one my favourites of 2004

[RoB_m]

this was taken during a road trip from chicago, illinois, to san jose, california. i believe it's called the grand stair case region. nonetheless it was taken during a little stretch-stop in utah along interstate 70, which you can see cutting right into the rock formation. i wanted to include the highway and some cars for a sense of scale. when printed the image is 4 feet wide.

http://rexthewonderhorse.com/rob/utahrocks.jpg

[Red]

What cars? *squint* Are those black and white blobs cars?! :shock:

[Belmondo]

That's a gorgeous shot.

I love that road, and actually prefer that route cross country when I know we can count on good weather.

[roanjohn]

ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! LOVE IT!!!

Ro1

[RoB_m]

What cars? *squint* Are those black and white blobs cars?! :shock:

yup. much easier to see in the actual print :D

and thanks for the compliments.

[toddb]

That's a nice B&W, nice detail. Was that a single shot or multiple shots together?

[RoB_m]

That's a nice B&W, nice detail. Was that a single shot or multiple shots together?

it's 5 shots put together in photoshop.

[toddb]

it's 5 shots put together in photoshop.

That's what I thought....the other option I guess if you had one of those 16MP 1Ds Mark II you might get that much detail if it was a crop...but I don't know if even that many MP would be enough for the detail here.

[Wazza]

Stunning shot. The puffy clouds just add to it, but also making a shadow and taking detail away from the cliffside. Just really gives it a "at you" 3D feel. :)

[RoB_m]

That's what I thought....the other option I guess if you had one of those 16MP 1Ds Mark II you might get that much detail if it was a crop...but I don't know if even that many MP would be enough for the detail here.

you'd need a really wide angle lens too :lol:

this was taken with a simple little canon A80. there's a chance i'm going to be taking the same trip across the country next month, but with my 10D, so i'd like to try and reshoot it.

[Lloydm]

V e r y nice shot(s)

[cmM]

Rob, that's a great pano!
Could you share your stitching technique in PS?

[RoB_m]

Rob, that's a great pano!
Could you share your stitching technique in PS?

sure. i start by opening the first shot in the panorama and expanding the canvas size to accomodate the others. i put each shot on it's own layer and then start lining them up one by one. when i take the images i always make sure i leave a 1/3 frame overlap so there are features in the adjacent images that i can match up. they don't just match up exactly so i usually try to line up the horizons, or in this case, where the rock formation met the sky. from there i have to do a little finesse work with the distortion tools to compensate for the distortion you naturally get from rotating the camera on the tripod. less distortion would be required if i had rotated the camera using the lens as an axis instead of the tripod mount on camera body. once everything is lined up, you can still see the edges of each image, so i take the eraser tool and a feathered brush setting and erase away the overlapping edges of the images just enough to get a fluid transition from one to the other. this takes a little finesse because the distortion you did earlier only matches up well at the edge of the image so erasing too much can reveal too much of the image below it and you may see duplicates of the same landmark. once all the edges are gone there may still be some exposure differences between adjucent shots. i take all of my panoramas in manual mode and keep the same exposure settings for every individual image, but i still had to use curve adjustment layers to make the sky consistent throughout the whole scene. if you didn't know, you can make an adjustment layer only affect the layer right below it by alt-clicking [or in my case option-clicking :)] in between the two layers. that way you can do exposure compensation for each individual layer.

that pretty much sums up the process i go through to stitch panoramas together. i've never written it down before and i'm just going by memory so forgive me if it seems a little complicated or daunting. i've had a lot of practice and refined the technique so it's all kind of second nature now. let me know if you have a question.

here's my most complicated panorama, taken during the same trip. this is actually 9 images taken in a square, 3 images across and 3 tall. needless to say it took a few hours :lol:

http://rexthewonderhorse.com/rob/bryceB&W.jpg
http://rexthewonderhorse.com/rob/bryce2.jpg

[CDickinson]

What a fabulous job on stitching photos! Color is great.....
thanks for sharing it and your process.

C

ps I just opened up the other two with the links.....holy crap....these are wonderful too!!!!!!

[cmM]

Rob, thanks for taking the time to write it down. I use pretty much the same technique (well, only used it a couple of times), except for the panorama tools.
The other panos are amazing as well!

[merrrrjig]

Please enter that into the photo competition because thats a great shot!!

[RoB_m]

Please enter that into the photo competition because thats a great shot!!

i don't think they allow panoramas, but i'll submit my bryce canyon pic, i guess.