Ben takes in the awesome sight.

The beautiful Amangani Resort in Jackson Hole. This is actually a 6-image panoramic image, shot with my trusty Nikkor 50 mm and stitched with AutoPano Pro.

While it may not be my best photo ever, this one has the distinction of occupying more disk space than any other. Comprised of 37 hand-held frames, shot with my cheapest lens due to it’s low distortion, and stitched together with the mind-blowing AutoPano Pro. The original is more than 24,000 pixels wide. The 16-bit image is just under 2 gigabytes in size. The image below links to a 6,000 pixel wide version. Get a 12,000 pixel-wide version here. (14 megabytes.)

What will I do differently next time? First, I’ll use a smaller aperture. If I had, the area behind Kelly and Ben (see her there?) would be in focus. Second, and quite surprisingly, I will not use a polarizer. The amount of filter’s effect changes with the rotational angle, so that the parts of the sky perpendicular to the rays of the sun are too dark, and the non-uniformity of the sky color in the resulting stitch is a pain to deal with. I think it looks weird, but I haven’t found a reasonable way to smooth that out without producing obviously manipulated results. Suggestions? I suppose could paste in some clouds, but that would be cheating — wouldn’t it?

By the way, if you’re at all interested in high-resolution panoramic imagery, check out this jaw-dropping 50 gigabyte image. I want to go to Vienna — now. Wow!

Here is my second attempt at recreating one of Ansel Adams’ masterpieces.

A few more of our favorite shots from our fabulous trip to Jackson Hole. As always, hover over the images to learn a little about them.

A faithful reader points out that in this shot of the canyon, the mountain on the left (Mt. Owen) is 6000 vertical feet above Kelly and the peak is just one mile as the bird flies from that spot — deeper than the Grand Canyon!

Unexpectedly perfect weather helped make our weekend with Tom and Julie thoroughly enjoyable.

You might be surprised to know that the first shot was made with an iPhone and AutoPano Pro.

My latest scanning project keeps turning up gems. I am so glad I shot this panorama of Wolstenholme Fjord — purportedly the only place on earth where three active glaciers join together. If I could have anticipated today’s technology, I might have made a much more detailed shot than this one – consisting of just two images shot with my trusty Pentax ME Super on grainy Plus-X way back in 1986.

I did a Google search, and I could not find any other photograph that shows all three of these glaciers in a single shot. Yay me!

I have mentioned this invaluable tool before at thedude.com, but it’s worth mentioning again.

My workhorse lens is a rather cheap Nikkor 24-85 mm. Although sharpness is acceptable, the lens suffers from complex distortion. At the widest zoom setting, the distortion is like a wave – barrel distortion in the center and pincushion at the corners. This causes very annoying “M” shaped lines near the outer edges of the frame.

 
One answer to this problem would be to spend a bundle on the excellent Nikkor 24-70 mm lens I’ve been coveting for some time. It’s considered one of Nikon’s best lenses ever and, unfortunately, that is reflected in its price.

The other answer was to whip out the versatile PTLens. This $25 program runs stand-alone or as a PhotoShop plugin. Using it could not be simpler. Just open the image in PTLens and click Apply to completely eliminate distortions introduced by your particular lens. PTLens does this by reading image EXIF data and applying corrections from its extensive lens database. PhotoShop’s built-in Lens Correction tool can not do what PTLens does. It’s amazing.

PTLens can be used in other ways too. It can eliminate Chromatic Aberration and be used to simulate the effect provided by view camera tilts and swings. A must-have tool!

Yay! I just received the 2010 Autopano Panobook, and look what I found on page 150!

View the original image here and here.

One of the most charming events we’ve seen this holiday season is the Oakland ZooLights. Periodically, the tens of thousands of Christmas lights are set to music in a dazzling light show. Fun for kids and bah-humbuggers alike!

I love barter. In trade for some web work, I get days at this fabulous house. This works out great for everyone involved, but the biggest beneficiary is definitely me. Its on trips like this that I am reminded how great my friends are and that I have the most wonderful wife in the world. Lucky me!

With temperatures on the bay hovering around 50 degrees, it might not have been an ideal day for a Hornblower Cruise. Nevertheless, the mighty IT team braved the elements and posed for the obligatory group shot.