Cloudless sunset panorama

Here is the matching sunset to go with my moon rise. As you can see, it was a cloudless sunset, which usually means it’s less interesting as you don’t get the amazing patterns in the sky. Lucky the moon was out…

Cheer up, it’s Monday! Time for a moon-rise…

Moon rising

I have been experimenting taking pictures of the moon rising rather than the sun setting, although I actually took this one as the sun was setting. I’ll post the matching sunset next…

Cheer up, it’s Monday! Time for a moon-set…

Moon Set

This morning I woke up to see the moon still in the sky. I have tried a few times to capture the moon, but it usually comes out as a blurred spotlight in the sky. The best time to take the moon is when the sky is a little lighter. Taking the moon against a black night sky confuses my poor camera, and it just can’t balance the whites.

You will also need a camera that you can adjust the shutter speed to get the most detail from the moon. Other than that, a tripod and an enormous zoom lens would be good ideas too.

For those who missed the big event of the weekend, or who need a little cheering up this Monday, check out the Whose Blog is it Anyway? from the guest bloggers at Don Charisma’s blog. There are some great comic writings on there and all of them are fantastic pieces of improv.

If you want to read my second attempt at improvised writing, the read my post titled Why isn’t 11 pronounced onety-one?

Enjoy, and have a great week everyone.

Day 11 – Umbrella of lights

dannyboybroderick light umbrella

This photo is a blend of 6 photos arranged as a 3 x 2 panorama and merged using Hugin.

The merging did have a few issues, but gave a nice effect in the end…

Day 10 – 360 degree sunset panorama

Another spectacular pair of sunset panoramas for you today. These sunsets were taken on the same day, with about 10 minutes in between them.

The first, wider one, is a full 360 degree panorama, which allows me to capture both the sunset and the moon. I would have preferred the moon to be a little larger, but you have to take what you can. Made from 6 x 1 portrait photos and fused together using Hugin.

360 degree sunset panorama

The second is a 180 degree panorama taken later, hence the deeper reds. This was blended from only 6 x 1 photos using Hugin once more.

180 degree sunset panorama

I’d be interested in hearing which you guys prefer…

Day 8 – Food extravaganza

I recently took part in an improv blogging day on Don Charisma’s blog, and was given the topic of Men Make Better Chefs than Women. As life is all about balance, I thought I would share these lovely photos of food that my wife has cooked up for me.

I do love eating, and fortunately my wife loves cooking. Must be a match made in heaven…

I have to admit, my wife didn’t make the croissants from scratch. I just thought they looked tasty.

Day 6 – Sun blast panorama

This is another Hugin creation using 5 photos stitched together to make this panorama. The great thing with panoramas like this is each photo can be taken with optimum exposure and then the blending evens the picture out. If this was one photo, the bright sun would overpower everything else in the photo.

Day 3 – Towerama

This is a vertical panorama, or towerama as I like to call it. Taken during a visit to Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park in London.

A simple stitching together of 3 horizontal photos from my Canon camera. Blended together using Hugin once again, although it did make at least 1 mistake – see if you can spot it…

Sunset panorama

The sunsets during the winter months are more spectacular for me. The lack of haze means the colours are much more vivid.

This panorama is a series of 8 photos which has been blended together using the free tool Hugin. I have only started using this software and have hit a few bugs. But I hope you agree the results are pretty awesome.

BTW, the dimensions of this image have been reduced from 13450 x 3633 or a massive 47 megapixels.

If you have any questions about how to do this, do leave me a message below. I’m always happy to help.