Memories of Hokkaido

[giantcanopy]

# 111

The crater in Mount Uzu. An active volcano that has erupted several times since 1900, last eruption in 1991, Mount Uzu and Showashinzan are one of the main attractions of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park.

You will need to walk the undulating stairs to walk around the rim of the crater.
Entire trip will take less than 2 hours with reasonable fitness :bsmilie: We saw a few husbands bringing their kids to walk the entire route, leaving their wives sitting at the proximal end admiring the overview from the top.

 

[Genie In A Lightbox]

Dear giantcanopy

I hope you do not mind a noob question. But I am very impressed by your photography skills and learnt a lot about what different lenses can do for our pictures. I certainly learnt more about digital photography - the power of stitching multiple pictures together to create a bigger picture. I hope to learn this from you!

May I know how you go about taking panoroma pictures that can be stitched together? Do you use GND filters? All using the same exposure?

Next, what if I stitch 6 pics of the sky and 6 pics of the land? Do we expose the sky and land shots differently? Any filters we need to use?

I hope my questions will not dampen your thread or become distracting. If you want to preserve your thread, I do not mind you replying me through PM instead. This is a lovely thread afterall and I do not want CSers enjoying your pictures and commentaries suddenly have to read my noobie questions and fall asleep.

Btw I love your pictures of Hokkaido! Lovely and inspiring! My wife and I hope to visit this beautiful place next year Dec!

 

[giantcanopy]

Welcomed

May I know how you go about taking panoroma pictures that can be stitched together? Do you use GND filters? All using the same exposure?


I stitch them with PS - photomerge function. The frames usually i try to have an overlap of 20 - 30%. For wide angle shots taken without a shift lens, I allow abit more overlap.

As for using GNDs : Not all of them though, there are some I do use a GND when I got abit more time.

Next, what if I stitch 6 pics of the sky and 6 pics of the land? Do we expose the sky and land shots differently? Any filters we need to use?

Good question.

Here is an example of #78

The top layer was covered with a GND and put the transition line at the lower half ( my SR filters are pretty longer than usual ) The middle layer and subsequent layer i did not use any - as a result I nearly lost details near the sunset skies on the left

I haven got another example where the top layer was exclusively skies though. It did came across to me to take them at different exposures but the difference in exposure on top and bottom will make it difficult to stitch. Dun think photomerge can correct the issue, but there might be some other panorama softwares that can

I hope my questions will not dampen your thread or become distracting. If you want to preserve your thread, I do not mind you replying me through PM instead. This is a lovely thread afterall and I do not want CSers enjoying your pictures and commentaries suddenly have to read my noobie questions and fall asleep.

No worries

Btw I love your pictures of Hokkaido! Lovely and inspiring! My wife and I hope to visit this beautiful place next year Dec

And I am looking forward to my nxt visit there!

Ryan

 

[Genie In A Lightbox]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge kindly with us, Ryan!

May I ask for the stitch of #78. How do you go about metering the whole scene? Do you meter the land shots and filter off with a 3-stop GND for the skies? I suppose you exposed all of them using manual function right to consistently expose all of them is it?

 

[giantcanopy]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge kindly with us, Ryan!

May I ask for the stitch of #78. How do you go about metering the whole scene? Do you meter the land shots and filter off with a 3-stop GND for the skies? I suppose you exposed all of them using manual function right to consistently expose all of them is it?

I usually meter the brighter elements in the skies and a point in foreground that I wanna have details. in this case I chose the clouds and the ( dimmed ) hills. i only managed to use a +2 stop though because my +3 is a hard edge and I was worried about mismatches with stitching with foreground later. it was slightly underexposed I brought out the details subsequently from the darker areas.

Anyhow this was actually my first try having a top down panorama with selective GND placement on the top layer. Hope to get better results nxt time. The ones with only one single row of panorama shots are easier placed.

Ryan

 

[digisnap]

I just love your series. The pics look candid and you are very patient in post processing all of your pics. Hats-off to you.

What I love most in your pics is your composition and the way you take advantage of reflections on reflective objects (e.g. train windows). I also like how you capture natural bokeh but not really a fan when it is obvoius that the bokeh was just put in (personal preferrence only).

All in all this is a very good documentation of a particularly nice trip. Would love to visit that place one day. Thanks for sharing.

 

[blurrblurr]

Hi emlee thx for dropping by! The buttock of the bear abit burnt out ma :bsmilie:

#107

Here is a shot of the cable car station taken from the cable car. Left of this station is Mount Showa Shinzan

Sorry to ask this was shot with PC lens? Never know PC lens can have such effect

 

[giantcanopy]

I just love your series. The pics look candid and you are very patient in post processing all of your pics. Hats-off to you.

