Miguel Madaíl de Freitas - CGI - 3D - Photo Retouching - Photography - Design » Panoramas

Santa Cruz – Formosa Beach

Madail — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:18:29 +0000

Another panorama taken in the same place as many in this photoblog – Santa Cruz. This one was very hard to do, because of the hard changes in exposure, so trying to maintain a balance between dark and bright areas was critical. Hopefully i will have a better camera in time, with higher specifications to allow me to produce better shots.

Exif Information:

Date Taken: 2004:03:01 00:29:47
Width: 1704 pixels
Height: 2272 pixels
Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: DiMAGE Z3
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Time: 1/1000 sec
Fstop: f/8
Lens: 5.859375 mm

Catarina by the sea of Santa Cruz

Madail — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:05:44 +0000

We spent a very nice day in Santa Cruz, a small seaside village, near Óbidos. It’s a beautiful place. This panorama was taken with several photos that i merged together. The most difficult part is to be able to keep the details of moving objects, such as the waves, without the mixing being to noticeable. I like the duality on cool, non saturated look in the water against the two colored parts, the rock and my wife. The compostition really helps our eyes to get caught in the immense rock, and then drift away to check all little details, like the water splashes, the waves, etc.

Exif Information:

Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: Dimage Z3
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Time: 1/160 sec
Fstop: f/8
Lens: 24 mm

Santa Cruz beach

Madail — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:57:58 +0000

Another panorama taken with multiple photos and merged together later. This time took in a beach in Santa Cruz. It’s a great place for surfers, fishermen and travelers looking for nice photos. It depicts a local man fishing near one huge rock, an icon from these place. Fortunately, the beach was uncrowded, which makes it a whole lot nicer to enjoy the landscape.

Exif Information:

Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: DiMAGE Z3
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Time: 1/160 sec
Fstop: f/8
Lens: 6 mm

Catarina in Ponta dos Corvos

Madail — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:06:16 +0000

This time we went to a close city in the south of Lisbon, called Seixal. Amongst other interesting features, it has a very nice spot, in a extense and thin stretch of land, filled with marshes and water mills. It was there, in Ponta dos Corvos (Raven’s End sounds a nice translation), where in the low tide we can get by foot to some large sandbanks. This is part of a larger panorama, again with my favorite shooting subject, my wife.

Panorama of Almada

Madail — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:06:15 +0000

Panorama of Almada, city located in the south side of Lisbon. This isn’t a typical view, i’m sure many will even ask where is this from. That’s exactly why i took it. I’ve taken several photographs with a tripod, and then merged them together using Autodesk Stitcher Software. I’ve also applied some color correction in Photoshop to enhance the look i was after.

Abandoned Sofa

Madail — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:18:28 +0000

Taken in an abandoned water mill, the remains of some weird furniture set, a sofa, standing in the middle of nowhere… I wouldn’t put a single finger in it, and i pity whoever used it for what reason. Nevertheless, who knows, maybe this lonely couch was the only company to someone even lonelier…

I’ve taken 3 photos which i merged together as a panorama. Then i used Photoshop to change a lot the colors, lighting, mood and focus points to give it a touch of enlightenment vs darkness feeling, with the sofa acting as a hero in this mix. Below you can see the original stitched panorama before any editing.

More images:

Exif Information:

Date Taken: 2009:10:21 19:32:05
Width: 2272 pixels
Height: 1704 pixels
Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: DiMAGE Z3
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Time: 1/15 sec
Fstop: f/5.6
Lens: 13.89 mm

360º Room Panorama

Madail — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:02:22 +0000

Heres a nice 360º horizontal panorama from my very own working space. Nice open space, good to clear our thoughts and let ideas flow. I’ve done this for using it as a background and lighting source for 3D images, shot using different exposures and multiple shots, merged together and color graded, resulting in a final HDR panorama, ready to use.

Exif Information:

Date Taken: 2004:03:01 18:57:00
Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: Dimage Z3
ISO Speed: 50
Exposure Time: 1/2 sec
Fstop: f/2.8
Lens: 6 mm

Big, Happy Family!

Madail — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:26:09 +0000

Wow, this is some crazy mambojambo cloning madness!! No, we dont have multiple twins neither, eheh

What’s going on here is that i’ve used the same technique as i do with the panorama creation. I take multiple shots from the same location, but in each photo i move the tripod a bit to the side, set the timer, and go back to place and change position. Then its a hard task in Photoshop to make all the image seem seamless, with some harder tasks as masking some bodies in front or in the back of another set.

In the end, we get a nice panoramic view of a single scenario, with multiple people in it.

I can say that buying a tripod was a great investment, since from there i started making some panoramas, and opens new possibilities and techniques impossible before.

Exif Information:

Date Taken: 2009:09:24 03:18:59
Width: 1704 pixels
Height: 2272 pixels
Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: DiMAGE Z3
ISO Speed: 50
Exposure Time: 1/100 sec
Fstop: f/3.2
Lens: 8.32 mm

Sunset Panorama in Fonte da Telha

Madail — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:10:18 +0000

This is a 180º horizontal panorama, taken in Fonte da Telha, an awesome beach near Lisbon. In the far left side of the image is ”Cabo Espichel” and you can see the typical clouds above Sintra in the right side. I’ve placed the tripod in the edge of the cliffs and taken several shots which i then merged and stitched together to create this unique panorama shot. As i don’t own a panorama lens or camera, using this technique is a great way of making panoramas. The trickiest part in this is to get the lighting and exposure correct for all photos – you have to use manual mode and know about photography! – and make sure that alignment is perfect.
Needless to say, you also need a good dose of post-production skills and patience in order to correct imperfections. In this particular case, making sure the shore line is seamless makes all the difference.

This is also great to use in a CGI environment, with it i can have a background for my scene, a reflection layer for shiny objects, and if i had this in HDR format, i would also be able to use it as a ultra realistic light source.. So let’s put some 3D spaceship (cliché! ) and render!…maybe i’ll post a tutorial on that.

More Photos:

Exif Information:

Date Taken: 2009:09:20 19:06:01
Width: 2272 pixels
Height: 1704 pixels
Equipment Make: Konica Minolta
Camera Model: DiMAGE Z3
ISO Speed: 50
Exposure Time: 1/640 sec
Fstop: f/2.8
Lens: 5.86 mm