NWPBanner
Welcome! NWPphotoforum.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest #22010
04/12/09 07:14 PM
04/12/09 07:14 PM
Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
glamson Offline OP
Veteran
glamson  Offline OP
Veteran

Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
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

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: glamson] #22011
04/13/09 08:07 AM
04/13/09 08:07 AM
Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
James Morrissey Offline
I
James Morrissey  Offline
I
Carpal Tunnel

Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
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

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: James Morrissey] #22012
04/13/09 01:33 PM
04/13/09 01:33 PM
Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
glamson Offline OP
Veteran
glamson  Offline OP
Veteran

Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
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.

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: glamson] #22013
04/14/09 08:06 AM
04/14/09 08:06 AM
Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
James Morrissey Offline
I
James Morrissey  Offline
I
Carpal Tunnel

Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
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

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: James Morrissey] #22014
04/14/09 07:02 PM
04/14/09 07:02 PM
Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
glamson Offline OP
Veteran
glamson  Offline OP
Veteran

Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
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

Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: glamson] #22015
04/15/09 08:14 AM
04/15/09 08:14 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Nashville Tennessee
Durwood Edwards Offline
Old hand
Durwood Edwards  Offline
Old hand

Joined: Dec 2006
Nashville Tennessee
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.


Durwood Edwards
www.joelton.org

"Never miss a good chance to shut-up!" - Will Rogers
Re: Blue Mesa Trail 360 - Petrifed Forest [Re: Durwood Edwards] #22016
04/15/09 11:43 AM
04/15/09 11:43 AM
Joined: Jul 2007
oregon
dave_lines Offline
Venturer
dave_lines  Offline
Venturer

Joined: Jul 2007
oregon
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


Who's Online Now
0 registered members (), 336 guests, and 2 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
CTiefisher, DrSuse BlueDevil, airphotog, dwilson7878, carters paul
3317 Registered Users
Forum Statistics
Forums6
Topics627
Posts989
Members3,317
Most Online629
Dec 4th, 2019

Copyright 2005 - 2020 Nature, Wildlife, and Pet Photography Forum. "NWPPhotoforum" and "nwpphotoforum.com" are the property of Nature, Wildlife, and Pet Photography Forum. All Rights Reserved. Wild Coyote Studio, New York Pet Photographer

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.1
(Release build 20190129)
PHP: 5.6.40-1+hw4 Page Time: 0.024s Queries: 14 (0.004s) Memory: 0.9238 MB (Peak: 1.9695 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-28 13:11:11 UTC