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Author Topic: Some panoramas  (Read 6147 times)

robest

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Some panoramas
« on: January 26, 2006, 01:27:23 pm »

Hi,

Been shooting properly for only the last 18months or so. Here's three of my favorite panorama's to date. Would welcome feedback...

In particular, I'm not sure that I'm 100% happy with the composition and possible slight lack of punch of the Shipwrecks, but then othertimes I really like it. Thoughts?

Cheers
Rob

(ps if you think I should be submitting bigger files, shout - they're much bigger in real life ;-)

Iron Shipwrecks
[attachment=188:attachment]

Longfurlong Sunset
[attachment=189:attachment]

West Coast Beach
[attachment=190:attachment]
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jdemott

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Some panoramas
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2006, 04:38:41 pm »

Hi Rob,

I enjoyed looking at your panoramas.  You've found some nice locations that are very suitable for panorama type shots and I think you've done a great job with the technical aspects of making the panos--making sure the exposure is consistent across the field of view and managing the dynamic range that is present in your scenes.  One of the joys of panoramas is the ability to make big, high quality prints that show such exceptional detail that the viewer has the experience of actually being present at the scene.  I can see some of that in the West Coast scene, which you posted at a slightly higher resolution.  (That isn't a request for bigger files; I'm sure they all are lovely when displayed at full size.)  Sometimes we can get caught up in the immediacy of the panorama experience, which makes it harder to step back and evaluate the overall composition.  It can be very easy to include too much in the shot since we just keep shooting more frames.  Here are a few specific comments:

West Coast--This has a nice feeling of leading the eye down the beach, but I thought there was a little too much of the grasses in the left foreground so I tried cropping.  My objective with the crop was to put the largest cloud near the edge of the frame, which I think sets up a very nice series with clouds of diminishing size leading back into the frame.  Also, I wanted to emphasize the nice textured feeling of the pieces of driftwood that are scattered down the length of the beach--I felt the portion of the beach in the lower right of the frame broke up the rhythm of those pieces.  Also I adjusted the color a bit as it seemed too cool.

 [attachment=193:attachment]

Sunset--Again I did a little cropping because I was troubled by the large silhouettes at either end; they don't seem consistent with the nice pattern along the horizon.  The crop also seems to better emphasize the beautiful sweep of the cloud formation that you captured.  Since all the foreground is essentially a black silhouette, I adjusted the contrast with Levels to take better advantage of the available dynamic range to display the great variety of light and color in the sky, which I find more dramatic.

[attachment=194:attachment]

Shipwrecks--Once again, I got out the cropping tool, trying to eliminate any distractions that take my eye away from the subject of the photo.  I agree with you that the image needs a bit more punch, which I tried to supply with some additional saturation, a Shadow/Highlight adjustment,  plus a little local sharpening.

[attachment=195:attachment]

I hope these few comments are helpful to you.  Of course, these types of editing decisions are quite subjective, so you or other viewers may have different approaches.
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John DeMott

jule

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Some panoramas
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2006, 05:38:55 pm »

Hi Rob, the subject matter really suits your panoramas.

I loved the contrast between the texture of the steel in the shipwrecks and the grasses. The colours do seem a little incipid, but I love the movement created by your composition.

The shapes of the clouds are wonderful in the sunset panorama, but I am not fussed on the really dark treeline. It makes the image way too heavy for me. I find the trees on the sides enclose the image and restrict its' expansiveness.
There are so many sunset photos with fantastic colours, why not try something really different and doing something really 'out there' and make the dark tree line really narrow. Just a thought...and a sample below. Let me know how it works with your screen and perhaps a sample print.
[attachment=196:attachment]

Lovely feel in Westcoast beach, but I found there to be too much sand dune and grasses on the left. I cropped so that the expansiveness of the beach was more the focus, and now I feel more like I am being drawn around the curving arc to the left - up along the beach, rather than just standing behind the dune looking along it.
[attachment=197:attachment]

Julie
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OnyimBob

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Some panoramas
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2006, 06:50:27 pm »

Rob,
The beach photograph is the one which really caught my eye - the wide space and light combined with the almost strange assortment of driftwood on the beach really does it for me. However, I have to agree with both John and Jule with regard to cropping, although Jules' version is more interesting (sorry John      ). John, yours is  shortened just a tad too much and leaving out the largish piece of driftwood leaves the right side too empty. I agrre with you about the coolness though.
All this is just MHO of course.
Rob, a little more technical info about the pics would be interesting.

Bob Munro.
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Bob Munro.
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Mike_Kelly

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Some panoramas
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2006, 03:16:05 am »

I only had time to look at the shipwreck. I love the composition with the right ship leading to the center, the curve of the beach carrying me around to the textures in the clouds. But I agree with John that the left most grass does not add to composition. I unfortunely agree with you that the image has many positive elements but the flat light kills it. You could pump it up atificially but other than that it is close to a "keeper" but not quite.

If you can, shoot it again on a day with special light and I think you would have a great image.
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robest

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Some panoramas
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2006, 04:34:07 am »

Thanks for all the comments. I think you're (all!) right that I'm probably not cropping enough - a fault of the the "the wider the better" school of panoramas thinking!

For those that are interested:
West Coast Beach
Location: Gillespie's Beach, South Island, New Zealand
Camera: Fuij S7000, 7.8mm (35mm eq), hand-held, ISO200, F8, Aperture Priority

Longfurlong Sunset
Location: Tetbury, England
Camera: Fuji S7000, 7.8mm (35mm eq), hand-held, ISO200, F4-F4.5, Programme*

Iron Shipwrecks
Location: South of Punta Arenas, Chile
Camera: Nikon D100, 12-24DX, 24mm (36mm eq), pano head on tripod, F8, Manual

All the stiches were done using 'Panorama Factory' - which I can't recommend highly enough (esp as V4 now exports PS layered files).

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to pop back to the shipwrecks any time soon (I live in England!). They were at a lunch stop on a tour I was on - I had about 20mins to capture the image, and no choice around time of day etc. I'm pretty pleased with the result considering...


* This was probably not intentional, but I was rushing to capture the sunset before it went ;-)
« Last Edit: January 30, 2006, 02:39:35 pm by robest »
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froghald

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Some panoramas
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2006, 04:57:57 pm »

Hi,

IMHO the westcoast-picture is too strictly divided into two halfs: shore and sky. Thus I've reduced the sky to about 1/3, leaving the cloud in the top left corner.

Froghald
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