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View Full Version : Another Icon: Horseshoe Bend ... a Spherical Mosaic Panorama version



Brian Wong
02-28-2008, 01:44 AM
Another Icon: Horseshoe Bend ... a Spherical Mosaic Panorama version

Photographed last year, March 2007, 3:00 PM.

3x4x3 (landscape mode) spherical mosaic panorama (36 total images) with multiple layer masks manually blended bracketed exposure, and focus. Original working image approximately 102 Megapixels, with HFOV ~230 degrees ... cropped down for composition.

Exploring some of the many unique advantages that digital photography has to offer ... that otherwise would seem to be very difficult, or impossible to do. Thank you for looking, and always appreciate all your suggestions & comments for improvement.

EOS 20D, 16-35/2.8 @16mm, cable release, tripod mount, RRS pano bkts
1/25 through 1/100, f/16, ISO 100, manual exposure & manual white balance

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Fabs Forns
02-28-2008, 08:55 AM
Hi Brian,

Very nicely composed.
I worked a bit on it:

Using Nik Color Efex 3.0, I used a Graduated Neutral Density filter on the sky. Them Brilliance and Warmth on the lower part of the image. Polarizer, rotating to get the most out of the sky, then selectively sharpen the rock in the middle.
Please note that I'm working with very few pixels versus editing the whole file.

Brian Wong
02-28-2008, 08:21 PM
Hi Brian,

Very nicely composed.
I worked a bit on it:

Using Nik Color Efex 3.0, I used a Graduated Neutral Density filter on the sky. Them Brilliance and Warmth on the lower part of the image. Polarizer, rotating to get the most out of the sky, then selectively sharpen the rock in the middle.
Please note that I'm working with very few pixels versus editing the whole file.


Hi Fabs!

Thank you for looking at my image, and for your critique & nice repost. Yes! It would be nice to get a few more pixels for posting these.

I am a fan of brilliance & warmth, and am very guilty of getting carried away sometimes ... so I am very glad to see you trying to punch it up some, and for trying to get more out of the sky. Next time I will try to remember to get more frames with better exposures of the sky.

Also, thank you for confirming the composition ... I was thinking of avoiding "centering", but also really didn't know what would really work. I cropped away lots of canvas ... but I did like how the steep canyon walls below ended up swirling around the central peninsula. Thanks again!

Robert Amoruso
02-28-2008, 08:52 PM
The composition is not one I have seen at this location before. I like the more expensive FG and the bowl shape inthe FG that "frames" the horseshoe bend well. Very impressive panoramic stitching. The bright spot in the water appears blown and is distracting. I like the re-processed version.

Brian Wong
02-28-2008, 09:54 PM
The composition is not one I have seen at this location before. I like the more expensive FG and the bowl shape inthe FG that "frames" the horseshoe bend well. Very impressive panoramic stitching. The bright spot in the water appears blown and is distracting. I like the re-processed version.

Hi Robert!

Thank you for your comments, and helpful suggestions. Yes, I can see that I have many more things to work on and things to think about (and things to experiment) for next time. I do wish for a nicer sky. You and Fabs will make me remember to get more frames with better exposure on the sky ... and for the blown water. It is now definitely on my mental list-to-do's! Thank you for your insight!

David Kennedy
02-29-2008, 11:40 PM
Brian,
Others have commented on the strength of the composition but I just wanted to reinforce that the sweeping curve in the foreground propels the eye into the image and the actual curving river below is what makes it work so well.

That said, I was highly confused by your comments about putting this image together, and made me worry that you might have made too much work for yourself. The first thing that I might question is whether the combination of 36 images was necessary when the working focal length is 16mm.. I've assembled panoramas as large as 60 images, but whenever I work with that many "parts to a whole," it's because I was using a telephoto lens to capture lots of small details. For an image such as this, a 24-70 mounted vertically and somewhere between eight and ten captures might have created a similar effect without the workload.

