2011-03-29 Pittsburgh (small)
Looking north to Rivers Casino, Carnegie Science Center, Heinz Field (Steelers), and downtown Pittsburgh, PA. This panorama image was taken from the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Mount Washington. This area is where the confluence of the Allegheny River from the northeast and the Monongahela River from the southeast form the Ohio River.
This panorama image was stitched from 16 full-frame, portrait-oriented images, and is our second upload . . . we believe it to be an improved result. Following is an explanation of the original attempt:
While a generally sunny day, there was significant haze. I therefore shot the scene in a single row of 35 frames at 5° increments, with each frame bracketed over 3 exposures from 1/250 to 1/100 seconds. This effectively spanned 170° horizontal x 36° vertical (before stitching and cropping). The thinking was to assemble an HDR panorama that would address the haze issue. The final result achieved the dynamic range we were looking for, however, sharpness was sacrificed and ghosting was evident at high magnification (as pointed out by Flickr member Patrick Keogh). After the initial upload to Flickr, we worked with several new trials at improving the result and finalized on 1) abandoning the HDR step, 2) eliminating some end frames not required based on the final crop, and 3) eliminating every other remaining frame (moving from 5° to 10° increments). We feel the result is an improvement, adding credence to the adage 'less is more'.
Equipment & Settings:
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8
Focal Length: 70mm
Exposure Program: Manual
Aperture: f/18
Shutter Speed Range: 1/250s, 1/160s, and 1/100s
Exposure Compensation Range: -.7EV to +.7EV
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 250
White Balance: Direct Sunlight
Tripod: Gitzo Mountaineer GT3530
Really Right Stuff Panorama Panning Clamps and Rail
Post-Camera Processing:
Nikon Capture NX2 (16 frames converted from NEF to TIFF)
PTGui Pro 9.03 to develop a Cylindrical Projection
Adobe Photoshop CS5 (cropping, sensor spot clean-up, sharpening, and conversion to JPEG)
2011-03-29 Pittsburgh (small)
Looking north to Rivers Casino, Carnegie Science Center, Heinz Field (Steelers), and downtown Pittsburgh, PA. This panorama image was taken from the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Mount Washington. This area is where the confluence of the Allegheny River from the northeast and the Monongahela River from the southeast form the Ohio River.
This panorama image was stitched from 16 full-frame, portrait-oriented images, and is our second upload . . . we believe it to be an improved result. Following is an explanation of the original attempt:
While a generally sunny day, there was significant haze. I therefore shot the scene in a single row of 35 frames at 5° increments, with each frame bracketed over 3 exposures from 1/250 to 1/100 seconds. This effectively spanned 170° horizontal x 36° vertical (before stitching and cropping). The thinking was to assemble an HDR panorama that would address the haze issue. The final result achieved the dynamic range we were looking for, however, sharpness was sacrificed and ghosting was evident at high magnification (as pointed out by Flickr member Patrick Keogh). After the initial upload to Flickr, we worked with several new trials at improving the result and finalized on 1) abandoning the HDR step, 2) eliminating some end frames not required based on the final crop, and 3) eliminating every other remaining frame (moving from 5° to 10° increments). We feel the result is an improvement, adding credence to the adage 'less is more'.
Equipment & Settings:
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8
Focal Length: 70mm
Exposure Program: Manual
Aperture: f/18
Shutter Speed Range: 1/250s, 1/160s, and 1/100s
Exposure Compensation Range: -.7EV to +.7EV
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 250
White Balance: Direct Sunlight
Tripod: Gitzo Mountaineer GT3530
Really Right Stuff Panorama Panning Clamps and Rail
Post-Camera Processing:
Nikon Capture NX2 (16 frames converted from NEF to TIFF)
PTGui Pro 9.03 to develop a Cylindrical Projection
Adobe Photoshop CS5 (cropping, sensor spot clean-up, sharpening, and conversion to JPEG)