At the edge of the San Francisco Bay!

I had the pleasure of visiting San Francisco and as always try to find a position from which one of the great bridges can be viewed with the city without reproducing what everyone shows! It's touch since there have been millions of pictures take, I found a small cove to the right of a small coast guard station. In my enthusiasm, I thought that too would be wonderful, but, the Gigapan Robot took over and I ended up with a perfectly imaged grand picture without anything compelling to the eye.

I then simply went freehand and took 8 vertical pictures in one row and here's the result.


This image was built using the camera to draw in the sky, just sweeping the camera with one's eye in the viewfinder, and collecting just what's needed to to build the view in the mind. I was overjoyed to find a satisfactory picture could indeed be assembled freehand. This means that with very large panoramas, one has to gain an extra measure of discipline in order to match what one can do with just a simple fast approach.

Asher

Another really nice picture Asher - thank you for sharing.

The parralax errors appear obvious when there are close objects in the frame; for this image I like the most the skyline and the shape of what's over the water. The bridge adds information and focus.

I also like the very dramatic color palette.

Could you put a link to a large one here to enjoy real details from the other side?

How did you deal with the breaking waves?

Valentin Arfire said:

Another really nice picture Asher - thank you for sharing.

The parralax errors appear obvious when there are close objects in the frame; for this image I like the most the skyline and the shape of what's over the water. The bridge adds information and focus.

Click to expand...

Still the stitches are surprisingly good when one uses modern software.

Valentin Arfire said:

I also like the very dramatic color palette.

Click to expand...

This picture was taken at 2 pm approx. I under-exposed by 0.7 ev to make sure the sky would not blow out. Then I timed the shots with the incoming waves.

Valentin Arfire said:

Could you put a link to a large one here to enjoy real details from the other side?

Click to expand...

How about blow ups of those portions of interest? Some images I want to keep control of until they are published. I'm not sure whether this will make the final collection but I don't want to have full copies floating around.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

...I then simply went freehand and took 8 vertical pictures in one row and here's the result.

...I was overjoyed to find a satisfactory picture could indeed be assembled freehand. This means that with very large panoramas, one has to gain an extra measure of discipline in order to match what one can do with just a simple fast approach.

Asher

Click to expand...

Hi Asher,
Freehand, fast approach or otherwise, this is a wonderful image!
I love the leaden sky. It adds a brooding nature to the image.
The eye is drawn down the length of the pier to the only bright spot on the horizon...nicely done!

Very nice Asher, it´s refreshing and captivating to see the big city and the imposing bridge complementing the bg for a small beach with a simple pier.

Asher, here is what I see:

- Threatening light..remove the bridge what then..
- Asimov... abandoned settlement on a dying planet. the waves, the waning pull of a dying sun.
- keep the familiar bridge structure...nuclear ice..but how did the bridge survive? paradox!

- do I want to cross the wooden landing to reach the perspective horizon..do i have the courage
to confront what might be left there?

I see this as our future, your technical renderings notwithstanding. That thought leaves me
uncomfortable with this photograph. Maybe that is what makes this a thought provoking subject treatment.

Regards.

There's costs for quick freehand work but one just has to know what they are and look out for them. One is that the rails on the bridge might not line up on the first stitch. Here's such a minor flaw.



This can be addressed by re-stitching in Autopanopro Giga, for example and specifying stricter criteria for matches between adjacent images. Or else one corrects it by hand. Not a big deal either way.

The more difficult matter is that stitching waves can seem so easy until one examined everything at 100% and then one might find a flaw. I have discovered just one. That's very good since the waves do not stop moving in as one pans to take to consecutive shots.



Once again, this is a relatively simple repair. One just has to be careful to blend a good waves or trough from somewhere else and make it seamless. It requires finding the perfect patch somewhere and then sizing it to match where it will fit and then that piece is added as a layer above the flawed stitch. Then one proceeds to remove from the edges the excess donor wave that's not needed using a 20% black brush and making normal wave form of the original layer show through sufficiently until it looks perfect.

Yes, one can see more of the skyline. This lens, the 24-105 is not the best of the Canon line and at 24 mm one is pushing the quality compared to the Nikon 12-24mm Zoom or the stellar 24mm T/S II of Canon. Still one can see a pleasant skyline at 50% the limit of magnification.


Neither of these flaws would be noticed easily. The minor bridge pole line up for sure would get past 99. % of people. However the waves might appear as a dirty spot. One might print it out and see. However, for me, repairing would be routine.

Just thought I'd share a real life example of how easy it can be to do a satisfactory pano freehand.

Asher

P.S. Yes, there's a few tiny dust spots to attend to on the skyline.