Two more wallpapers from Puerto Rico and Sand Dunes for those who want to download and use them as backgrounds. Both panoramic images were shot hand-held with the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G and stitched using the method described in my “Panoramic Photography Howto” article.
Looks like I did manage to capture a single landscape image from the last visit to Sand Dunes, where Sergey and I had some fun taking pictures of aerial kicks. I thought nothing good would come out, since it was extremely windy and there was too much dust and sand in the air.
The above is a panoramic image that I shot hand-held with the 24mm f/1.4G. It did not get stitched properly due to parallax errors, but the bad stitches are not that visible because of the moving sand. The 24mm was not wide enough for a single shot and I knew that it wouldn’t work, but I only took one lens with me and I did not have much choice…
I will soon write an article about Panorama stitching techniques, where I will go into more details about the above problem.
Sergey and I headed out to the Great Sand Dunes NP last weekend for some photography. He had this crazy idea about doing some Karate shots with him wearing a full uniform with a black belt and me taking high speed images of his jumps. I really liked the idea, so I took some of my lighting equipment, along with the D3s and the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G.
The weather was OK, but the winds were too strong, blowing at 15-20 miles per hour with very strong gusts. Our photography plans pretty much collapsed with the winds, but we still decided to stay and try out a few shots. Here is Sergey doing a front kick:
I have been really wanting to go back to sand dunes and take some more pictures in the winter, but it has been extremely cold out there and driving for three and a half hours one way to freeze myself and my equipment to death is not something I wanted to do. Hopefully it will start getting warmer soon (at least on the weekends) so that I could go back and take some more pictures of this amazing place!
Here is one of the images from my last trip to the park:
It is very odd to see when sand and snow mix together…
And here is the 1920×1200 Widescreen Wallpaper for you to enjoy :)
I haven’t yet had a chance to go through the pictures from my second trip to Sand Dunes with Sergey. The sky was cloudless on that day and we didn’t capture as many good photos as we were hoping for. Here is one of the first photos from that day:
After many hours of stitching and tweaking panoramas, I’m finally able to post some of the best ones from the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I had to resize and cut the below images, because some of the panoramas were too long.
Once the thumbnails fully load, click on the first image and it will bring up a separate window with a full version of the panorama. Then click on the next button on the right hand side of the image to view the rest of the panoramas. The images are 1200 pixels wide and they might not fit on your monitor – in that case, you can scroll left and right using your scroll-bar on the bottom of your browser.
I captured this first panorama on a small stream that was running alongside the dunes. The stream was very shallow and I simply stood on it, capturing the stream, the dunes and the mountains in the back:
Sergey just sent these shots that he took of me while we were hiking and taking pictures at the Great Sand Dunes:
Walking up
I have finally finished sorting through the photographs of the Great Sand Dunes National Park that Sergey and I visited a couple of weeks ago. Although it was very windy and rather cold, the weather was just perfect for photography with the beautiful cloud patches in the sky and rapidly changing light.
I have a very nicely stitched panoramic version of the below shot that I will upload for your viewing pleasure later. This was one of those “accidental” point and shoot shots that I didn’t even think would make it to the website. I got out of the car, shot one horizontal and 9-10 vertical shots for panorama and left the location. Once I got home and stitched the panorama, I wished that I had stayed a little longer :)
We then found a parking spot and decided to hike for a few miles up the sand dunes. While crossing a very shallow stream, I stood right in the middle and took a couple of shots of the mountains, the sand and the water:
Haven’t had much time to work on the pics from the last trip to Great Sand Dunes NP, but I’m slowly getting there :) If everything works out, I’ll visit Death Valley next week and come back with some pics and perhaps even post images from both Sand Dunes and Death Valley at the same time.
Meanwhile, here is one of the first photos from our trip:
