Back from the Grand Canyon

I got back from an unbelievable trip to the Grand Canyon on Sunday. Went with a remarkable group of people, hiked North rim to South rim, with a bunch of additional day hikes sprinkled throughout my 5 days there. Took lots of pictures - in both color and infrared, but they can't touch the beauty and size of the Canyon. Had a photo buddy on the trip, which made it so fun to shoot, talk "shop", share ideas, and push each other to try new things.

Copyright (C) 2010 Mary Weiland

One new thing I tried was to create panoramic shots by taking several overlapping pictures with the intention of merging them using photo editing software. Not sure why I never tried this before - always wanted to, but had that extra push on this trip to experiment. Keep in mind the following shots were purely experimental and not my best work - just attempting something new.

Copyright (C) 2010 Mary Weiland

I used a tripod in all of my attempts so as to keep the camera at the same level while shooting. I also used the same camera settings (shutter speed, f/stop, etc.) so as to not change the exposure between shots. I overlapped images about 25% to ensure the software would be able to recognize similarities/prominent features and merge the photos at those points.

Copyright (C) 2010 Mary Weiland

I need to learn my photo software better to sew the pictures together...either that, or readjust how to shoot the individual frames. I had trouble aligning the pictures just right and had to use the perspective feature to merge the pictures. I also noticed that I lost some edges of the outer pictures after the merge, and am not quite sure why (e.g., in the river picture, I had more information on the leftmost frame but it was cut off). I had a lot of fun experimenting, but clearly I have a lot to learn! More Grand Canyon pics to come, including experimentation with lightning shots and the night-time sky.