You're too kind :D

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I thank you :D I certainly plan on doing more.

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Thank you :D

It isn't that it's difficult to do (with the right kit), it's just time-consuming. This is what's involved:

1. Make a large pot of coffee.
2. Assemble the source images into an album in Aperture: for these three panos, that's 402 pics.
3. Process each group of three bracketed shots in HDR Efex Pro 2
4. Chase the cat off the keyboard.
5. Since my camera tends to be a bit noisy, run each created HDR image through Dfine 2.
6. Chase the cat off the keyboard again.
7. Export the finalised images to a working directory.
8. Import into Autopano Giga: tweak horizon line, crop and render.
9. Put the cat in the kitchen and close the door.
10. Process the panorama in PanoTour Pro.

The vast majority of the time is waiting for the computer to chew through the math, hence the desire for a faster machine.

Santa? Oh, Santa?...

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Bless you, sir :-)

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Thank you :-)

What looks like sand is actually nearly 100 years of colliery waste from the coal mines that was tipped onto the local beaches. Fortunately Mother Nature is slowly reclaiming her own.

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I love the second one although I'd be tempted to tweak the curves to bring up the low-midrange of the sky against the building. The last one's a winner too.

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That's one hungry hawk! Cracking pics :D

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Recently I've found myself drawn more and more to the challenges of shooting panoramas. There's something about creating large vistas that I find particularly satisfying especially as you can image something in a way that the eye can't perceive directly.

Since the weather today was dreadful (again!) I thought I rework some of my better efforts into VR versions. This required going back to the original source files and completely redoing them and as I shoot these panos HDR, the workflow gets rather complex and does tend to thrash the hardware significantly.

For your intellectual and philosophical pleasure, here are the results of today's hard graft. I can't post the originals here as there's no way I can incorporate all the necessary support files so you'll have to follow the links:

http://castle-eden.edps.org.uk

http://denemouth1.edps.org.uk

http://denemouth2.edps.org.uk

I'm definitely hankering after the new Mac Pro—this thing has stupendous amounts of horsepower. Judging by what little info is out there about the new computer, I could easily reduce the workflow time by a factor of 50 or more!

Enjoy, and comment as you see fit :D

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A beautiful sequence. That takes patience :D

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Loving that last one. I've never been able to capture one in flight.

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They are definitely quick little devils. My favourite is the last one—the pose is perfect.

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Frame that puppy! Terrific shot!

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It is said that Alaska is the last great wilderness. These photos epitomise that—most excellent pics :D

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Now he's got that "did you spill my pint?" look about him :D

The crop is great but I'd have a smidgen more of the frame left and right. Perhaps go for a dead square crop.

BTW, my cat is now sat on my shoulder and is intently staring at the screen!

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You're going to have an extremely hard time finding any zoom that goes higher than 400mm unless you use a tele-converter. Designing a zoom lens that goes over 400mm is impractical. The longest zoom that Canon make is the 100-400mm f4-5 IS lens and that puppy is around $1800. Mind you, I'd sell my grandmother for Canon's new 200-400mm—that's a real beast especially as it weighs 8lb!

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