Sunday, 16 November 2008

The best laid plans

On the way back from forgetting most things I'd set out to do today, I stopped off at one of my favourite spots. The intention was to take a panoramic image of the area I live in with a view of the Pacific. At least I remembered to do one thing - I brought along the camera.

Now I shouldn't tell you this, but this is my third attempt to get this right, but I'm probably a slow learner. There was, however, the promise of a sunny sky, little wind and a few minutes spare to stand alone on the cliffs and annoy the anglers by taking photos again - they're getting used to me I think.

My intention was to take an image that I could use at the top of this blog much like Keera's wonderful image in "A Roll in the Universe".

I still haven't got it right.

After swearing at the software this evening I then realised what the problem was - taking a panorama of the ocean is very difficult because it has waves, and of course the software can't deal with this because they're in different places in every shot. So I turned to the help page and found out how to stitch the pages together manually, only to then find I'd have to pay $30 to get this option.

Oh well, I'll find another way.

5 comments:

Keera Ann Fox said...

My image (thanks for compliment!) is a collage, all done in Photoshop-type software. The background image is cropped. You might want to consider what you can get if you crop the photo into the banner size rather than try to take it in that shape - if you get my meaning.

I did take a closer look at your photo. You need a tripod. That would help at least line up the horizon. :-)

Tom said...

"Tripods" is a swear word in this household. Then again, you're absolutely right - but I think it's also trying to deal with the waves, so I think I might have some success on a completely calm day. Getting that to match my schedule is going to be a challenge though.

alice said...

Even if it doesn't line up completely, it's still a cool shot.

I'd definitely trade autumn for that scenery.

Anonymous said...

Tom,

Try hugin - that's a piece of software, not advice of what you should do to your trees. The best bit about it is that its free and it works really well!

Oh, one more thing.... "tripod"!

Cheers
Ant

Tom said...

Thanks for the tip, Ant, I'll certainly give it a go.