Big trucks for the little boy inside

[MetalTom]

I recently made the short drive to the top of Bingham Canyon where Kennecott Utah Copper has a visitor center and overlook into the Bingham Canyon copper pit.
One of the largest open pit mines, it is 2 1/2 miles across and 3/4 mile deep.

This pano was made using 12 vertical frames shot with 20D and Tamron 17-50 2.8 at 17mm, f/11, 1/250, ISO 200. Manual focus guessing on hyperfocus. Developed in Lightroom copying settings from the first frame to all others. Stitched in PS CS3's Photomerge.

The other shots were taken at or near 400mm with my 100-400.

Kennecott's website http://www.kennecott.com/

The pano
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/PitPanoramaSmall.jpg


Larger view here http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/?action=view&current=PitPanorama.jpg



http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/_MG_0980.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/_MG_0983.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/_MG_0988.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/_MG_1025.jpg



This markup of the pano shows the location and approximate frame area of the close up shots.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/thomasgarner/pit/PitPanorama2.jpg

[Cr4zYH3aD]

how do you do pano, stitching several pictures or ?? Nice Shot. My father used to transport rocks too. Whats the yelllow bus for ? Looks like a demolition site, hope its not packed with TNT :laughing

[MetalTom]

To create a pano one needs to take several overlapping frames. I overlapped mine about 40%. You need to maintain constant exposure and focus. I evaluated the entire scene and found an exposure that would work then set the camera to manual with those settings. Focus can be achieved with AF then switching to MF. I guessed at what the hyperfocal point would be to achieve a good depth of field. Ideally you would want to use a tripod to keep all frames aligned. Misalignment of more than a couple degrees will hinder the programs ability to stitch.

When developing these in Lightroom, I worked the first frame till I liked it, then copied the settings to the other pics and exported. Photoshop CS3 has a feature called Photomerge. Photomerge will automagically stitch them together and blend them so that seams are difficult, if not impossible to find. I then flatten and crop the image. Some sharpening for web and profile conversion.


Glad you like the shot. I was unsure if it would work at all and was rather pleased with how it turned out.

Kennecott has been one of the largest employers in the area. Probably employed the most people outside of government jobs.

I'm not sure what the bus is for. I imagine to transport the shovel operators and others working in the pit not driving the trucks.

Demolition isn't the first word to come to mind, but certainly fitting. 100 years ago this was a mountain, now a hole viewable from the space shuttle. They don't use TNT, but rather their own special explosive blend. While we were there they set off a charge. Kinda loud and we certainly felt it. There was still some dust in the air when I took the pics for the pano.

[DMPhoto]

Thos are great shots, the ones with the full size pickups, or the school bus, near the LARGE dump trucks kinda play tricks on the mind!

Thanks for posting.

Dan

[ChrisLUM]

Nice shots, reminds me of a show i saw on discovery channel about these huge machines...

Chris

[Anke]

These would be great candidates for the "fake model" Photoshop method :D

[RadAL]

2nd from the last one is my favorite!

[BB18]

Those are some great shots!! The pano rocks too!

[MetalTom]

Thanks for looking everybody. Glad you like 'em.


These would be great candidates for the "fake model" Photoshop method :D

I googled the fake model method and gave it a try on a couple of these. The results were less than stellar.:(

When I first worked on these I thought they somewhat resembled a model. Diorama was the word that came to mind.

[black_z]

Awesome!!

I wonder how long it takes to get to the bottom?!

[kosin]

interesting series...
would like to see more
thanks for sharing