This is my brother enjoying the weather watching from atop a mesa near Boulder Town with the Aquarius Plateau looming in the distance with fresh snow. Carl in Boulder Country by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
The Waterpocket Fold is one of my favorite places to visit and spend some time wandering looking for beauty. Here is a description from Steve Allen, "This area, the Waterpocket Fold, is a Navajo Sandstone wonderland that was named by Almon Thompson, a member of John Wesley Powell's second Colorado River expedition, for the many pockets of water he found among its slickrock draws, gullies, and canyons... Lush riparian habitats and vast open expanses of slickrock merge into a symphony of colors and designs." Southern Waterpocket Fold Pano by NateGeesaman, on Flickr
Files do get pretty big. I either shoot in, or convert to small jpegs before the stitching though. With that many shots, even using 1024's results in a many megapixel file.
Nick, if you google "brenizer method" you'll find more than you ever wanted to know. Basically though, it's a way to get shots with a DSLR, even my crop body 70D, that emulate what would normally only be possible using medium format. In the one above with 55 shots, I was using an 85mm at f/1.4 and standing close enough that I actually needed more than one shot just to cover the kids. Hence so many shots - with plenty of overlap - to get that wide shot. The result is something equivalent to using a 30mm f/.4 on a FF or something nutty like that. I think you can actually find calculators online to show exactly what the fictional lens equivalent would be. But the point being, there is no such lens, especially not on a crop body DSLR - but by stitching panos, you can get the same wide angle w/shallow DOF.
BTW... I was using CS5 to do these and it's slow and it sucks. Tried MS ICE, which is a free download (Windows only though...) and it's WAY faster, way easier and succeeded in stitching where CS5 was actually locking up and crashing. So anyone on Windows that wants to play with this, I recommend MS ICE - it's free and easy, how can you not like that!
Dave, you are totally rocking the "Brenizer"... my peopled attempts haven't turned out due to either me not shooting fast enough or my people moving too much... Nice work!
Thanks Jared. As you know, I didn't even know about this until you told me about it. Getting the people to sit still, it helps when you are their Dad and can threaten them with physical violence for non cooperation and at the same time bribe them with ice cream for going along with the program .
Just remembered/realized something kinda funny about this too. Note in the bridge picture of the kids, Logan has a death grip on Summer. That was "Take Two" .