Nighttime Panoramas
For my final project in my Photo 2 class, I decided to take panorama shots at night. Also, I decided that the shots would be taken in recognizable places around campus and around Huntington. My first idea for the project was to take really long exposure shots of the stars and capture how they moved across the sky, but my attempt at this was a failure. So, I decided to do something a little different, but still keep the nighttime aspect of my original concept. I think they turned out pretty well!
Campus at night
Before I had my final plan for what my project was going to be focused on, I walked around campus and took some shots of the roads, grass, and lights. After playing around with my camera’s settings, I was amazed to see how colorful the shots turned out to be, even though it was pretty dark out. Among other things, I took a couple cool photographs of lights. You might see them sometime on my flickr account eventually!
When I got back to my room, I stitched the shots I took of the road together and realized how awesome the picture looked when merged. Because of this, I went out the next night with a couple of my friends to take more shots around Huntington. This time, I knew I wanted to take panoramas, so I brought with me a tripod.
Next to the town hall
The finished shots, when printed out, are 26″ x 8″. I chose this size because it’s the biggest I can go without having to buy a separate sheet of matte board for each shot. Hey, I’m a college student, and those boards are expensive!
Intersection
All in all, I had a great experience doing these shots. A lot of the times when I see panoramas, they are taken in the day. I wanted to do something a little different, but still show off the visual eye-candy associated with panoramic shots. I think taking the shots during the night helped boost that effect.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments section below! And please, don’t hesitate to give negative feedback. That’s how I grow.
These look great! I’m especially fond of the color variations of the lights in that first shot.
I’d just revist the stop sign in your third shot. The post itself may need to be re-stitched towards the base.
Beautiful clarity, and a great tone in these. Well done!
May 6, 2010 @ 10:20 am
these are lovely! and i agree with matt- the light variations in the first are gorgeous. awesome work. i definitely have a soft spot for panoramas.
May 6, 2010 @ 2:20 pm
Thanks for the comments guys!
@Matt: Yeah, I was surprised how vibrant the colors were when I first took them. Wow, I didn’t even notice the stop sign until you mentioned it! I spent a couple hours fixing problems up like that, but I guess I missed it. Thanks for noticing!
@Danelle: Yeah, I’ve always liked panoramas. I’ve done a few others on vacation of the Smoky Mountains (here’s one), but these are the first ones I’ve done at night.
May 6, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
These are awesome because through your eyes I now see things I would not have– since my vision at night stinks. Thanks for revealing the beautiful colors. I love the first and second shots especially. Smoky Mountain Pan is cool too. Thanks for sharing!
May 10, 2010 @ 8:49 pm
Very nice! Wow, I never thought to do panoramas at night! Thanks for sharing! Did you use Photoshop? When you wrote you spent hours “fixing things like that”. What did you have to fix? Can you remove the stop sign altogether? I look forward to playing with this idea. Good luck with finals this week!
May 11, 2010 @ 9:47 am
Thanks for the comments!
@Wendy: Yeah, I used Photoshop to stitch the photos together. I used the Automated Photomerge tool, then went through and patched up the spots it wasn’t able to stitch together. With some editing, I’m sure I could remove the stop sign, but I think I would rather edit the bottom to make it not look like it was cut off.
May 11, 2010 @ 11:34 am