Reservoir Entrance, Morning (Giga Pano)

Apr 012013
 

I am beginning to build up a substantial number of huge panos.  I think that the next thing I’m going to do is experiment with the virtual tour of the image.  It’s not something that I’m crazy about, but one of the main characteristics of these Giga Pano’s is the amount of crisp details which are absolutely impossible to show on the web unless I make a gallery of 100% detail shots.

For example, you’re looking at an image composed of 36 full size images from the T4i.  This shot, without any interpolation, is about 10,000 pixels (height) by 22,000 pixels.  It could easily be doubled or tripled by using a good interpolation program like ProZoom.  There are about ten people, each one perfectly resolved just stepping onto the stairs from the park’s loop.

Working on files of this size does present a problem though.  My MacPro has been great for the last few years for anything I had to deal with, but when you find yourself working on files that are a TB large…  you find that one of the first things you do is pull them down from 16-bit to 8-bit.  And for the first time you run into error messages saying that a Tiff file has a sie limit, and you’ve hit.  Again – not a killer since you just work in Photoshop file format, but when you get an error message that a program doesn’t have enough memory to do the job and will have to quit… you begin to wonder if’s getting time to upgrade your hardware.

Right now I have four internal drives ranging from 2 TBs to 4 TBs.

I’m running Mac OS X, ver. 10.6.8

Processor 2.66, GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Memory (RAM) 6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 (is that fast?)  Can I / Should I replace the memory with larger memory chips?

I think a lot will depend on whether these large files is something I’m going to stick with or not.

Entrance to Central Park Reservoir (morning)

Click to Enlarge Image

 

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Castle – Central Park (Giga Pano)

Mar 312013
 

60 images stitched together.  50mm lens.  It’s really a first draft since I still don’t have Viveza which is my real go-to fixer-upper working.  Still it gives an idea of what can be done with a bit of inexpensive hardware and some experimentation.

Castle – Central Park (Pano)

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Building with White Doors (Giga Pano)

Mar 302013
 

Before I post this image which I did with hdr and Giga Pano – I just want to voice one complaint.  I’ve been using and loving NIK software since at least 2010, and today when I went to work with Viveza — it tells me that my trial version has expired.

Now I have the receipt with the code and proof that I spent about $300 on the whole NIK suite.

But of course Google decided to buy NIK a while back, and the various links to NIK support have been replaced by Google, and they stink.  I can’t even find the online store where I bought the NIK software, and frankly – the entire system of ordering and downloading – or upgrading doesn’t work like it used to.

You used to be able to just login, and you’d see the name you ordered it with and the keys for all your products, and I was never in a position where I couldn’t get a NIK product working.  Maybe I’d have to download one again, replace the old version etc.  but there was always a way to get the thing working.  Now I have to wait to get to Google support on Monday.  And I don’t know about you but Google support has always been a bear to get through to.

On the other hand, they’ve lowered the price from $300 to $179 for the entire suite.

Anyway – just wanted to get that off my chest – and say that the only ones that have done well when they took over some software that I’d been using for a while has been Adobe.

Well, I had a cold all week and didn’t feel like doing much but I finally got some energy back today and started wandering around with the Giga Pan equipment.  I’ve been using it to do large panoramas of stores and approaching the owners with shots on my tablet and I’ve had one nice sale already.  After all, who wouldn’t want a giant poster of their establishment?  When I tell them that these are in the range of 20 feet long – if they want it that long – their eyes light up.

Okay – in the meantime – I did this Giga Pano (that’s what I’m starting to call these things) of a nearby apartment building that’s always fascinated me because of the brightly painted white doors.  And then spent a lot of time shooting scaffolding.  Still processing that.

Just a note for those who’ve been following this Giga Pano thing — you don’t need to do this wide angle look.  Use a longer lens, say a 50mm on a cropped sensor, and you can accomplish the same shot without the curvature.   I just happened to be lazy today, and it’s easier to shoot with the 20mm, plus for store fronts, you don’t have that much room to back up.

Stay tuned.

