This was shot on the same trip down to the Dunes with Kane a couple weeks ago. I finally got around to processing this pano shot, because it took some time. I have not had a lot of practice doing these pano shots, and as a result had not had the best of luck with them. For whatever reason this evening I decided to give it another try during peak light.
Anyhow, this is a stitch of 6 vertical images. I had to do quite a bit of work in post to even out the light here, because it was much brighter on the left hand side of the scene. The layers on a 127mpix image about killed my computer and made me realize I need a new machine very soon. Hope you guys enjoy it, and I always appreciate your critique on my images. I'm off to research a new computer.
Posted by Jeff Beard on February 23, 2011 at 12:05 PM
Really nice work. BTW, the bighugelabs link doesn't work for me.
Didn't work for me too - but this looks great to me.
Waiting for a bigger one ...
Posted by Koveh Tavakkol on February 23, 2011 at 12:17 PM
Thanks for the heads up guys. Not sure why the link doesn't work for you, but it does for me. I posted another link from my Flickr account, but it is not on Black unfortunately and it is much better in my opinion on black. Here is a link to my posting of this pano on Flickr where you can link to the View Large On Black in the description:
Posted by Scott Bacon on February 23, 2011 at 12:58 PM
Gorgeous! What a sky!!
Posted by Joe Rogers on February 23, 2011 at 2:10 PM
Absolutely beautiful!
Joe Rogers
Posted by Art Escobado on February 23, 2011 at 2:26 PM
You nailed it!
Posted by Jimmy Gekas on February 23, 2011 at 2:26 PM
Large version is amazing! Those colors are sweet.
Posted by Todd Caudle on February 23, 2011 at 3:06 PM
Wow, this is incredible Koveh! (link worked for me) I'd maybe back off on the sharpening on the large version a bit, but what an incredible shot!
Posted by Lance Burch on February 23, 2011 at 3:17 PM
Very nice Koveh. I see you used a GND filter. Do you hand hold it when doing Pano's or do you use a holder. I think those might be my next investment after a nice lightweight tripod & head.
Posted by Koveh Tavakkol on February 23, 2011 at 3:33 PM
Thanks all for the comments and Todd for the critique.
Lance, I use a Lee Foundations Filter Holder kit, and can't speak highly enough about it. If you use filters it is an absolute must have. I sometimes hand hold filters, but usually that is in the scenario where I am stacking and want to move the second on up and down to make it more gradual. This shot I wanted to shoot quickly before the sky changed, so I set everything up and all I had to do was rotate and shoot.
Very nice, indeed. Can I ask why the light was so different between the left and right sides? Were you taking the frames as the light was fading, or was it just wide enough that you're getting differences in the amount of light towards/away from the sunset?
Most of the time that I'm working in stitched pano's I shoot on manual and keep the exposure the same, but I've tried at times to change the exposure by a third of a stop between frames; photomerge in cs4 or cs5 handles it just fine. When the light is changing quickly though, I'm usually too harried for my brain to work that fast. {sigh}.
Posted by Koveh Tavakkol on February 23, 2011 at 4:38 PM
Mark, thanks for the feedback. Because the sun was setting to the left of the Crestones on the left of the frame, the horizon was much brighter than the far right hand side of the frame right above the mountains. I could have left this, but it bothered me, so I spent some time in post trying to even this out as best as I could. I probably could have done a little better job at it, if the file size was not so big and taking so long. =)
I shoot everything in manual and the exposure in each of the 6 frames was not changed between these, but now that I know you can make minor adjustments I will have to maybe try that in the future. Thanks for the info Mark.
Posted by Joe Rogers on February 23, 2011 at 5:13 PM
Well, if the light was uneven, you did a geat job in evening it out
Joe Rogers
Posted by John Mumaw on February 23, 2011 at 7:20 PM
"Well, if the light was uneven, you did a geat job in evening it out.
Boy, I'll say!!
This is an amazing panorama, Koveh. Everything about this one just plain sings. Sky luminosity looks exactly as I would imagine it to look with a winter sunset. Your overall 'development' is near perfect, too. Bravo, sir!!
Posted by Paul Martin on February 23, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Nice work indeed. This is one of those images that I would love to see printed, since I am sure it would be absolutely awesome. Big, big, print......