As for post-processing, I do hope for the sake of your sanity you didn't hand stitch 36 images!!! I've been a fan of AutoPano for a few years now, but I finally tried CS3's PhotoMerge and I'm actually shocked at how good it is--even on fully automatic. When it first came out in CS2 it was unusable...

It sounds like you were trying to do an HDR-pano blend, which is certainly difficult and would require some work manually. But that doesn't explain the highlight that Robert pointed out. The best way to do HDR-pano's that I've found is to process the HDR frame-by-frame first, and then stitch the resulting HDR frames together. It does take a while, though, and you have to be absolutely consistent with the settings in every single capture.

Perhaps if you could explain a little bit more about what you did for this one in post, we could all help you on how to make life a little easier next time. But as I suggested at the beginning, for all the hard work, the product is nice.

Brian Wong
03-01-2008, 01:06 PM
Brian,
Others have commented on the strength of the composition but I just wanted to reinforce that the sweeping curve in the foreground propels the eye into the image and the actual curving river below is what makes it work so well.

That said, I was highly confused by your comments about putting this image together, and made me worry that you might have made too much work for yourself. The first thing that I might question is whether the combination of 36 images was necessary when the working focal length is 16mm.. I've assembled panoramas as large as 60 images, but whenever I work with that many "parts to a whole," it's because I was using a telephoto lens to capture lots of small details. For an image such as this, a 24-70 mounted vertically and somewhere between eight and ten captures might have created a similar effect without the workload.

As for post-processing, I do hope for the sake of your sanity you didn't hand stitch 36 images!!! I've been a fan of AutoPano for a few years now, but I finally tried CS3's PhotoMerge and I'm actually shocked at how good it is--even on fully automatic. When it first came out in CS2 it was unusable...

It sounds like you were trying to do an HDR-pano blend, which is certainly difficult and would require some work manually. But that doesn't explain the highlight that Robert pointed out. The best way to do HDR-pano's that I've found is to process the HDR frame-by-frame first, and then stitch the resulting HDR frames together. It does take a while, though, and you have to be absolutely consistent with the settings in every single capture.

Perhaps if you could explain a little bit more about what you did for this one in post, we could all help you on how to make life a little easier next time. But as I suggested at the beginning, for all the hard work, the product is nice.

Hi David!

Thank you for your critique, and for the encouragement!

Yes, I did use 36 frames, but as everyone noticed, it was still not enough range for that darn reflection! I was thinking that if I could do it over again, I would like go there again and see what it looked like in the morning or evening light. Everybody was telling me to go in the afternoon, as they claimed everything would be in dark shadows. I have to think digital:)!! (As a side note, while photographing my image, I actually stuck out my thumb while panning on some of my frames, to block out the sun:) !!!) So yes, there were some big problems!

I am not a big fan of HDR, but I did want to see if I could blend in more range without being too noticeable.

I'm all for reducing the workload, so any help is welcomed! Here's what was done ... This image is 3x4 ... so only 12 frames to stitch to complete one mosaic panorama exposure. Once that is done, it is very simple to copy the settings and stitch the other two exposures (I bracketed one complete stop each exposure). My tripod was securely loaded down with my backpack, and there was no wind. This created 3 complete mosaic panoramas (at 1 stop exposures) that were registered pretty close, and that I can now easily deal with in masks & layers.

I also tried experimenting in creating a "pseudo tilt-shift", or a super "hyper-focal" effect by selectively focusing certain elements on more frames. For those, I did hand mask blend them in ... which still was not much of a problem as all the frames were already registered when I created the original mosaic panorama.

I also wanted to see if I could blend those sharp frames seamlessly without being too noticeable. The bottom of the image (which was cropped), showed my tripod legs (focus very near) ... the near left and right cliffs (focus ~4-20 feet) ... and then focus on the bluff, and then out to infinity for the balance. At 16mm, unfortunately, it does not quite have the resolving power, but the bathrooms on the shore, and the boat are recognizable, as is the ground I was standing on (the effect I was working for is a corner to corner sharp image.)

Isn't it great to try exploring all the unique advantages digital photography? I tried throwing in and combining lots and lots of digital elements into one image.

I thank all of you again.