Cheers I had a look at
that POTN thread, definitely some great inspiration, some of those portraits are incredible.
Times Square, NYC (Click for larger)
What a wonderful riot of color. The extreme vibrancy works great with the scene, as does the fisheye focal length. It's also great how the stripes of the crosswalk form leading lines into the scene. A very arresting image.
Impressive, to say the least! How much pre-planning went into this shot? Did you have the location and technique planned before the hike or did you just think this out on the fly? How did you calculate the horizontal pan to get the 19 seperate shots? Did you eyeball it or use the degree marks on your tripod head? What about the vertical to get the second row? Was your sequence across, up and back? Did you write all the settings down before starting the shoot?
Are the "tire chains" on your boots a replacement for snowshoes or something you carry in your pack for conditions like this? I've looked at something like this at REI. They would come in handy for safely carrying my gear up on my local version of the Alps.
Dale
OK, let's see if I can answer all of those questions! What you see on my boots in that photo are crampons (Veriga Mount Track), a small packable kind that tuck away neatly into a stuff sack. They have 13 points per foot, which help a lot on hard-packed snow and icy surfaces. They are a standard part of my winter hiking kit. I use snowshoes for longer treks in deep snow and the crampons for areas where I just need more traction. My boots have cuttings for C2 crampons, but those would be overkill for most of what I'm doing. My crampons look like this:
Anyway, if you're carrying camera gear along mountain trails in the winter, then I highly recommend the Mount Track crampons. They enable me to walk safely in areas that would otherwise be treacherous.
Pano questions: I chose that location on that day because of the overcast conditions that would give me the requisite diffused light. I had been there only once before in the summer and wasn't remembering it very well before I went out; I thought I could get the whole waterfall in at 17mm...ha! No way. So yeah, I had a composition in mind more or less like the one you see, but I didn't realize that it would require a 19-frame stitch to get it. The only places you can stand to get an unobstructed view of the waterfall are very close to it, so the stitch was my only hope, and it only occurred to me while I was standing there.
As for the sequence, etc., I looked at where I wanted the edges of my composition to be and then shot in rows like a lawnmower to cover an area a bit larger, knowing that I would end up with uneven edges that require cropping. I was sure to make each image overlap the next one by 1/3 of the frame, using the on-screen lines in Live View to guide me. I was also careful to have the waterfall itself fall in the center of the frames that covered it (I first pointed at the waterfall, then worked outwards from there to determine my starting point). I hope that makes sense! My ball head has a pano knob and my camera has an electronic level, so it was easy to get the rows to be straight as I panned across scene.
There, I think that covers the questions!