You might enjoy this. I picked a sample of some of the gigantic composite / pano images I’ve been working on for the last few months.
It’s on G+ right now. I don’t think you need to be a G+ user to view it. If you do – let me know.
The Pano / Composite Gallery of New York
While browsing through digital backs, looking at costs etc. for a large format camera, I came across several interesting (and new to me) ways that you can get the full benefit of tilts, swings, etc. without buying one of the very expensive digital backs. There are actually two versions of this idea that I found interesting. The one above, and a second type of Horseman gizmo which has four spots to put the DSLR so that they can easily be stitched together.
The basic idea of both types of bellow adapters is that you buy the system which is around $2K, and use it with either a medium or a view camera lens so that you have a larger image circle to work with. So rather than having to work with the much smaller image circle of say a 35mm tilt lens (also expensive) you could buy a relatively inexpensive large format lens, and attach your (in this case Canon) Eos camera to the adapter and tilt, swing, and tilt as you like.
Here’s a link to this Horseman LD View Camera.
And here’s a link to the Horseman VCC Pro View with four places to attach the DSLR so that the image can easily be stitched.
I haven’t done a bit of research about the pros / cons of this system other than reading through the descriptions – but I did find it fascinating as costs for full digital backs are way beyond my means not to mention that I never like the idea of spending tons on a digital product as it is bound to be obsolete pretty quickly. In these cases, as you buy your next DSLR, you don’t need to be concerned that it won’t work with these viewfinder systems. Almost makes me wish I hadn’t sold all my large format lenses.
Would love to hear from anyone that’s tried one of these systems – or investigated them at all.
This is another composite picture made up of about 50 separate images, and stitched with APG. This was one of those magical places in Central Park that I hadn’t seen before. It was (is) on the East Side Drive – across from the eatery and lake (to the right). Again, as I’ve said with many of the composites, I just don’t think it translates well to a small web image – but let’s just say that the original file is about 10,000 pixels by 14,000 pixels after being cropped.
I happen to have and use the Canon 4ti. The other day a friend called up to ask for advise about a camera called the Canon 5ti. I went over to B&H Photo site and looked them both up, and at first, other than the slightly higher price for the 5Ti I couldn’t see any difference.
Same size files, same processor, same size… At first glance everything seemed to be the same. So I brought up both spec sheets (seen below).
Anyone notice what the big change is?
I’m not often in the position to donate to worthy causes – but this is one that I felt strongly enough about to donate $45. And you know it’s a good deal because you get to do an 11 x 14 fiber silver print. I really want DSI to live long and prosper and to be able to make large silver prints because that’s what designers often want. So if DSI can afford to purchase this large (to me it’s a black box) that can do extremely large true silver gelatin prints – I can only say, wow that would be great and I’d be able to offer those prints to designers and hopefully one day museums.
Here’s the link to the Kickstart Campaign for the super large silver gelatin machine (as I call it). For me this is the best of all worlds. I’m able to make corrections once, in Photoshop or your post processor of choice – and then do your prints on true Ilford Silver Gelatin paper. I’ve seen the prints, and they’re better than I could do with straight darkroom techniques.
I’m also starting to change my site so that I can also offer Silver prints in addition to the Ultrachrome prints (which are good but just aren’t silver fiber which is still the standard).
I’ve started to add the panos which I now call composites to the store. They’re not in panoramic form of 2 x 1, and people just don’t consider them panos, so I came up with Composites.
Anyway, that’s not why I started to write this post. I just wanted to give you an example of the degree of detail available and the size of some of these things. This is not even a particularly large one. So first here’s the shot you see on the web, which I’m calling A Hazy Shade of Winter.
Think about it. Shot with a 50mm lens. Huge. And every bit of it is in perfect focus.
And here’s what a 100% piece looks like with the Lightroom Info. Remember – this is without any interpolation.
Alice Tully Hall – Composite of 12 images
I think for now – to avoid confusion – or try to avoid confusion – I’ll call these Composites (12 images). Odds are it will just cause more confusion :)
I may have made a mistake in calling all these images that have been stitched together with Giga Pano software – panoramics or panos. At least that is the idea that several people have written to me about. It’s true that many of the images I’ve been doing are composed of from 6 to 60 separate shots – but they aren’t usually in the Panoramic Aspect which I suppose is about length 2 by height 1 or the other way around.
The early attempts were more or less class panoramics – long to short ratios with wide angle lenses (mostly) and maybe showing 180 or 360 degrees of a scene. There’s no doubt those are recognized as panos. But what happens when you take that pano that was originally composed of 60 images and you project it using the planar projection so that lines in the middle are rather straight – and you crop off the edges where the planar projection tends to get blurry. Is it still a pano if it’s now in a 4 x 5 ratio.
It seems as if you could call it a montage – but that’s really film talk. And a collage – it’s not that. Anyway – calling them panos has confused a bunch of people who say, “Where’s the pano – I don’t see it.”
And then you have this shot which is on the line… 12 images with a 20mm lens… and not cropped. It’s not the aspect ratio of a pano, but the effect of viewing 180 degrees without much distortion is a possibility with pano. So just chime in if you have an idea.
Central Park South – Storm
Click for Larger Image
Panorama – 30mm lens / 12 images
This is only three images. It’s what I got before the police told me to get a pass to shoot in Grand Central, and before I found out that the man with authority to give out the pass wouldn’t be in ’til 9 a.m. But the whole emptiness of the place, plus the night through the windows… click the image – it’s worth it.
Example of movement in a pano that hasn’t been “fixed.” It can be though with Kolor APG and I will fix it in next version. The shot seems magical enough to be worth working on.
A few nights ago, on an assignment I managed to get this panorama (16 shots) of Columbus Circle just as it was about to pour down. That’s probably one of my favorite atmospherics – not the shot during the rain – but as the clouds are going gray and you feel the pressure dropping suddenly.
Shot with 20mm / 16 shots / full size @ 300 dpi would be about 45 x 60 inches
I haven’t reached the point of putting any of the panos up for sale, but I imagine they’ll have their own gallery, and there will be an entirely different choice of sizes. A shot like this, for example, you should be able to purchase from 16 x 20 to something giga like 45 x 60 or greater. These are non-interpolated sizes – and with just a 2x interpolation you are in the 10 foot long arena.
