Snow Clouds over Western New York State

I've been wanting to play with Photoshop cs3's photomerge (aka photostitch) capabilities for awhile now. I don't really know why I waited - it was SO easy!!

When I woke up this morning, I saw this amazing snow cloud to the south. They predicted snow today, but only for the "South Towns", which around here means "the Snow Belt". It's amazing how there can be a very well defined line between where the snow is falling and where it is sunny. This is one of the best defined cloud banks I've seen on the snow belt. By the way, it has been sitting there on the horizon like that for several hours now.

So I braved the single digit temps this morning to walk across the street and shoot some shots of the horizon. What you're looking at is four separate shots. The photomerge features in Photoshop cs3 are AMAZING! It was very easy to blend the four shots into one. Voila!

I have posted a larger file of the same shot to my website. If you have a wide screen, check it out and let me know what you think.

Now I'm inside, staying warm and drinking lots of hot coffee!

Any comments or ratings are appreciated! :-)

i like the pano, you probably know this but you can get a bigger pic if you hold your camera vertical. it takes more shots but it's worth it sometimes. have you ever used Autostitch? it's free and it works pretty good. Great shot! late.

jedly

I used to do this with my pocket-sized Canon, but I didn't know to lock up the exposure, so there were always lightness differences.

 

 

There are two main reasons to stitch images together - to get really wide and to increase resolution. Your choice of the extreme long end of your zoom makes it seem that you wanted more pixels. Or maybe you just wanted to try out the photostitch facility.

 

 

In any case, it might have been better to use the lens a little wider, or perhaps at its extreme wide end, taking fewer exposures and having more space at the top and bottom. That might also allow you to crop out the curvy bits near the bottom centre, if those bits are related to a lens problem (I know that lens is exceptionally good). Did you get the camera as high as you could?

Thank you for your comments!

 

Jamie - to address some of your specific comments ... (1) I wanted a very, very wide image to show the extent of the cloud on the horizon. (2) At the same time, yes, I wanted to try the photostitch capabilities of cs3. (3) These shots were at the lens' most narrow setting (22mm). (4) I didn't necessarily want the camera pointed higher because the sky had nothing interesting in it ... in other words, I figured that the snowy field would provide a better foreground than the sky a background. And, (5) on this shot, I like the distortion around the edges, just to show that I am presenting a ridiculously wide shot and to stress what's going on with the clouds.

 

All of that said, I just spent some time looking through your portfolio. I absolutely defer to your background and talent. Thank you for your comment!

Way too kind!

 

 

Anyway, I was thinking of getting the camera as high as possible on the tripod to allow you to include more of the ground in front of you without too much distortion. You could still have some distortion, it would just allow you to have more ground without MORE distortion.

Ah!! Gotcha! I have to admit that it was SOOOoooo cold out there that I didn't use a tripod ... and the camera was angled as far down as possible without getting my boots in the shot. :-)

 

When I get comments that are very specific with suggestions, I always look at the other person's portfolio before I answer. If the person has lousy shots or none at all, I pretty much disregard. But if I like your work, I can take just about anything you might have to say and I figure that it's constructive. You are now officially welcome to tear apart any of my photos. :-)

 

Hope you're warm where you are!

Given how straight the horizon is, I assumed that you knew that you MUST point the camera horizontally. The wide lens causes the horizon to curve (due to the higher magnification at the edges). Essentially, the lens was designed to portray a fronto-parallel plane. If you point the lens up or down, then you violate that condition so the horizon curves.

No way! I never ever thought of it that way!! Here was my rationale ... I wanted to include the entire cloud and a little bit of the blue above the cloud ... then include as much of the foreground/snow as possible without hitting my boot/toes (and then hurry inside). But when you say that, I totally see what's wrong with the horizon. Thank you SO much! I want to use the stitching features in cs3 more in the future (I'm an aspiring landscape photographer... :-D) and see what a great tool it is. Thank you!!

it really is a fantastic lens. keep it as level as you can when you've got it wide, though. even at 22 mm (which is like 35 mm on a 35-mm camera) it is rather wide.

A very nice panoramic view perfectly exposed, Lou Ann. Congratulations!

Curved, uncurved - don't care. Love this shot! MUST be seen on your web site.

 

Thanks for sharing! This is reason enough for me to upgrade to CS3.

 

Cheers ~

Gorgeous shot - the larger file allows me to appreciate it more. Thanks for all of the discussion - I have learned a thing or two. Regards,