I-35 Upper Deck in the Morning Panorama
Morning traffic in Austin is a nightmare, or better yet, a “morningmare”! It’s the worst. The quicker you can get a jump on it, the better. For that reason, I get on the road pretty early so I can beat most of it. However, the rate that the city is growing, the traffic seems to get busier earlier and earlier. Many years ago, Austin thought one way to combat the traffic woes was to put in an upper-deck on the expressway going through downtown that would have not off-ramps so drivers could take that option to help speed through. It doesn’t seem to really help anymore. But, just off the decks on the southbound side of I-35 near 38 1/2 street lies a new office building which went up and has an 8-level parking garage. It’s free to go into and it has a great view of the decks. That’s where I took this 7-shot panorama.
If you know what you are doing and have the right gear, panoramas can be pretty easy and fun. For me, not so much. But, I did learn a lot about panoramas after taking and processing this photo. It still needs a little work, but for me, I think it works. The things I learned are as follows:
1. To take a proper panorama, one must know the “nodal point” of the lens of choice. The nodal point is basically the area “inside the lens where the light paths cross before being focused onto a film plane.” That point is where you want the actual camera to pivot from while you take your shots for a panorama. That way, when it’s time to stitch your shots together, the stitching software can blend the shots together as accurately as possible. Otherwise, you will get some wild and unfortunate problems from stitching to distortion (other than normal pano distortion, that is). Also, to figure out the nodal point, you will need a proper head and/or bracket for your tripod.
2. If you can’t use a tripod or even if you have a tripod and not the right head or bracket, you can still take a decent panorama, but be prepared to fix a lot of stitching issues and perspective/distortion problems. I ran into a lot of those with this shot, but a photographer out there named Klaus Herrmann, aka Farbspiel, who takes some great vertical panoramas (or vertoramas), has some great processing techniques that were invaluable. His distortion correction video was a big help! I learned a lot from that video and I also learned a lot from his “making of” videos. However, if you watch those, be prepared to pause and play quite often because his techniques are quite extensive and he speeds up the vids about 10 times as fast as normal! However, you can still get a lot out of them! Those “making of” videos really helped me fix stitching problems.
3. To take a good panorama, put your camera in portrait orientation, meter the main subject in the pano with your camera, note the camera’s aperture and shutter settings, switch to manual mode and input those setting accordingly. Then take all the shots to compose the pano with those settings. That way, you won’t have any blending problems in post-processing.
I guess those are the main things I’ve learned. I hope you enjoy the shot and thanks for visiting!
Expressway Upper and Lower Decks Vertorama
This is a vertorama (aka a vertical panorama) of I-35 in downtown Austin. It’s comprised of 5 landscape-oriented shots stitched together in Photoshop to make an almost 180 degree vertical view of what one would see if standing on one of the cross bridges. I think I could’ve captured this with a fish-eye lens as well, but alas, I don’t have one. Lastly, I was hoping to make this an HDR, but I think this turned out nicely without.
Misty Texas Capitol
There’s a parking garage at 9th and Lavaca which affords one a great view of the Texas capitol. It’s a great angle for a morning shot because the sun rises in the background. I was hoping for that on this day, but instead the weather decided to be misty and drizzly. I’m glad it was because I think I’m happier with this shot than I would have been had it been a clear day!
Colorado Capitol at Sunrise
When we went to Denver last year, Eileen and I got up a little early to tour the US Mint. The Mint in Denver makes all of the coins that we use from pennies to quarters and more. The Mint in San Francisco makes all of the coin proofs. Pretty cool stuff. However, don’t get me started on all of this printing and coining money, but it was cool to see how it is done. On the way to the Mint, we saw the Colorado capitol building. We didn’t have time to go inside, but I did shoot off a few hand-held brackets from the outside. The shot turned out pretty good, but it has a couple of flaws. Overall though, I like it. Too bad it had the scaffolding around it, but it guess it’s a companion to this shot of the Texas capitol I took a while ago…
Food Trailers by the Chevron
Song Stuck In My Head
Sorry, but I had to get this out there… I heard this song on a commercial the other day and I just can’t shake it. I thought I’d share it because it’s just so catchy! I hated disco then and still hate it now, but this thing just grabs me for some reason. Granted, it’s not totally disco, but it has a sort of disco beat to it. But beware, it’s catchy and you might have the same problem as me as far as sleeping goes… None! 😉 Click at your own risk! BTW… Is the lead singer’s name “Sniff”? 😉 “Driver’s Seat, Driver’s seat, yeahhh!!!”
Another View From Butler Park
My previous post showed a view of the Austin skyline with portions of Butler Park included. But as I mentioned, it was hard to include portions of Butler Park from the top of the hill along with the Austin skyline due to the wonderful fitness classes going on. So, I had to make due and decided to zoom in on some of the more iconic buildings in order to not have people in spandex ruining the scene. The shot shows a few of the bigger buildings in Austin.. From left you have the Frost Bank building (aka the nose hair trimmer, the owl),then you have the Austonian (the tallest building in the city), then there’s the Ashton, 100 Congress and lastly, One Congress Plaza.
