johnbernstravelblog

I have fallen in love with panoramic travel photos. The larger field of view of a panoramic landscape creates a dramatic impact that can never be achieved with a regular photo no matter how wide-angle the lens is.

I had recently had an urge to do more travel photography and I had seen some OK digital panoramic travel photos that I thought were pretty cool. So when I was at a friend’s office and saw a copy of “360 Degree Imaging: The Photographer’s Panoramic Virtual Reality Manual� (copyright 2003, but still valid; web site here) on his bookshelf, I borrowed it and read it when I got home. It’s a great book that is simple enough for the layman to understand but technical enough for the most hard-core travel photographer and computer geek.

Not only did it cover the techniques of how to shoot and process multiple images into a panoramic image, it had a good overview of the tools, great tips from some masters of the art form. But what really inspired me was sample panoramic photos he had in the book, one in particular “Virgin Gorda� by Cliff Crutchfield. (Scroll down; it’s the last photo on the page.)

I hurried out to the balcony on my apartment and snapped a series of photos of the soi I am living on in Bangkok and, in less than an hour using PanoTools and PTGui for Windows, I had created this panoramic shot looking down on Ramkhamhaeng Soi 52/2. Yes, there are some gaps in the wires running across the street and a few subtle glitches that come from parallax errors due to just winging the shots by hand.

Panoramic Photo of Ramkhamhaeng Soi 52/2, Bangkok, Thailand
(Click for full image.)

I am hooked. Now only if I had a few hundred bucks to blow on some panoramic tripod gear at Kaidan.