To make my 1500th post here something special. One of my earliest panos, just after switching to digital:
A different harmony 2 April 2005
Technical: All the early panos I made with Panokardan, my own construction panohead for the D70 plus the 24/2.8D Nikkor. Typically I took between 140 and 170 single files and combined them after a preselection to one 200MP equirectangular. When there was movement in the picture, I called this "panotheatre", many people saw it and adapted this technique later, I took up to 550 pictures to selectively choose people and cars and bicycles and animals to include or exclude from the picture. It sometimes took 48 hours to process the file with "autostitch" this then experimental software that is now at the core of the best set of tools on the market called "Autopano" by KOLOR.FR a french company.
The following is an early stitch of Willem van den Hoed playing his piano in Delft in August 2005. The computer was not strong enough to render this immaculately at the time. I did it later, no body parts missing, but I still love what I could do at the time of sampling the picture:
Funny thing is I now have a very fast computer, equipped with the best software. I have the best panohead in the world, a great camera (D600) and Lens (24/1.4G) to create immaculate 800MP shots, but I do not take many panos currently. It is a pity. I should. I should travel more, shoot more, work less, make more holidays. The third pano in the post is one of the few panos I took with the current setup. The Krypta in Maria Laach. 800MP 11.4GB 16 Bit TIFF...