Austin Skyline Reflection
Butler Park is a nice little place across the street from Auditorium Shores near the Long Center in Austin. You can really get some great views of the skyline from there. However, I don’t recommend going to the benches at the top of the little hill on the right there unless you just want to take in the sites. You see, if you want to get some photos, you may have a little trouble. Butler Park seems to be a magnet for fitness freaks who like to run up and down the hill and get in the way of perfectly nice photo opportunities. The nerve of those people! Trying to better themselves by staying in shape while making it difficult for me to get my shot! In a public place, no less! Why it makes me want to… Wait, I know.. Live and let live. I’m just kidding anyway. But if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have found this neat little pond and gotten this shot of the skyline. So really, it all worked out for the best! Thanks, you fitness freaks!
8th and Congress
This isn’t a shot that I would normally post, but when I processed it I noticed that there was a kind of cool feature that caught my eye… You see, I took this shot a little hastily on my way to work and as you can tell, I was kind of in the street when I shot it. But, after I processed it, I noticed that there was this shaft of blue light coming from the top right of the shot that I thought was quite interesting. It probably is a sign of a crappy photographer, but maybe it means something else?
Finally Back to Weird
Transition to Full Frame Complete!
I’m so jacked about having a full-frame DSLR with full-frame glass, I cannot contain myself! I never thought I’d actually own one, ever! But, after a few years of waiting, it finally paid off. It’s kind of like buying a luxury car, at least for us.. First you start with a “reasonably priced car” (as they would say on Top Gear) and then trade or sell for one that’s a little nicer and then trade or sell that one for one a little nicer, and so on and so on. After doing that for a few times, you can finally have the car, or in my case camera, that you want. I started with a Nikon D90 (reasonably priced), then went to a Nikon D300s (a little nicer) and now I have a Nikon D700 (luxury – for me anyway)! Granted, I bought it used, but it’s still awesome! Then, I sold my lenses (glass in photographer geek-speak) on ebay and used that money for new full-frame glass. Now I’m in full-frame nirvana! It handles noise so much better than my old cameras and it’s just a better camera all around. From the buffer size and speed to the size of the viewfinder, it’s just great! There are only a couple of things that my old cameras had that this one doesn’t.. The D700 only has one memory card slot. My D300s had a CF and an SD card slot so you could really pack in the pics. The other thing my old cameras had that this one doesn’t is a button for live view. The D700 has live view, but it’s on the select dial on the top and it’s not really easy to get to. I wish I could change one of the other buttons for this. I know you can change the function button, but I have that set for bracketing as most of the shots I take need to be bracketed. If only there was another button.. Oh well. Overall I’m ecstatic!
Finally Back To Weird
Since all of my glass finally arrived, I was just itching to get out there and get some HDRs with the new camera. So, on my way to work Friday morning, I stopped on South Congress Ave in Austin and took a few shots. The conditions weren’t the best as it was very drizzly out there, but I got several shots anyway. This is a shot of Doc’s Bar and Grill.
The last couple of weeks, Austin hosted the big South By Southwest (SXSW) music/film/tech festival. Now that it has wrapped, I think the people at Doc’s are happy. You see Austin has this saying, “Keep Austin Weird” which is pretty much “normal” for Austinites, and I guess Doc’s is happy that things are getting back to “normal”. The other side of the same sign says, “S Bye SW”. That was my other clue. 🙂 To be honest, I’m glad it’s over as well.
Tetons and Snake River
Ansel Adams took one of the most beautiful shots ever from a view overlooking the Snake River with the Teton mountains above. It is an iconic shot and is one of his most famous. Below is the one I’m talking about:
I don’t think I could ever accomplish anything close to his stuff and I must admit I’m a bit uncomfortable even trying to compare my work to his for that matter, but in this case I think the best I can do is at least compare locations. From there it’s all technique and he is the best and always will be. So, my try from his spot is this:
Our tour guide from Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris is the one who recommended that we stop here and subsequently took us to this famous spot. The location even has a little marker that talks about Ansel Adams’ picture and how famous it really is. So, I just had to try it myself and see how I could do. I must say, it’s my favorite from the trip! I really like how the light from the sunrise hits the tops of the trees in the foreground. I also like the cloud formation halfway up the mountains from the temperature inversion at this time of the morning. However, it’s no match to Ansel’s great image. He had a great sky and a wonderful view of the river and was able to convey that like no other. I bow to the master!
One thing I found interesting though, is the difference in the size of the trees in the foreground and how much of a difference there is between the two photos. Ansel Adams’ shot, which was taken in 1942 I think, shows a lot of the river due to the trees’ youth. Now the trees are so much bigger and the view is very different. From what our tour guide told us, apparently there are some people that would like these trees torn down so as to get a better photo like the one from Mr. Adams. I must say, I am not one of those people…
Texas Capitol From SoCo
Ahh, the things I do for getting a nice shot… Well, I guess “nice” is relative, but I digress.. This shot was taken from South Congress Ave looking north through downtown Austin to the Capitol Building. As you can see I stood in the middle of the road to get the shot. “What a death-defying feat of uncommon bravery,” you must be thinking to yourself.. Well, stupid maybe, but not that brave. Really there wasn’t a lot of traffic on this morning so it was pretty easy and non-eventful to get this shot. Here it is..
Also, South Congress Ave or SoCo as it’s known in these parts has some eclectic (aka weird) shops and boutiques that the trendy patronize. It’s an interesting area. Click here to see some examples to which I refer…
Enjoy the shot and thanks for dropping by!
Evan's Expo 