Yesterday afternoon I decided to go for a bit of a wander through the weekend downtown shoppers to work on an experiment I’ve had in mind for a bit.

I’ve found over the months that I’ve been using it that the camera I’m currently borrowing does really well at evening, low-light photography, dropping the shutter speed down to do so. I’ve been curious at how panoramic shots would turn out if I took them in the evening, where the long exposures would blur any cars and passing shoppers.

After some experimenting yesterday, I’m somewhat pleased by the results, though I definitely still have some tweaking to do before I come up with something I really like. The issues I’m running into are twofold.

First, I need to try to track down some information on this camera and how to use the manual mode. Last night I left the camera on fully automatic, which works well for single shots. However, as it’s metering separately for each shot, I’m ending up with brightness and color shifts when I stitch the panoramas together. I think I should be able to compensate for this by noting the settings the camera chooses for the first shot on automatic mode, then switch to manual mode to duplicate those settings for the rest of the shots.

Secondly, I’m still figuring out the settings for the stitching software I’m using. I’ve been taking the shots with the camera positioned for portrait (vertical) shots — it takes more shots to create a full 360° panorama, but there’s more vertical image in the final panorama. However, this also means that there’s more distortion at the top and bottom of each image, so while the final panoramas are close to seamless across the middle of the shot, there are occasional artifacts (such as buildings or poles suddenly splitting in two) at the top and bottom of each panoramic.

Still, I like the direction that these are going, and each time I try, I’m getting a bit closer to what I’m aiming for in my head.

Here’s the best of my experiments from last night:

4th and Pine, kitty-corner from the Bon

4th and Pine

This is actually pretty close to what I had in my head, aside from the color shifts. One thing I didn’t think about ahead of time that amuses me in the final image is that of the four stoplights in the shot, two are green, one is yellow, and one is red. Seems a wee bit confusing for the drivers!

Here’s a Quicktime VR panoramic movie of the image (3.7Mb): westlake2.mov.

Pike Place Market Main Entrance

Pike Place Market Main Entrance

Standing in front of the famous fish market, surrounded by Christmas shoppers. Lots of movement in this one.

Here’s a Quicktime VR panoramic movie of the image (2.5Mb): pikeplace2.mov.

Pike Place Market Flower Stands

Pike Place Flower Stands

In one of the side entrances to the market, right between two of the flower vendors. I like the sudden switch between the bright bustle of the market itself and the darker outside world.

Here’s a Quicktime VR panoramic movie of the image (3.4Mb): pikeplace4.mov.

Pike Place Market and Waterfront

Pike Place and Waterfront

Outside the far end of the Market, looking over the waterfront. I think this one’s probably my favorite of the batch (of course, it’s also probably the one with the least amount of odd artifacts).

Here’s a Quicktime VR panoramic movie of the image (3.5Mb): pikeplace5.mov.

Waterfront and Seattle skyline

Waterfront and skyline

Standing on top of a picnic table in the park directly behind the Market, overlooking the waterfront, the Alaska Way Viaduct, and catching part of the downtown Seattle skyline.

Here’s a Quicktime VR panoramic movie of the image (3.6Mb): waterfront2.mov.

And that’s it for this round of experiments. More (and hopefully better quality images) will follow later on, I’m sure.

iTunes “Hard Day Blues” by Waters, Muddy from the album Folk, Gospel and Blues: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1946, 2:51).

[See also: Calico (AutoStitch for Mac OS X) | Spenard Lake, Anchorage, Alaska | Check out my (messy) apartment! | Up, Up and Away… | Back from Vegas ]

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