wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: stories, please
Gabi Haindl 2004-Sep-26 22:38:00
Hello all!
Here is my story:
I missed the last WWP so I wanted to participate this time by all
means. We took off the week of the WWP to have enough time to find a
nice bridge around here. The previous week was really nice weather, but
... as always here in Germany, if you need some nice weather, you can
be sure it will rain.
Saturday, the first day of the WWP.
The sun was shining but the weather report told us it will not last
long. All the shops here are closed on Sundays, so we got food and
other things we needed for the weekend. With all batteries loaded and
the cams and tripod in the car, we (myself Gabi and Jo my partner, a
panographer too) drove to the Odenwald - that's a nice region nearby. I
got a tip from a coworker who is a motorcyclist and loves to drive the
smallest, curviest streets he can find. After more than an hour, we
arrived at the bridge. It's not a famous one, not even a big tourist
attraction, but it's nice.
The Himb?chel Viaduct: It's a single-track bridge on the Odenwald
railroad. From hill to hill, It spans a distance of 250 meters, and a
height of 40 meters. It has ten spans made of sandstone collected from
local quarries, and concrete foundations for each. It was built in
1880-81 by the company Karl Wei?huhn from Toppau in Silesia.
One pano tripod and two photographers .... guess what happend ... ;)
I took some panos of the bridge, then I passed the tripod to Jo who
wanted to have a look at another nearby bridge, which we drove over on
the way, to photograph a seperate entry for himself. Wandering around
with my cam, I made a few handheld panos and found an even better place
for the bridge pano. In the meantime, the sun was getting lower and
lower and due to the hills, there was not much time left. Just in time,
the tripod came back and I shot my pano .... only to discover ten
minutes later that I made it with completely wrong settings for the
head. Running back to the location, I tried again ... but the shadow of
the hill already covered the bottom and back of my pano. ... well ...
tomorrow is another sunny day, I thought.
Next morning, sunday:
It's gray-on-gray outside, with an intermittent rain. Nothing suitable
for a fisheye. Okay, enough days still left. I was playing with the
wideangle adapter and the tripod head in my home and made my first high
resolution pano.
Monday:
Same again. Typical german weather. In the afternoon, the clouds opened
a bit - I wouldn't call it sunshine, but a bit better than a complete
white or gray sky. We were headed to Frankfurt, the largest town near
where we live. Jo took some panos old bridges over the Main from some
unusual viewpoints and I tried my new settings at a special bridge in
the streets. I didn't want to take some bad weather panos of Eiserner
Steg, which I already have in the sunshine on my website.
It took me later a long time to figure out what I had panographed. It's
part of the old town hall, the old, not the historic (that's the R?mer
itself). Two buildings, built 1900-1908 connected with a bridge over
the street. 27 photos with my wideangle adapter and my Coolpix 5000,
the sun playing hide and seek with me at the end. Okay, still some days
left ...
Tuesday:
We'd had a strong wind since last night. Bad for another bridge that I
found some weeks ago in the journal of the youth hostels in Germany. I
called them to see if they have opened yet and they said yes. A bit
more than two hours to drive. And unbelievable, the weather got better
and better. Sun and clouds alternating. The "bridges" were in
Pf?lzerwald / North Vosges near the german/french border: The Biosphere
House with the Baumwipfelpfad. The Baumwipfelpfad is a nature trail,
running at a height of 18 meters over ground through the woods. It's
270 meters long and parts of it lead over suspension-, plate- and
rope-bridges. We had a lot fun. Sadly it was not possible to place the
tripod on all of them due to the lack of solid ground. That's the only
nature trail of its kind in Germany. With a bunch of raw panos we
headded home after a fun day.
Wednesday
... only rain, but we had enough panos to choose from. But ... the
perfect pano is not among them. I would have liked to have a high
resolution, fun one with sunlight. I have some nice panos with sun from
the viaduct, but not the hightest resolution I can do. I have a high
resolution pano of a building-to-building bridge in Frankfurt, but with
bad light. And some really fun ones, but due to the location made with
normal circle fisheye and ... hm ... a bit sun.
So I'm sitting here, no idea which one I should pick. Everyone I ask
prefers another one.
I have one favourite of every location. The one made with the
misaligned tripodhead (yes, it stitched well) wwp09, the only one from
Frankfurt wwp17 or the rope bridge with a slight Myst feeling wwp30.
But I'm still pondering about which to pick.
What I have is on my website (not yet open for public, but for the wwp
mailinglist): http://www.kugelblick.de/wwp/wwp_en.html
The panos may change. I'm still fighting with the Frankfurt one.
Looking forward to see more great panos of the listmembers!
Greetings from Germany!
Gabi Haindl
www.kugelblick.de