Sunset Calm Before The Storm Panorama, Needles District, Canyonlands National Park

[Roger Clark]

An image from last week:

Canon 5D Mark II, 18-frame digital mosaic resulting in a 20,904 x 9,595 pixel image (200 megapixels). Canon 28-135 IS lens at 47 mm f/9. Manual exposure 1/80th second, ISO 200, with polarizer. This view is about 90 degrees wide.
Assembled with PTGui.

Roger

[Dave Mills]

Roger, This is what beautiful lighting is all about! Great comp with a magnificent sky. I like how the flow of clouds lead you into the distant mesa.18 frames!! I can see why the file size is so large. Well done!!

[John Ippolito]

Composition, light and an amazing sky! Outstanding. I'm still trying to imagine 18 frames!!

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Stunning image and a gorgeous turbulent sky. The lighting in this capture is awesome !!!

[Morkel Erasmus]

amazing panoramic vista Roger! I'm curious as to how far apart you space your individual frames (spatially speaking - i.e. how large a portion overlaps with the previous one)?

[Roger Clark]

hi Morkel,
I generally do about 1/3 overlap, all by positioning in the viewfinder. I did not have my panoramic head with me so I used a long rail with a Wimberly clamp on one side. I put this in the clamp on the ball head and then the camera on that. That allows me to move the camera back and forth so the camera rotates about the nodal point of the lens in azimuth. There is still parallax in elevation, but in a scene like this, once you do the bottom row, the next row higher is further away so parallax effects are small. I've never had a problem getting a merge. Where I had problems with the merge on this image was two frames on clouds. The program could find no control points on 2 sky frames so I had to pick them myself.

I generally work by framing in rows. From frame to frame, I note something in the viewfinder and about a 1/3 point, then move the view to put that object on the edge of the next frame (takes about 2 to 3 seconds). At the end of a row, I do the same and move up, then start the next row moving back in the opposite direction of the previous row.

Roger

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Roger,
18 frames aside......very nicely composed! I like the way the bush balances against the butte and that is one killer sky. Nice choice of SS through the entire process not to get too much ghosting.
Very well composed and nicely done all around!

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the explanation! I guess you fired them off in quick succession to prevent ghosting of the clouds. how do you find you need to compensate for bending the horizon?

[Roger Clark]

Roman, Morkel,

I checked the times on the images and it took 150 seconds to acquire the 18 frames, so 8.33 seconds/frame on average. So there was pretty minimal movement on the clouds. On each frame, I used mirror lockup and emote cable release, done by hand. I waited about 2 to 3 seconds after the mirror went up to take the image, so about 5 to 6 seconds to move the camera.

I kept the same f/ratio, ISO, and shutter speed for all frams, but let the center autofocus set the focus, which improves depth of field from the frames looking close to those far away.

Regarding curved horizons, PTGui gives a lot of choices on the projection so one can minimize any curvature. Once the assembly was complete there was a slight upturn toward the left and right edges which I corrected in photoshop.

Roger

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the detailed explanation Roger...will have to check PTGui out...
:)

[Trevor Hughes]

In addition to all that has already been said, I love the sense of depth this image has. Also, very well done on the composition, it isn't easy to compose well when creating a panorama. :)

[Desmond Chan]

Beautiful light and wonderful composition. I can see there's a curvy "path" leading all the way from the front to far end of the pic.

[Jay Gould]

Outstanding!!

Why not use live view from image to image - wouldn't that eliminate the mirror lockup issues and the time delay?

I personally am loving live view - use it constantly. The ability to zoom in 10X and manually focus is such a great bonus.

[Roger Clark]

Outstanding!!

Why not use live view from image to image - wouldn't that eliminate the mirror lockup issues and the time delay?


Hi Jay,
Thanks.

Yes, one could certainly use live view. But on the 5DII there is a significant delay with "live" view with the large sensor. I use live view when I'm using f/8 and higher (e.g. 500 f/4 +2x TC) and I find the delay frustrating and I often over correct position when moving the camera. I'm more comfortable and can position faster with speed of light live view: through the viewfinder. (Live view should really be called delayed view.) If one is doing long exposures or high ISO imaging, live view heats the sensor so can cause increased noise.

Roger

[Grady Weed]

Stunning image Roger. I like the fact you waited for 2-3 seconds after the mirrior went up. I often do that myself. Frame this one.