Gallery Pick of the Week
Instead of just showing pretty pictures only, here we have space for contributors to discuss their images every week.
This is a great opportunity to get some insight from the original photographer and the content is entirely open. It could be anything from the personal feeling of the photographer about the image to any photographic techniques or location knowledge he/she would like to share with our visitors.
Gallery Pick of the Week > June 2008
 |
When you think of panoramic photos I would bet that super-wide photos of rolling hills, or weirdly distorted building interiors, are the first things that spring to mind... |
|---|
Rob Gray - Panorama, 26/6/08
When you think of panoramic photos I would bet that super-wide photos of rolling hills, or weirdly distorted building interiors, are the first things that spring to mind. Well, as they say in the classics, “It ain’t necessarily so”, the modern digital panorama can have just about anything as a subject.
Traditionally panoramic photos have been taken with cameras specifically designed for the job, either a fixed lens type like the Linhof Technorama, or cameras with rotating lenses like the Noblex. Fixed-lens cameras, despite producing a wide-looking photo, typically sport a 90mm lens, which on the 6x17cm format, is just a mild wide angle. The photos are not as wide as they look, but at least there is no discernable distortion.
That’s all very interesting but, as the owner of a digital camera, what do you care? You have the ability to produce stunning panoramic photos similar to those made by special panoramic cameras, with little or no investment over and above the camera you already own. Yes I know you can spend a fortune on a specialised panoramic tripod head, but it’s not strictly necessary.
If you define a “panorama” as I do, which is to say any collection of contiguous images that have been stitched together to form a single photo, then your world opens to vast array of possibilities. Using digital stitching techniques we can have the best of both worlds, straight-looking photos, or extreme wide-angle shots.
Diamantina River, Birdsville - Two horizontal exposures, 2981x2981 pixels, Canon 17-40mm f4 L-series zoom.
I know I said to think outside the square, but was talking figuratively, not literally. This image, taken of the Diamantina River at Birdsville, illustrates a quick and dirty approach to panoramas. While still half asleep I peered from the back of the FWD and noticed the light, with no time for tripods or anything I grabbed my camera, jumped from the car, and made two hand-held horizontal photos, one for the top half and another for the bottom. Seconds later the moment had passed. This photo didn’t even need special stitching software; because it has a large black area through the middle, it was just a matter of combining them manually along that line.