Holy smokes! This is an awesome shot Koveh. Great capture of the sky and nice job on the processing as well.
Posted by Koveh Tavakkol on February 23, 2011 at 10:50 PM
Thank you guys for the kind comments. Having so much megapixels in the large view really brings out the details that you unfortunately lose in the web version. I really appreciate the feedback though and will have to try some more pano work in the future!
Koveh, one other thing you can try, if you've shot at the same manual exposure, is changing the interpretations of the RAW files. It's a little tough to maintain a smooth consistency, but I've made shifts in exposure, brightness, contrast, and even blacks or recovery (speaking in terms of ACR) bit-by-bit across the files and photomerge has still managed to handle the blending just fine.
Don't forget to try the photomerge with and without "geometric distortion" cliked on and off. I generally get the best results with "auto" (cylindrical/perspective) and "distortion", which is to say the best combination of rectangular and non-distorted images. You can also use the various commands under edit > free transform to help you get back to a rectangle when the image doesn't come out cleanly. Who wants to lose those precious edges?
You've done a good job on this one, nonetheless!
I hear you about the details... I'm a little addicted to shooting pano's with a Sony 850 that ends up with native image sizes of 24x72 or even 24x96-ish. Now what the heck am I going to do with those?
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on February 24, 2011 at 12:08 AM
Well worth the effort. Print this one BIG.
Posted by Lynn Scott on February 24, 2011 at 12:24 AM
Simply Awesome!! Love all the color!!
Posted by Kurt Bowman on February 24, 2011 at 9:53 AM
This look really, really nice to me Koveh! I think you did a great job processing this as well with evening out the light. Print this one VERY large and hang it!
Posted by Jeremy Week on February 24, 2011 at 10:02 AM
Discussion
25 repliesThis was shot on the same trip down to the Dunes with Kane a couple weeks ago. I finally got around to processing this pano shot, because it took some time. I have not had a lot of practice doing these pano shots, and as a result had not had the best of luck with them. For whatever reason this evening I decided to give it another try during peak light.
Anyhow, this is a stitch of 6 vertical images. I had to do quite a bit of work in post to even out the light here, because it was much brighter on the left hand side of the scene. The layers on a 127mpix image about killed my computer and made me realize I need a new machine very soon. Hope you guys enjoy it, and I always appreciate your critique on my images. I'm off to research a new computer.
Waiting for a bigger one ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kublah/5470655891/
Joe Rogers
Lance, I use a Lee Foundations Filter Holder kit, and can't speak highly enough about it. If you use filters it is an absolute must have. I sometimes hand hold filters, but usually that is in the scenario where I am stacking and want to move the second on up and down to make it more gradual. This shot I wanted to shoot quickly before the sky changed, so I set everything up and all I had to do was rotate and shoot.
{grunt of appreciation/jealousy}
Very nice, indeed. Can I ask why the light was so different between the left and right sides? Were you taking the frames as the light was fading, or was it just wide enough that you're getting differences in the amount of light towards/away from the sunset?
Most of the time that I'm working in stitched pano's I shoot on manual and keep the exposure the same, but I've tried at times to change the exposure by a third of a stop between frames; photomerge in cs4 or cs5 handles it just fine. When the light is changing quickly though, I'm usually too harried for my brain to work that fast. {sigh}.
I shoot everything in manual and the exposure in each of the 6 frames was not changed between these, but now that I know you can make minor adjustments I will have to maybe try that in the future. Thanks for the info Mark.
Joe Rogers
This is an amazing panorama, Koveh. Everything about this one just plain sings. Sky luminosity looks exactly as I would imagine it to look with a winter sunset. Your overall 'development' is near perfect, too. Bravo, sir!!
Don't forget to try the photomerge with and without "geometric distortion" cliked on and off. I generally get the best results with "auto" (cylindrical/perspective) and "distortion", which is to say the best combination of rectangular and non-distorted images. You can also use the various commands under edit > free transform to help you get back to a rectangle when the image doesn't come out cleanly. Who wants to lose those precious edges?
You've done a good job on this one, nonetheless!
I hear you about the details... I'm a little addicted to shooting pano's with a Sony 850 that ends up with native image sizes of 24x72 or even 24x96-ish. Now what the heck am I going to do with those?