wwp@yahoogroups.com:
My Equinox Weekend
bryant_arnett 2005-Apr-16 09:55:00
Hi.
It has been an incredible few weeks following the happenings here in
the group and making my way through all of the submissions. It really
does take hours to go through them all. It is an incredible
collection! Congratulations to all of the participants and thanks to
the organizers. I'm very proud to be a part of it. I captured a few
more QTVRs over the event weekend, and one of them I liked enough to
make it a runner up. I finally stitched a bunch of them together
quickly and present them here along with the story of my weekend.
My Equinox adventure began on Friday the 18th when I was about to
drive out of town for the weekend. I had no idea what I was going to
shoot here in the LA area, and the idea of going up to Ventura, an
area I know very little about, made the subject of my panorama even
more in question. I decided to just let the picture find me.
The plan was to drive up to Ventura to a Presbyterian Church men's
retreat for a time of meditation, prayer, and golf. It was raining in
southern California and on the way out of town I noticed this strange
outdoor market in the rain. It was a market of cast iron outdoor lawn
ornaments, so I guess the rain didn't matter much. There was an
umbrella sticking in one of the cast iron tables, and I figured it
might offer a little protection from the rain, so I parked my car,
asked the owner for permission, quickly ran under the umbrella, stuck
up my tripod and started shooting. I was wrong about the umbrella
offering protection. The wind was blowing!
http://unrealaudio.net/bryant/bryant_images/cast_iron_marketplace.htm
So then I headed up the coast toward Ventura. On Saturday morning,
after a bit of the prayer and meditation business I mentioned earlier,
the other guys decided the weather was clear enough for some golf. I
had never golfed before, and I figured the rain might come back (and
besides I really wanted to go shoot a world wide panorama) so instead
I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed out. First, I visited the
antique district and realized there is not much to see unless you are
actually inside the stores. With my standard tripod the parallax error
is just too much to contend with in close quarters, so I decided to
keep looking for something else outdoors with a bit of distance to it.
As I was walking down the street, I was suddenly greeted head on by a
couple of hundred people on a peace march toward an anti-war rally. I
quickly set up my tripod and started clicking away. I discovered
something else about my limited setup. Without a wide angle lens, it's
hard to get people's whole body, especially when they are in motion
and close to you. It's also hard to see the whole bunch of people when
you are on the same sidewalk with them. So here is a quick stitch of
some slightly truncated war protesters.
http://unrealaudio.net/bryant/bryant_images/ventura_peace_march.htm
After walking up the street with them for a while, I decided to drop
into a local saloon for a beverage. While I was there, the bartender
was asking me what I was shooting. I told him about the WWP, and then
proceeded to make a very poor handheld shot from the beer's eye view?.
http://unrealaudio.net/bryant/bryant_images/beverage.htm
There is some seriously bad parallax error in that one... Iguess I was
trying to do my best Jack Torrance impression (from Kubrick's The
Shining).
So from there I wandered down the street and wasted some time trying
to get a shot of the front of the Mission San Buenaventura (the light
was great for the first few shots then fell into a dark overcast, and
I did it handheld and besides, I discovered later that Don already had
that one covered, too!). So then I hopped in the car and headed down
to the pier for a while. The sun was starting to come out and it was
turning out to be a beautiful day.
http://unrealaudio.net/bryant/bryant_images/venturapier.htm
Hmm? I guess I was really getting away from the Marketplace theme.
Well, I figured I had at least one good shot in the can with the cast
iron market in the rain, so the following day, after a fish and chips
lunch at Andrea's Seafood Restaurant at Ventura Harbor with some of
the guys from the retreat (they patiently waited while I took this
shot of the scuba diving school, it didn't turn out very well)?
http://unrealaudio.net/bryant/bryant_images/venturaharbor.htm
I headed home. It was getting late in the day when I was cruising down
highway 118. One of the guys had suggested I keep my eye out for a
fruit stand he had spotted on the way in.
After driving for a while, as the sun was getting low in the sky, I
came upon the Petersen Ranch Fruit Stand. What an amazing place! The
owner said he didn't mind if I took a picture, as long as I mailed him
a copy. At first I tried to explain that it could only really be
viewed on a computer, and I would give him a link, but he didn't seem
to like that idea, so I promised him a print and started setting up.
Two major problems presented themselves. First and most obvious was
the lighting. The sun was low and the fruit was in complete shade.
Second, a huge crowd of people showed up to buy fruit and completely
surrounded me and my tripod for several minutes. You don't realize how
quickly the light changes at this time of day, even over the course of
just a few minutes, until you are shooting a panorama! I ended up
getting two complete sets of pictures with two completely different
exposure settings. Then, since another huge crowd was approaching, I
packed up and completely forgot to get the "straight down" shot. Ooops.
The next week turned out to be a painful and educational experience in
stitching different exposure images with really bad parallax error.
Finally, it was done just in time for the deadline. Despite the
difficulty I had in putting it together, I was happy with the final
product. There are still a bunch of things I would fix if I had more
time! This week I made a print of the image and this weekend I plan to
visit the Petersen Ranch Fruit Stand again, this time with my wife and
kids, to deliver the picture and get some more strawberries.
Here it is?
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp305/html/BryantArnett.html
The main thing I learned is that parallax error is destroying me. I
decided it was time to do something so I took some measurements and
had a bracket made by a sheet metal shop for my tripod that fits my
camera perfectly. I just picked it up today and I can't believe the
difference it has made. Now I think I can finally make some images in
smaller spaces. I just did a quick test in my kitchen, and the
stitching is already SO MUCH EASIER.
Well, anyway, thanks for letting me share my story. Looking forward to
the Solstice? H2O
Bryant