% on my screen) and at 8.33%, where they are as small as I publish them online.
So I work on global contrast, and I use highpass sharpening with sizes of 500 or 1000 px for smaller frequencies and sharpness for the really small stuff.
But often I fail to make it work on all scales.

[churly]

Enda -
Thanks for the detailed description of your technique.  I like the concept of immersion in the location as well.
We all know that this sort of image doesn't present at top form on the web even at the larger size on your website.  In fact the web as a medium is quite selective as to what works well.  Just be glad you can print the big ones and enjoy them at their full potential.
Chuck