Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand)

[tim]

The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, which means "The land of the long white Cloud". This sight greeted me this morning when I got out of bed, and inspired me to do a panorama, which I rarely bother with. The alternative was probably a 5mm lens ;)

Since it's 1000 pixels wide i'll link to it rather than post it inline. You can see the picture here (http://mrwild.co.nz/unprotected/potn/CloudPanarama2.jpg)

If anyone knows how to reduce the banding caused by multiple exposures with different settings i'd love to know. I've already tweaked it in photoshop, but it needs a bit more work to be great.

[HKFEVER]

I can see there has 5 pictures. But the cloud is loooooooong.

[Rendezvous]

Yep, nice. Often the cloud is so long here, you can't see the end of it...
Nice pic Tim

You can always lock the exposure or use manual mode so that it doesn't change in each shot.

[tim]

You're correct HKFever, it's pretty obvious that it's made from 5 shots.

Daniel, nice photos of planes! I know I should have gone manual, but I was lazy and in a hurry to get to work. I'll be sure to do it next time. btw I'm in PN from time to time, I have a cousin there, and I went to Massey.

[MarkoPolo]

My wife and I had the great pleasure of spending 3 weeks in New Zealand in 1999. Our present to ourselves for 30 years of marriage! I bought my first SLR for the trip, it started my current interest in photography. Learned how to drive a "campervan" on the other side of the road. Truly a trip of a lifetime, we can't wait for another opportunity to go back. Country is stunningly beautiful. the people are even better. Great shot of the "Long white cloud."

[Wazza]

Great shot of Aotearoa.
If you do ever get that 5mm lens, give me a call. ;)

[Rendezvous]

Thanks for the compliment on my plane shots Tim.
So you visit PN sometimes? Cool, there's not all too much to shoot here except those wind turbines. I must get me a good shot of those sometime.

[tim]

There are interesting shots to be had everywhere, especially in macro land, it's just the way you look at things. There's plenty of people around to photograph, in particular some rather good looking girls from the uni ;)

[CyberDyneSystems]

That's pretty cool tim:)

[NikonF4s]

Nice pic Cuz. Haha, good work Tim, that cloud is very New Zealand. Chur chur Bro.

[tim]

Cheers guys, now I just have to figure out how to reduce the banding. I'll just take it properly next time!

[Wendy Lilygreen]

Hi, Re your banding I have found that Zoom Browser stitches them together with far less banding than good old Adobe.
I think I've read somewhere that you are supposed to set the camera to manual and keep the same exposures too, I don't mind you and have not had a problem.
Here's one I did earlier. I don't know how a panorama will open here tho and I don't know how else toget it up. This is taken near to where I live in Wales.

Wendy

[Wazza]

Hey Tim, as to your stitching, definately the Canon Stitch software does a decent enough job, and will be much easier to fix the slight defects in photoshop. I think the max number of images is 4 at a time.
Using manual mode, all I did was scan the scene - 90 degrees of rotation, and figured out the average shutter speed I could use whilst not overblowing anything, or losing shadow detail. I've done a couple now. I've also done a what I would have called nice sunrise one, but it's not so perfectly stitched. I can blame the water movements confusing it, as it stitched it crooked. :p

Here was my first stitch using your same 20D, and M mode.

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/merged_nzaa_small.jpg

The file size came out at almost 10,000 pixels wide. So certainly gives you room to tweak, resize, sharpen etc. And should make a good print at say 50x15" wide. Or whatever is the generic size, if there is one.

[tim]

I should have use M mode, I'd just gotten out of bed and wasn't thinking straight! I understand how to do it, I just have to bother.

For this photo, I tweaked the levels in photoshop so the sky was about right, then I did the stiching in PhotoStich, not photoshop. PS CS did a horrible job, it couldn't line the pics up properly even. What i'm after is some software solution to align the levels more precisely, probably even within the same frame. What i'll probably do though is not worry about it, and take the shots properly next time to start with!

Thanks for your suggestions and comments everyone :)

[Rendezvous]

4 at a time Wazza? I've done at least six before. It starts to not like it though if you have a slower processor.

Pano shots are always nice :)

[RJSorensen]

Cool shots . . .

[Wazza]

4 at a time Wazza? I've done at least six before. It starts to not like it though if you have a slower processor.

Pano shots are always nice :)
Yeah, honestly, I don't know where I read that one before. And because of that, I've only ever shot sets of 4! :D

I guess I learn something as well.. Now time to try a 360degree pana.
:)