The Wide-Angle... Panorama!

So, above is a link to my latest panorama. It's a 210-degree, 63-shot HDR. I'll go through the process of arriving at the final product...

First... find something that's worth photographing. My friend and I are quasi-avid ghost town hunters. So, on Saturday (June 11), we decided to drive around the rural high desert in southern Tooele County, in Northwest Utah. We came across the remains above on a dirt road near an abandoned mine.

Second... Once you've scouted it out and like what you find, you should set up your gear. I use my tripod:



I use a pano head, which attaches to the above tripod and allows my camera to pivot on the nodal point of the lens. My awesome brother-in-law, Paul Jeran, made this one for me, but there are several others out there on the commercial market:



Here's what my tripod looks like with the pano head mounted on it:



Third... you need to know what the nodal point is on your lens, and set up the pano head so that it pivots at the correct point. The type of lens AND camera dictate the settings. I'm using a Nikon D300 and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.

Fourth... execute! After setting up the gear, and fastening the camera to said gear, fire away. To get this particular shot I:

Set my lens to f/8
Set my camera for a 9-exposure bracket at 1 stop
Shot at 15mm
Rotated the pano head at 30 degrees per shot

Here is what the base of my pano head looks like. It's marked off in 2-degree increments:



I highly advise using a remote trigger to minimize tripod shake.

Finally... I returned home, dumped the card on to my server, exported them into PT Gui, and off I went! Voila! The above pano is ready for editing in Photoshop!

I also uploaded other, non-pano, non-HDR photos to my Rural Decay in Tooele County set...

You can see them by clicking here: Rural Decay, June, 2011

Hope you enjoy! Thanks for stopping by!