YAPP (yet another pano posting)

I have posted another Pano to pbase (usual M.O.: SD9, 50mmEX, lens closed down lots, horizon leveled, stitched manually with Photoshop Elements) from yesterday's outing:

http://www.pbase.com/w7ay/crownpoint

Unfortunately it was hazy, otherwise I would have another nice pano of Mount Hood from a different lookout point; I'll see if I can rescue it with exposure and contrast adjustments.

Haze2a and polarizing filters will be definitely be ordered soon from one of the mail order houses . The air was very unstable; Mars was terrible later in the evening though the telescope.

I might post full size panos (but with heavier JPEG compression to avoid excommunication) over to the sigmasd9/pano page. Scaled SD9 images just don't do them justice .

• kc

Kok Chen said:

I have posted another Pano to pbase (usual M.O.: SD9, 50mmEX, lens
closed down lots, horizon leveled, stitched manually with Photoshop
Elements)

Click to expand...

Kudos to your work Kok! This pano looks fantastic to me. How many single shots did you take for this?

BTW, any idea who I am? Ask the ColorSync-Guys if you don't remeber me. I would like to talk to you offline.

Greetings
Claudio from Germany
--
Claudio Hoecker

Hello, Claudio, of course I remember you. How's life back in Germany? Back to the books, I expect . Please use the email address on dpreview to stay in touch. (Dino bought himself a D100, I should send him more SD9 images to disgust him .

In answer to your question, I had moved the tripod by an average of 15 degrees per frame (the markings on my tripod are pretty rough, I really should use a stepper motor .

There are only 6 frames in this particular pano, but the two end ones are not cropped, so the total pan is slightly more than 90 degrees.

I did snap a 7th frame to the right side of the sequence with the frame containing mostly closer by trees. I decided to discard that frame because I thought it'd take away from the depth (z-axis) which I wanted to portray, with the river vanishing into the top right side of the picture. Artistic license , even though it does take away a little from the wide expanse of a good pano. I didn't dare pan more on the left side since I was getting closer to the sun, plus it was pretty bland scenery anyway.

Since I am stitching without any geometric transformation (OK, so I am both cheap and lazy... but I also wanted every pixel to be non-interpolated; if I want interpolated pixels I would use a Bayer based camera I'd also minimized the lens distortion by cropping the left side of one frame by the same amount that I crop the right side of the previous frame (I'd assumed that geometric distortion is radially symmetric .

I first do a test fit of a newly added frame in Photoshop layers, determine the overlap, remove the frame and crop half of the overlap away from the new frame, and then place the cropped frame back in on top of the previous layer. So, there is also no blending (alpha) at all in these panos; again, no interpolation. I.e., I use Photoshop Elements just for the layer tools (and some color level correction), I have no idea how the photo merge function in Elements even work, never touched it.

• kc

Let me guess...you are Phil Askey? No? Laurence Matson in disguise? Dominic's cousin? I know you can't be Rick Decker!!

Whoever you are, I hope you are enjoying life!!

Rick (do you know who I am?)

Claudio Hoecker said:

Kok Chen said:

I have posted another Pano to pbase (usual M.O.: SD9, 50mmEX, lens
closed down lots, horizon leveled, stitched manually with Photoshop
Elements)

Click to expand...

Kudos to your work Kok! This pano looks fantastic to me. How many
single shots did you take for this?

BTW, any idea who I am? Ask the ColorSync-Guys if you don't remeber
me. I would like to talk to you offline.

Greetings
Claudio from Germany
--
Claudio Hoecker

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

I find that you have two pictures - one of the park building and sign and the other of the river and view. They seem to compete for my attention and then I wind up back in the center which is really void of a strong image but yet grabs my attention because of the stone and plaque (plack?sp) on the ground in the forefront. It seems sharp and well-exposed.

Rick

Kok Chen said:

I have posted another Pano to pbase (usual M.O.: SD9, 50mmEX, lens
closed down lots, horizon leveled, stitched manually with Photoshop
Elements) from yesterday's outing:

http://www.pbase.com/w7ay/crownpoint
Unfortunately it was hazy, otherwise I would have another nice pano
of Mount Hood from a different lookout point; I'll see if I can
rescue it with exposure and contrast adjustments.

Haze2a and polarizing filters will be definitely be ordered soon
from one of the mail order houses . The air was very unstable;
Mars was terrible later in the evening though the telescope.

I might post full size panos (but with heavier JPEG compression to
avoid excommunication) over to the sigmasd9/pano page. Scaled SD9
images just don't do them justice .

• kc

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Yeah, I think I was way too close to that sign. A smaller sign would have kept one from being gravitated to it. Thanks for the critique.

