Experimenting with 360º Panoramas

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Richard Brochu-Williams

Today I have been trying to experiment with 360º panoramic landscapes. There are a few problems that I have come across. The first being that I do not have a fish eye lens but I do have a wide angle lens (12mm) and I do not have a panoramic head but it is still possible to achieve some good results…I just haven’t got them yet.

Nodal Ninja 4, Panoramic Head for tripod

I have been trying out new software (Hugin) but after trying to get to grips with it, watching tutorials and reading online, I have discovered that it is not too user friendly, or I am just simply daft! BUT I will persevere because I am stubborn but will give it a rest for today.

Despite having done stereographic images in the past, I have not done 360º panoramic or equirectangular images, and these are the images that should be used when making stereographic images. I have just used landscape images and photoshopped them, but I would really like to try and do it the correct way and this will also be a new way of photographing for me, so this is a challenge that I am going to set myself.

However, I did manage a 360º panorama, not a very good one, but at least I achieved SOMETHING today. I have stitched the image together but I have not bothered to edit the image as it was just for experimentation.

360º Panoramic Image © Richard Brochu-Williams

Below is an example of how Alexandre Duret-Lutz uses 360º equirectangular panoramic images to create his stereographic (Wee Planet) images.

Stereographic | Equirectangular © Alexandre Duret-Lutz

References

Duret-Lutz, A. 2014. gadl. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gadl/ [Accessed: 4 Apr 2014].

Hugin. 2013. Hugin – Panorama photo stitcher. [online] Available at: http://hugin.sourceforge.net [Accessed: 4 Apr 2014].

Nodal Ninja. 2014. Panoramic Heads, VR Photography, Rotators, Levelers, Aerial Poles. [online] Available at: http://www.nodalninja.com [Accessed: 4 Apr 2014].

Panoguide. 2014. panoguide: the guide to panoramas and panoramic photography. [online] Available at: http://www.panoguide.com [Accessed: 4 Apr 2014].

Panohelp. 2014. Pano Help — Tips, techniques, and articles to help you create incredibly detailed panoramas. [online] Available at: http://www.panohelp.com [Accessed: 4 Apr 2014].

Seminar with Nick Galvin

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Richard Brochu-Williams

Yesterday I feel, was a productive day, as we had a seminar with visiting lecturer Nick Galvin. After showcasing our work and ideas, we discussed how we could start thinking about the different ways that we could approach our Major Project in the next semester. As I am concentrating on landscape photography and the abstract, we discussed the various ways that this could be achieved and we looked at a diverse range of artists and their methodologies.

I researched more into a few of the artists that we discussed during the session and looked at the ways that they produced their landscape images in original and exciting ways.

Andreas Gefeller

I looked at Gefeller’s work entitled “Supervisions”. For these images, Gefeller employs a technically elaborate method to scan the surfaces of urban sites by means of long-term exposure and photographs from a different perspective (usually a birds eye view) and makes these images by using composites.

Untitled (# 2) Dusseldorf, 2013 © Andreas Gefeller

Untitled (Sand Tracks) Miami, 2008 © Andreas Gefeller

Untitled (Paving Slabs 2) Dresden, 2006 © Andreas Gefeller

Gefeller’s work is simplistic in its nature and has a real quality to it. I like these images due to the simplicity of them and I have an appreciation of the time and effort that it took to produce these works.

David Hockney

Due to the copyright and the notice displayed on the website, I have been unable to display any of David Hockney’s work here on my blog but I have provided a link where the work can be viewed. Hockney’s work that was of particular interest to me was the image entitled “Pearblossom Highway, 11th-18th April 1986” which is a photo collage. Like the work of Andreas Gefeller, it is made from a composite of images and shows a different way of capturing a landscape. The image can be viewed from this link: http://www.hockneypictures.com/works_photos.php.

Boyle Family

The Boyle Family are probably best known for their earth studies series of work. The work consists of three dimensional casts taken of the surface of the earth, which record and document random sites with great accuracy. These works combine real material from the site (stones, dust, twigs etc) with paint and resins, preserving the form of the ground to make unique one-off pieces that suggest and offer new interpretations of the environment. These have been displayed and when photographed, actually look like the “real” landscape.

Holland Park Avenue Study, London Series, 1967 and Cobbles Study, Lorrypark Series, 1976. Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh 2003. © Boyle Family

Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 2003. © Boyle Family

The Nyord (Denmark) World Series Study, installed at Galerie Paul Maenz, Koln 1971. © Boyle Family

The first image displaying the road and pavement is something that I find intriguing and you can certainly understand that when photographed from straight on, could be confused with being a true part of the landscape.

Space and astronomy is a subject that has always fascinated me from an early age. It’s amazing to think of our position within the known universe and to ponder whether or not there may be other forms of life out there in the vastness of space. I have been trying to think of different ways in which I could incorporate this interest into my photography and this is probably why I was first fascinated by the images created by photographer Alexandre Duret-Lutz and began to create such images. Like the world we live in, they have a mystical and magical quality to them.

Torre de Belém – Stereographic Projection
© Alexandre Duret-Lutz

This Stereographic Projection was created from the Equirectangular Panorama below.

Torre de Belém – Equirectangular Panorama
© Alexandre Duret-Lutz

I absolutely love the Stereographic Projection image. The image has been well shot and it somehow reminds me of being very classic in its nature. An image that I would certainly display.

Carrying on with the planetary theme I continued with my research.

Mishka Henner

I looked at “Astronomical, 2011” which displays our solar system in twelve volumes. The width of each page is a million kilometres. On page 1 the Sun can be seen and it continues until page 6,000 where we can see Pluto. As the Solar System is so vast in size (average distance from the Earth to the Sun is approximately 150 million kilometres) most of the pages appear black.

A different way to think about the universe and the space that surrounds us…if you have the time and patience to actually go through all twelve volumes.

Finally…..

Nick drew my attention to an image that I had not come across before named “The Pale Blue Dot”

The Pale Blue Dot

The Pale Blue Dot was taken when the Voyager 1 spacecraft reached the edge of the solar system, 12 years after its launch and travelling at 40,000 miles per hour (64,000 km/h) at a record distance of about 6 billion kilometres. On February 14, 1990, having completed its primary mission, the spacecraft was commanded by NASA to turn around and photograph the planets of the solar system. The image was inspired by the astronomer Carl Sagan’s suggestion. The name for the picture, Pale Blue Dot, became popular when Carl Sagan published a book in 1994, also titled Pale Blue Dot, in which he discussed humanity’s place in the universe and our efforts to explore the solar system. A mind blowing image considering the vast distance that it was taken at. This was certainly a different way of capturing a landscape image.