The Nature, Wildlife and Pet Photography Forum - Fine Art Landscape Photography

Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest

Posted By: glamson

Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/12/09 11:14 PM

Spent a couple of days at Petrified Forest National Park last month. The park is a rock hunters dream (you can look but no collecting inside the park) and provides some really classic southwestern landscapes. If you go, I highly recommend the Blue Mesa Trail walk if you want to see colorful badlands. I have a link to a 360 pano I took at the bottom of the Blue Mesa Trail.

Here is the link to Google maps to see the location of the area

And here is the link to the 360 pano. You will need java to use the dynamic pano viewer

http://www.lamsonweb.com/Galleries/360panos/BlueMesa360.htm
Posted By: James Morrissey

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/13/09 12:07 PM

Hey George,

LOL, looks like you got everything, including the sign on top of the trail!! Stupid question, but when you say '360 degree pano,' that is a full circle, yes? Does what you are showing compare with the horseshoe composite on the google map?

James
Posted By: glamson

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/13/09 05:33 PM

Quote:

Hey George,

LOL, looks like you got everything, including the sign on top of the trail!! Stupid question, but when you say '360 degree pano,' that is a full circle, yes? Does what you are showing compare with the horseshoe composite on the google map?

James




James,

Here is how this was made. I hiked down to the bottom of the trail to this location

I set up my tripod and leveled it. Then I mounted my D300 vertically. I rotated the camera on the tripod a full 360 degrees taking 19 frames with approximately a 20% overlap between frames. I used Panomaker4Pro to stitch the frames and produce the web page with the embedded viewer that is linked to in the OP.

There are alot of challenges to these types of photos. Capturing the images in the correct register, optical distortions due to the varied topography and perspectives and dealing with the uneven lighting over such a wide area are the major ones. In this one the lighting was a real challenge. This is one type of image where having the sun directly overhead can be advantageous. Unfortunately this one was taken with the sun at a pretty steep angle resulting int the lighting being very uneven.

Hope this helps.
Posted By: James Morrissey

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/14/09 12:06 PM

Yes. I was finding the same thing when I attempted a pano of Manhattan last night. The stitches don't look perfect - even though I used EXACTLY the same settings.

James
Posted By: glamson

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/14/09 11:02 PM

Quote:

Yes. I was finding the same thing when I attempted a pano of Manhattan last night. The stitches don't look perfect - even though I used EXACTLY the same settings.

James




James,

I neglected to mention that when I take large panos I often take them in manual mode to lock in the settings. I meter the brightest part of the panorama scene and use those settings. On my D300 I can also lock aperture and shutterspeed which is another alternative I use to prevent them from changing as the camera is panned.

I also find that having good pano software can really help with difficult panos. CS3 works OK for well behaved panos, but if you have alot of perspective shifting, specialized software can really help. The good programs don't just put the frames in register. They also blend esposure at transitions and they even will distort the images to correct for perspective shifts.

Geo
Posted By: Durwood Edwards

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/15/09 12:14 PM

Uneven lighting is not really a distraction to me in this wonderful pano. Nice work, it is almost like being there and just turning around to take in the view.
I d/l'ed the trial version.
Posted By: dave_lines

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest - 04/15/09 03:43 PM

great pano, makes me want to visit there again,,
Has anyone tried Microsoft ICE for doing panos?? I have tried it and it seems to do a great job, and the price is right. I had one that CS3 would not stitch, ICE did a great job on it with no seams showing at all. Here is the d/l page.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/
DAve
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