Memories of Hokkaido

[Genie In A Lightbox]

landscape or portrait orientation?

Hi jfoo

I experienced the same problem with both landscape and portrait. I also realized my portrait shots were shot with the camera tilted upwards as I rotated, I suppose this makes the distortion even worse right? Or is it I never overlap enough?

I must make sure my camera film plane be parallel to the buildings and trees is it?

 

[giantcanopy]

Hi jfoo

I experienced the same problem with both landscape and portrait. I also realized my portrait shots were shot with the camera tilted upwards as I rotated, I suppose this makes the distortion even worse right? Or is it I never overlap enough?

I must make sure my camera film plane be parallel to the buildings and trees is it?

The distortion you mentioned is because the film / sensor plane is not parallel to the subject, and so when you tilt upwards it makes the building "fall back", more exaggerated when shooting near the subject with a wider angle lens.

Even my Osaka Castle had the problem since i was shooting from below the castle up.

The distortion i thought u referred to was the distortion of a wide angle lens itself when shooting parallel.

Ryan

 

[Genie In A Lightbox]

I learnt something today. Thanks for your explanation.

Regarding the Osaka castle, you mentioned you faced similar problem as me. However I noticed that your pic is nicely stitched together. I don't have the skill to do it well I guess. Or maybe I took too little overlap shots.

 

[giantcanopy]

I learnt something today. Thanks for your explanation.

Regarding the Osaka castle, you mentioned you faced similar problem as me. However I noticed that your pic is nicely stitched together. I don't have the skill to do it well I guess. Or maybe I took too little overlap shots.

Hi

The PC lens projects a much bigger image circle than what a normal 35mm lens would.
In this case taking individual composite shots by shifting the PC lens left/right or up/down merely takes part of a picture from the same huge image circle, so there is not much distortion to speak individually, and stitching is very easy.

Ryan

 

[jfoo]

or you could shoot more pixs with a normal focal length (ie 50mm) and stitch from there since distortion will be minimal.

if you are not using a proper pano head, you will encounter a lot of parallax shift when you take your pano especially with wide angle. sometimes this distortion adds to the beauty of the pano.

do a google and you will be amazed at what you can read up about pano.

 

[giantcanopy]

Taking the sloping rainbow field of Farm Tomita right up at the edge towards the later part of the trip when the skies actually looked less threatening ( not blue skies still ) , and less tourists littering around the area. I got a friend who did not have much luck taking them without any *human intervention*
But I got one fella included though :embrass:

#154

Still pretty windy, here is a pano of 5 shots

 

[g-khoo]

wow #154 is amazing! the colors are so vivid!

as nightmare has said, i really love your pano shots.

 

[giantcanopy]

wow #154 is amazing! the colors are so vivid!

as nightmare has said, i really love your pano shots.

Thx g-khoo, if only i got blue skies :cry:

Ryan

 

[etegration]

hihi!
the extreme blurring was due to T/S lens or photoshop?
this is fantastic!

a bit OT but how much was spent on the trip excl airfares?
how much planning ahead is good?
I'm planning but have no idea what to see where to go LOL...

this looks great indeed.

 

[giantcanopy]

this looks great indeed.

The pano master himself! Thx for ur comment etegration

Ryan

 

[giantcanopy]

Got a few queries as to how shift lenses can make panoramas. Here is an article that I came up with to describe how a panoramas are done with a shift lens, with illustrations.

Ryan

 

[Dearboy87]

Hi Estherfu

Welcome to CS. I am already full of envy that you got a chance to visit there so often.
Might ask u for itinerary tips since I am making another trip down in winter.

I must confess I am an amateur myself that picked up photography earlier last yr. There are many more pros in this forum with eons more of experience.

Here is a list of what I carried. I do not have most of the settings at hand ( the resized flickr removes the settings ) but in general

My landscapes / panoramas are taken at around f8 - 11
My tilted shots for selective focus are done at biggest aperture
Most of the shots done by my 70-200mm are done at f2.8 unless I needed more details from the background
Most of the panoramas are taken on a tripod

I do not have too much tips on making better shots except to see more of what people do and have some idea and try out new ideas. For example this trip i had the goals of playing with my PC lenses, taking panoramas, and taking uber long exposures for landscapes ( the later I got no time to do in the end ) Try them locally so that there will be less things to surprise you. Gotta be so familiar with the setup such that when you are there you just need to compose and shoot. Of course if your travel companions are accomodative of your shooting, having time for yourself to compose and think is a big plus point.

I also read up on the places we are going ( since i planned the itinerary ). Usually on reaching the place I will try to ask around where I can have a good view of sunrise / sunset. As you travel around the area, look out for nice places that might give you good shots later. I visited Otaru and joined the local festives at the port, and struck me that if i get a sunrise between it might give me a nice shot.

Sometimes waking at odd hours gets you the light your shots need
A prelude to my Osaka series. woke up at 330 am to scout around the places.
Shot was only taken some 2 hours later when light trickled in :

Lastly being overly critical of yourself helps. I put alot of shots up in this series for the purpose of sharing my trip details and what we went through. If it was more to showcase nice shots, I probably would not put more than 90% of what is currently here.

PMed you some stuffs, hope u find them useful.

Ryan

The above image is one of the best i have ever seen.. when i look at it.. and look at the photos i have taken so far.. *slap on my forehead* time to shoot more~

Thanks for sharing again!

 

[giantcanopy]

Thx Dearboy87 for your compliments. I learn alot as I shoot along as well.

# 155

The other end of Farm Tomita, sloping down leftwards.
The huts on top sells fragrances and other stuffs.

This is the only shot I tried in my series that I tilt for increased depth of field. Stepped the aperture to f8 and I even got the flowers near the edge of the foreground in sharpness.
The purple flowers here are the lavendars. It might have been a better idea to shoot them slightly angled so that the spaces between the rows of flowers are no longer prominent.

 

[LeaderXXX]

:thumbsup:T/S

 

[giantcanopy]

:thumbsup:T/S

Thx LeaderXXX for the :thumbsup:

 

[giantcanopy]

# 156

Remember to try their Lavender ice cream in Tomita if you have not done so.
Here is a shot I took at the JR Lavender platform shortly before the train came to pick us back.
A stitch of 3 shots with the 24mm PC, 3 stop hard step GND filter ( actually my favorites are still the soft steps but i got no soft step for 3 stop ) .
A 2 stop might have sufficed to give abit more brightness to the clouds, making the picture closer to what my eye saw,
but the extra details in the clouds from a 3 stop created a deeper mood.

 

[giantcanopy]

#157

We took a bus ride to New Furano Prince Hotel from the JR station.
We were the first in the queue, and while waiting for the bus doors to open ..

( you can see our Hotel Natulux at the back - a white/grey building )

 

[acpical]

TS, read about the nightly fireworks display at Toya. Is that true? Seems too good to be true to have daily shows. Because I believe you would have taken a great shot if there was one.

 

[Genie In A Lightbox]

I love the colours in the lavender field. Any PP done? The colours are so rich and vivid.:thumbsup:

 

[giantcanopy]

TS, read about the nightly fireworks display at Toya. Is that true? Seems too good to be true to have daily shows. Because I believe you would have taken a great shot if there was one.

Yup I saw the fireworks, every day in summer. Unfortunately shooting from my hotel balcony, the shots did not go as well as I wanted. Maybe it is better shooting at the level of the Lake.

I love the colours in the lavender field. Any PP done? The colours are so rich and vivid.:thumbsup:

Yup PP done. But I think the colors were more vibrant in reality

Ryan