Picture This

Our Favorite Reader Photos from the Panorama Assignment

Shutterbug Staff | Dec 19, 2014

Grand Teton Range Sunrise, Clearing Storm
Alan W. Cole shot this image of the Grand Tetons in late September just as a fall storm cleared. The panorama is actually composed of two photos that were HDR processed and then stitched together using Photoshop. Cole used a Nikon D700 with an 80-200mm f/2.8 lens.
© Alan W. Cole

Our Picture This! assignment this month was Panorama and thanks, in part, to some recent technical leaps in digital cameras, we received an array of impressive panoramic images. Some were created with panoramic “sweep mode” (in-camera stitch), which has made creating a panorama as easy as pressing the button and sweeping the camera in front of the vista before you. Others were comprised of a series of images that were stitched together in software on a computer. While there was really no wrong way to do it, because the process has become so easy, many images looked very similar. On the next few pages, check out the grand panoramic images we felt really stood out from the pack.

Siena Hillside
David Veal captured this image with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828 digital camera at 10mm at f/4, 1/80 sec, ISO 64.
© David Veal

Napa Carneros Region, Swing Lens Pan
To capture the Carneros wineries, which are adjacent to the Napa Valley, Leon Rafner used a Horizon 202 swing lens camera mounted on a tripod with a 24x58mm negative using Fuji G-100 film. The exposure was f/11 at 1/125 sec. The negative was later scanned on an Epson 4870 flatbed and tweaked in Photoshop. “I liked the soft rolling hills, and did not apply any additional sharpening to the image,” Rafner says.
© Leon Rafner

Sunflowers
“After shooting images for a panorama with my Canon 5D Mark II, just for the heck of it I shot a panorama with my iPhone 4s,” Gary Cole says. “None of the panoramas from the 5D Mark II looked as good as this. The only post-processing is some level adjustments in CS5.”
© Gary Cole

Casco Bay, Early Morning
Morrow Jones stitched this image together from multiple exposures shot with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28. Jones says the image captures “the serenity of early morning on the coast of Maine in midsummer.”
© Morrow Jones

Painted Hills
“The Painted Hills are part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument near central Oregon,” Geri Reddy writes about this shot. “The colors turn wonderful hues of red, yellow, and black as the sun goes down in the afternoon.” The image was captured with a Canon EOS 40D, a Canon 100-400mm IS lens at 100mm, 1/4 sec at f/18, ISO 200.
© Geri Reddy

A Gathering Of Giraffe
Upon entering Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, Timothy Van Minnick spotted this group of Masai giraffe in a line parallel to the road. The image was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens at 105mm. Exposure was 1/1000 sec at f/8, ISO 400. The image was cropped to the panoramic format.
© Timothy Van Minnick

Extremes
Bob Larson says this image is the result of 12 combined shots taken from the top of the Granite Dells at Willow Lake in Prescott, Arizona, during a monsoon storm.
© Bob Larson

Monsoon Season
Charles Nauman captured this photo with a Nikon D7100 and a Nikkor 55-300mm lens at f/16, 1/1000 sec, ISO 200.
© Charles Nauman

Storm Over The Palouse
John Murphy says this image was captured in the Palouse region of Washington on a very stormy day.
© John Murphy

Picture This! – Our Next Assignment
The Decisive Moment
French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, considered to be the father of photojournalism, was a master at capturing exquisitely timed, candid images. For Cartier-Bresson, recording “the decisive moment” (which was the title, in French, of a book of his photos) meant photographing real-life subject matter neither too early, nor too late, but at the peak of emotion and expression. For this month’s assignment, we’re looking for candid photos that capture Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment.” These could be street photos, photojournalism, sports images, or anything where precise photographic timing helps record a wonderful instant in time.

A Decisive Moment In Italy
This photo was shot at the Vatican in Italy. The spiral staircase is amazing and I captured several frames of it but I like this image the best because of the positioning of the groups of people and the two lone women: one gazing up as she walks and the other peering down over the edge of the railing. It was captured with a Pentax K-5 with the lens at 18mm, f/7.1, 1/250 sec, ISO 3200.
© Dan Havlik

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2. Check the assignment and closing dates in the magazine. When the magazine is printed we will create an appropriate gallery for your images. The limit is two images per assignment.

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Scorecard
Deadline For Submission: December 15, 2014.
Images will appear in our March 2015 issue.

Our Next Topic: Winter Wonder
Deadline: January 15, 2015
Publication Date: April, 2015

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