Panorama
Ending on a Sky Note
It is not uncommon for me to put an immediate halt to whatever I’m doing, grab my camera and bolt outside to catch a sunset. The sofa in our living room faces a western window where it’s hard to miss the warm glow illuminating the sheer curtains. There have been times, in the middle of a conversation, I’ll say, “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” I then dash for my camera and out the door. Thankfully my wife, Sara, is very understanding. I’m rarely out there for more than a few minutes and, when I return, life generally picks up where it left off. Sometime later, I’ll get around to reviewing the exquisite light captured from an earlier moment…and maybe post one or two.
Click the photo for a larger view.
Sunrise of Hope
Wide Awakening
This is a panoramic view of the sun rising over Lake Michigan just beyond the Kewaunee, WI lighthouse.
Sometime I create the wide, panorama images by joining together several individual shots. This one, however, was created in the camera. My Sony SLT-A55V has a “sweep shooting” mode. When in sweep shooting mode, you hold the shutter button and slowly pan across the scene you want to capture. The camera takes multiple images and then joins them together in the camera.
As you can see, sometimes the results are pretty good. Sometimes, it’s better to put together individual images on the computer.
For a better, wider view of this scene, click on the photo.
Wide Eyed Sunrise
Good morning Algoma! This is the sunrise greeting Algoma, WI Sunday morning, November 13, 2011.
There are several normal sized images I’ll post from this shoot, but there’s something special about being able to see the panoramic, wide-view – the big picture. This is a combination of three separate images “stitched” together.
To see a wider version (wider is definitely better) click on the photo.
Dawn of Promise
“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.” – Paulo Coelho
This is another pre-sunrise view of the Algoma, Wisconsin harbor and lighthouse.
A better view is available by clicking on the image.
Panoramic Perspective
The clouds and the early morning light created a magical panoramic view. I snapped this yesterday morning from the beach in Kewaunee, WI.
I’m sorry the format of this blog is not conducive to getting a good view of panorama images. You can get a better view by clicking on the image.
I really wanted a huge sailboat to glide into this photo. How cool would that look. I also managed to snagged a few black-and-white images from this morning that I’ll post in the future.
Farm Field Sunrise
Here’s a view of this morning’s sunrise (07/14/11) from my back yard – taken at the edge of a farm field.
Our home is surrounded by farm fields. It gives a mostly clear view of the sky in all directions. Which is why take a lot of sunrises and sunsets.
The panorama image below was taken the same morning, a little earlier than the above view.
Stormy Night Approaching
My wife said, “Come look at the sky; the colors are weird.”
As the sun was setting the evening of Wednesday, June 8, 2011 a storm front was moving in. Of course, I grabbed my camera. With a little digital magic I was able to capture the dramatic transition from peaceful sunset to stormy night.
My camera (Sony SLT-A55) has a mode it calls “Sweep Panorama” that stitches multiple photos together to make a larger image. I used it and got a nice image…but it wasn’t large enough to capture what was really happening. I could get some of the dark, angry clouds or some of the calmer sunset – but not both. The lens and photo frame were not large enough to fit the early evening drama in the same image.
In order to capture the full scene I wanted, I took five separate photos and stitched them together on my computer with a handy, free program from Microsoft called Image Composite Editor, or ICE.
As I said, this image is the composite of five individual shots. The final, combined image was over 100 mega pixels. And, as if that weren’t large enough, I actually tried to join 17 different individual photos together, but the final image turned out bent and distorted.
Here’s another view of the sky that evening.
I definitely recommend you view the larger images. To do so, just click the photos.
Feel free to leave a comment and if you like the image, share it with others.