You should have seen what that honking sign was hiding . There was an ugly trailer behind it since the Vista House itself is under construction; the sign was hiding the temporary trailer.

I am a geometry nut, though, and I like stuff which (over)emphasizes perspectives. Just a personal thing...

Because of the heavy haze, I was ready to toss the sequence but decided to give it a try by boosting the contrast a little. The problem is I had to boost the contrast of the entire sequence, not just the distant part under the haze. I am already contemplating writing some software which can do gradual inter and intra frame contrast control. Ditto color curves since I am still getting up to a half to 1% variation of the sky at between some stitch points. It is not just a luminace change either, but a slight color shift.

Mahalo again, Rick.

• kc

What are you talking about Rick? Who's Phil??? and Dominic???

And my only connection to Laurence is, that I thought I have a camera problem problem just after I bought mine, and I wrote an email to Sigma. As Laurence is translating for them and an SD9-expert (I think he is one), we wrote a few lines personally. Maybe I will visit Laurence some day, as he lives not as far from me as, let's say Kok, does.

My name is Claudio Hoecker (actually with an o-umlaut instead of oe: ö) and I'm from Germany. No need to hide myself with a nickname. I am studying Print- and Mediatechnologies and I'm very interested in ColorManagement and Digital Photography.

If you want to see the town I am studying in, look at



Well, inspired by Kok's superb work I was going to do my first Pano. I guess I have to do some more to get more into it.

Well, critic is welcome. But I will do another post in the main forum, probably better to answer me there.

Where are you from, Rick?
Kind regards
Claudio

rick decker said:

Whoever you are, I hope you are enjoying life!!

Rick (do you know who I am?)

Claudio Hoecker said:

Kok Chen said:

I have posted another Pano to pbase (usual M.O.: SD9, 50mmEX, lens
closed down lots, horizon leveled, stitched manually with Photoshop
Elements)

Click to expand...

Kudos to your work Kok! This pano looks fantastic to me. How many
single shots did you take for this?

BTW, any idea who I am? Ask the ColorSync-Guys if you don't remeber
me. I would like to talk to you offline.

Greetings
Claudio from Germany
--
Claudio Hoecker

Click to expand...

--

.......Feel The Power.........Sigma.....SD9..........

http://www.lightreflection.com
http://www.silveroaksranch.com
http://www.pbase.com/rickdecker
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home

Click to expand...

--
Claudio Hoecker

Claudio, Rick lives in paradise. Or as close to paradise as it can get on earth .

Like you, Dominic is from Germany, but takes astounding pictures from everywhere on the planet, it seems.

I think the misunderstanding came when a third party reads "Do you know who I am?" out of the blue without any context. Rick didn't know that we have met when you were in California and that question was aimed specifically at me and not at the forum.

Pax?

P.S. The paradise Rick lives in is the 50th state of the USA.

• kc

Well I see, I remember reading about the battery problems. Rick told the guys and girls to call him on his toll-free number there. I'd love being back in Cali again. Thats my paradise sigh . BTW, I did not want to offend Rick or someone else. Excuse me please, if this was typed a little "sharp". Pax!

Unfortunately I cannot get on your user-profile-page, Kok, so I cannot address your email. I think I have your work-email-address, let me know if I can write you there, otherwise write me a short line to my .Mac-email [email protected]; and I'll have your private email-address.

A few lines to answer your first reply to me...

I wrote my last exam last week, "Controlling in Businesses" and "Innovation Management". As I am more technical interested, it was alittle tricky for me getting into it, but I think I made it. Let's see

I'm preparing for my thesis now, something more conventional. Inert UV-curing in Flexoprint using CO2 (carbon dioxid) instead of N2 (Nitrogen). When I'm finished in January, I'm becoming an assistant in one of our labs here in Wuppertal University to go further on for my PhD. This will take a while, I guess.

As I mentioned in another thread, I would love coming back to California, Bay Area, Palo Alto (to be more specific) would be my first choice! If I ever have this chance???

Please do me a favor and greet Dino from me, he was one of the nicest and most natural guys I ever met. I really miss his laugh and I'll never forget my great time there.

CU soon
Claudio

Kok Chen said:

Claudio, Rick lives in paradise. Or as close to paradise as it can
get on earth .
Like you, Dominic is from Germany, but takes astounding pictures
from everywhere on the planet, it seems.

I think the misunderstanding came when a third party reads "Do you
know who I am?" out of the blue without any context. Rick didn't
know that we have met when you were in California and that question
was aimed specifically at me and not at the forum.

Pax?

P.S. The paradise Rick lives in is the 50th state of the USA.

• kc

Click to expand...

--
Claudio Hoecker