What I love most in your pics is your composition and the way you take advantage of reflections on reflective objects (e.g. train windows). I also like how you capture natural bokeh but not really a fan when it is obvoius that the bokeh was just put in (personal preferrence only).

All in all this is a very good documentation of a particularly nice trip. Would love to visit that place one day. Thanks for sharing.

Thx for the comments digisnap :thumbsup:
Very true . I understand that sometimes the unnatural focusing can be a love and hate affair. Sometimes I myself am not too agreeable with what others produce as well.

Sorry to ask this was shot with PC lens? Never know PC lens can have such effect

The selective focusing was done by tilting lens plane rather than doing perspective control. It is a scaled down mimic good old bellows of the LF, and pretty much like what a lens baby does. Nikon calls their tilt shift lenses PC lenses ( perspective control ) Others prefer to call it PC when it does shift only.

( BTW thinking about it PC by itself is a misnomer. How can a shift correct perspective in the true sense. :think: )

Ryan

 

[nemo]

the selective blurs are so nicely done. Very inspiring photos, ryan.

 

[giantcanopy]

the selective blurs are so nicely done. Very inspiring photos, ryan.

Thx nemo

 

[giantcanopy]

One of the hotels at the eastern end of Toyako Onsen Area
Taken from my hotel window at around 4 am

#112

 

[giantcanopy]

Taken from one of the shops selling Toya souvenirs

# 113

 

[hood]

Great series. I'm newbie into DSLR. I bought a new sony dslr for my hokkaido trip. Looking at your date of postings, most or less, I was at hokkaido the same as you do. Being a newbie, my photos cames out pale in comparison to yours. Especially, night scenary like at Mt Moiwa, mine is CMI, and yours is so beautifully taken. I did not have time to digest my manual (I forgotten to bring it along for my trip), so, fireworks scene and night scene are horrible.

What about your Furano shots? I hope look at that. Thanks.

 

[giantcanopy]

Great series. I'm newbie into DSLR. I bought a new sony dslr for my hokkaido trip. Looking at your date of postings, most or less, I was at hokkaido the same as you do. Being a newbie, my photos cames out pale in comparison to yours. Especially, night scenary like at Mt Moiwa, mine is CMI, and yours is so beautifully taken. I did not have time to digest my manual (I forgotten to bring it along for my trip), so, fireworks scene and night scene are horrible.

What about your Furano shots? I hope look at that. Thanks.

Hi hood.
Thx for the comments.
Furano will come soon after I post my Noboribetsu ones :bsmilie:

Any chance u were with a group of company friends on a photog trip in Hokkaido ?
I met a group of 5 company friends in Daisetsuzan, but I lost contact with them

Ryan

 

[hood]

Hi hood.
Thx for the comments.
Furano will come soon after I post my Noboribetsu ones

Any chance u were with a group of company friends on a photog trip in Hokkaido ?
I met a group of 5 company friends in Daisetsuzan, but I lost contact with them

Ryan

No, I dun think so.

May I ask how you take the "star" picture... obviously, you have took a series of photos and stitch together...

 

[g-khoo]

Thx

Unfortunately no sunset. Cause this picture was taken facing west. Light in the picture was a spot light.
And my gf was thinking maybe we shld make a trip back in winter to visit *him* :dunno:

Brudder show me ur shots too. I enjoy the way u process ur shots!
( The only reason why I hardly process anything differently is because my significant half only likes
pictures taken the original way it looks )

Ryan

Thanks !

Osaka shots coming right up next week.. (lol about time)

Keep up the photos rolling meanwhile :thumbsup:

 

[giantcanopy]

No, I dun think so.

May I ask how you take the "star" picture... obviously, you have took a series of photos and stitch together...

Now where are the 3 guys and two gals that I bumped to :think:

I had to take 4 pictures of the pentagonal fort. I was not comfortable taking two pictures of the fort with minimal overlap and had the concern that post distortion the resultant stitch will have some missing corners.

There was abit of reflection when I took the picture ( through the glass ) which i had to painstakingly clone them away

Thanks !

Osaka shots coming right up next week.. (lol about time)

Keep up the photos rolling meanwhile :thumbsup:

Yea bro. Will waitfully wait for urs!

#114

A snap of Kazan Mura

 

[giantcanopy]

# 115

Dolls
Retrospectively unfortunate to have included the truncated head ( somehow did not realise in the first place ... hmm )

 

[giantcanopy]

# 116

Hikari . Toya

 

[giantcanopy]

# 117

Most privileged visitor of our room in Kohantei.
Come and go as you will