Tag Archives: Autopano Pro

Photo of the Month – Oncoming Storm

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Hi Folks:

This image was made on April 7, down at Clover Point and looking back toward Victoria. I was out for a walk that day without my camera, but the wind was really blowing and the clouds were just incredible so I made a number of images using my cell phone camera. It was blowing so hard I had to lean against lamp posts and the like to hold the camera steady, but I think the results in this image at least were worth it. This is a six-image panorama, stitched together in Autopano Pro and pushed around some in Lightroom. This is the first image I’ve posted that was processed in Lightroom 5 Beta (some great new features, BTW – can hardly wait for the final product!).

Oncoming Storm

Oncoming Storm

Okay, that’s it. Now go out and make some photographs!!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.

Photo of the Month – January

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Hi Folks:

Well, my first photo of the month post for 2012, and also my first image posted here that was processed with Lightroom 4 Beta.  Marcia and I were ‘up island’ briefly in Campbell River this past month, and took the opportunity to go for a short walk along the shore at Willow Point.  The tide was out and some of the rocks that were revealed were incredible.  I liked this one in particular.  This is an HDR image, 3 exposures at -1/0/+1, shot hand-held and joined together with Autopano Pro then finished off in Lightroom.  I trust you like it!!

Rocky Shore

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

Photo of the Month – September

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Hi Folks:

One of the basic tenets in photography is that every image has to stand on its own merit – as the saying goes, “Nobody cares what you went through to make that photograph.”  Still, I’m reasonably proud of the image below because of the circumstances in which it was made.

About the middle of September Marcia and I took the ferry over to Saltspring Island to take in the market and the Fall Fair, and we caught a late afternoon ferry to return.  There was a storm brewing, so, fool that I am, rather than being safely ensconced in the cabin I was out on deck making photographs of the clouds.  This image is a panorama stitched together from 19 images, shot handheld on a moving ferry.  The 19 images were stitched together in Autopano Pro, and the final image was pushed around a bit in Lightroom.  I trust you’ll enjoy it!

Now go out and make some photographs!

Mike.

Saltspring Island Storm Clouds

Saltspring Island Storm Clouds

Photographing Moving Water: Another Look…

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Hi Folks:

I’ve written two other blog posts on using digital techniques to mimic using a slow shutter speed when photographing moving water.  They are:

Photographing Moving Water &
Photographing Moving Water Revisited

If you want to go and have a look at them, I’ll wait… Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Discoveries

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Hi Folks:

April’s ‘Photo of the Month’ is a little late, but bear with me…  Although I do have a bus pass, I also walk around town – a lot – and in the process I’m always making new discoveries.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking around the Fairfield area when I saw a faded beauty partially protected by an overhang… looked to have been there a long time (30+ years, anyway).  It was something I’d never seen before, but a little research confirmed a 1952 Humber Super Snipe.  For all you non-biologist types, a snipe is a small woodland bird (its use for Quidditch was replaced by the golden snitch in Harry Potter fame but that’s another story). Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Botany Bay

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Hi Folks:

I still remember when I was visiting my aunt in Prince Rupert, BC back in 1983 that she directed me to a nearby marshy area where the poor growing conditions led to many of the trees adopting a natural ‘bonsai’ – stunted growth and twisted forms that would give a forester nightmares.  I’ve seen similar growth in other places in Canada as well – when I was working in eastern Ontario in 1979 we encountered a cedar swamp where the trees averaged 160-180 years old but were barely the diameter of the average human wrist. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Garry Oak Sunset

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Hi Folks:

February has been a strange month weatherwise here in Victoria.  We had the first snowdrops, crocuses and cherry blossoms (not unusual), but we currently have several inches of snow and (comparatively) low temperatures.  I’ve had to bring in the hummingbird feeder at night to keep it from freezing solid.

This month I’ve been playing with a new piece of software: Nik software’s ‘HDR Efex Pro‘.  As you may have read from some of my other Photography posts, I’m not generally a big fan of what some call the ‘HDR-look’.  Having said that, I do understand the value of using HDR imaging for scenes that have an extended dynamic range.  Some photographers seem to think that using film to make images is somehow more ‘pure’ than using digital technology, or that computers allow us to render photographs in ‘unnatural’ ways.  I disagree.  Photographs have been manipulated both in camera and in the darkroom in many ways since their earliest days, including montages.  I have no doubt that if Ansel Adams was alive today he’d be quite happy to apply his ‘zone’ system to Photoshop/ Lightroom or other software. Continue Reading →

Why Use HDR?

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Hi Folks:

I was at an informal gathering of photographers recently where we were sharing and discussing our work.  I displayed a sunset image that I had made (this one)

Seeing the Light

Continue Reading →

Cell Phone Cameras

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Hi Folks:

One of the gifts Mrs. Claus gave me for Christmas was a Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant GT-i9000M Android-enabled cell phone. The name is actually longer than the phone itself; I’m not sure who comes up with this stuff! The GPS feature combined with Google Maps makes navigating the sleigh a lot simpler, but that’s another story. The phone also has a 5MP digital camera, and that’s the topic for today’s blog post. BTW, I checked the Apple Canada site and the iPhone 4 also has a 5MP camera, so I’m assuming they’re in the same ball park as far as comparisons go.

The reasons for this post are two-fold. For one, up until now I’ve never really had the chance to experience making photographs with a cell phone camera. For the second, there have been a couple of posts on Mike Johnston’s ‘The Online Photographer‘ blog recently that say that the sales of ‘point and shoot’ cameras have been steadily falling. His suggestion is that point and shoot cameras are single-use devices while cell phones with cameras are multifunctional… so more people are simply using their cell phone cameras rather than purchasing a separate camera as well. Continue Reading →