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East Side – New York – Brooklyn Bridge Infrared

Mar 242013
 

Must’ve been from the Williamsburg Bridge — which has nice holes in the walkway to shoot through.  It was with infrared film (Kodak HIE) and one of the last of the HIE before it was removed from the market.  Of all the infrared work I’ve done – my favorite combination was shooting with the Leica M3 and Kodak HIE.  Since it was a rangefinder, you could put your filter on the lens and you still got a nice clear view through viewfinder (as opposed to having to look through a dark filter on an slr).

The converted dslr is by far the easiest mechanism to shoot infrared with – but it’s just missing something – maybe that extra halo that you got with Kodak HIE.  For my next project, I’m planning to take out the digital infrared camera — get the batteries charged – and take it with the Pano equipment back into Central Park – though I really wish that spring would get here already.  Infrared isn’t going to do that much with bare trees.

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Empty Bridle Path (Pano – Color)

Mar 222013
 

One of the things I was trying to get across was just because the image has been “stitched” together doesn’t mean it has to be a panoramic.  Here’s an example of a 40 x 60 inch Giga Pano (@ 300 dpi) which is in the normal 2 x 3 ratio.  It’s good to know ahead of time that you plan to do this aspect ratio, because you generally need to shoot an extra two or three columns of images so that you can crop them later to get the 2 x 3 ratio.

You can shoot this sort of thing pretty fast – I’d say in under a minute – once you’ve go the shot lined up and leveled.  It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a medium or large format digital back, and it offers some advantages besides the money….  This rig cost roughly $500 for the rotator head and arm (not robotic) and $250 for the wonderful Kolor Auto Pan Giga software.

You get to choose how large you want the image – i.e. depending on the length of the lens you use.  And if you want to use various cameras on the rig – you can (to a point).  I haven’t reached that point yet but I think when the lens gets to be much more than 100mm you might have some trouble with this particular rig.  But you can get a larger heavier rig.  (This is the Ninja Nodal 16-2).  As soon as I can get my act together, I plan to use my infrared digital camera on the rig.

I also wonder a bit about the robotic heads.  From what I read, the inexpensive ones don’t seem to reiable.  Also – would you feel comfortable shooting in the snow and rain as I already have with the Nodal Ninja rig I bought?  Not to mention losing power for the robotic head in the cold.  No, all in all, I think I made the right decision.

I do need to buy a shorter lens — probably the Canon 10-22mm – just to have something shorter to shoot with if I don’t want to have to shoot too many images to do the pano.  Right now the shortest lens I have is the Canon 20mm f2.8 which is a full-frame lens, being used on a 1.6x cropped sensor.  All in all, a pretty inexpensive and rugged combination.

I also have a prejudice about spending too much money on digital backs etc. since as soon as you buy ‘em – the latest and greatest is released.  I consider digital cameras and equipment temporary equipment.  But the mechanical Nodal Ninja will hold up forever – and when I switch to a new camera – no problem.

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Triboro Bridge – Night (pano)

Mar 212013
 

Triboro Bridge (draft 1)

Stats: 50mm, 75 images, some retouching but still a bit more to do. Next time I shoot at night, remember to bring my cellphone so I have some light. The spot where I shot this was in complete darkness. Used the 2-second timer for first time to prevent camera shake; average shutter speed about 1 second.

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Reservoir Bridge And Tree (pano)

Mar 212013
 
central park bridge and tree

Click to Enlarge

As mentioned before – the pano software doesn’t mean you need to create a panoramic ratio. It just gives you the ability to stitch hundreds of images together. This shot was stitched with about 40 images taken with the 20mm lens. If you use a longer lens, you can easily create large images without that “pano” feel.

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Central Park Reservoir Building Panorama

Mar 212013
 

Giga Panorama (this morning)

I did many setups this morning in Central Park.  Gray dreary morning, with a bit of snow.  This was shot with 20mm lens.  Roughly 40 shots stitched together in Kolor Auto Pano Giga.  The more I use APG stitching program – more I like it.  One of the things I’m learning is that I don’t need to do this wide angle look if I don’t want to.  It’s all in the lens you choose, and the field of view you go for.

The next shot I’m going to post was done with a 50mm – and it has more of a look of a 4 x 5 field camera.

Color Version

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