Submitter's name:	Olaf Greve
Title:	360º skyline
Gear used:	OM-4Ti + Zuiko 35-80/2.8 (@35mm) + Video tripod
Aperture:	f5.6
Shutter speed:	Varied, between 1/4th and 1/125th seconds
Film used:	Fuji NPH 400
Technical information:	I could not dig up my good tripod in time, so I had to do with a broken one (of which the head "falls down") of which I manually needed to keep the head up. I made a crucial (and very stupid!) mistake: I took the shots in Auto mode, rather than taking multiple spot readings and using that exposure for all the shots. I cannot believe I did not think of that, but that is what happened. :( Either way, I set up the tripod on the roof, set the lens at 35mm (I had done the same with the 24/2, but that caused too much perspective distortion - next time I'll use the 50/1.8), and simply took each shot. That was the easy part. The tough part came in actually creating the panorama. Due to the different lighting levels, the usage of a wide angle (rather than a 50mm), and the broken tripod head, it was by no means straightforward to stitch and correct everything as seamlessly as possible (see the digital techniques section. I think the end result is O.K., at least, for this particular panorama I do not care to spend more time on it. If I am going to repeat this idea someday, I will pay more attention to the above points, as well as trying to obtain a graduated ND filter for preserving foreground detail.
Digital techniques:	None, it was taken with a Zuiko 1mm 360º angle-of-view fly-eye ;) Seriously: The pictures were scanned on a Umax Powerlook III scanner. All edits were made using Photoshop 6, for which I finally had found a good reason to use it and get to know it. Many edits had to be made, first, the 10 individual pictures used for this panorama had to be stitched together (I did this manually), then, all the individual pictures needed to be worked towards restoring the original colour of the sky (I used saturation and level adjustments for this). Once that was done, the stiches needed to be removed (this was done using layer masks and the clone tool). I will spare you all the details, but believe me when I say it was a lot of work. I think it took me some 8 hours in total to get this result.
Subject information:	This "shot" was inspired by the efforts of a colleague of mine who had taken a full 360º picture way up in the mountains. I did not like the first set of shots I had taken for TOPE 9, so I decided to have a go at making such a 360º panorama as well. The skyline of my whereabouts is about as interesting as reading the small print in license agreements, so I decided to wait for a nice sunset to be able to get something nice. The picture was taken from the roof of my appartment.
Full size panorama:	The above shot is restricted to 640 pixels width-wise (so as to not break one of the TOPE rules), but I have also put the full-size version on-line (at 171KB it is not big). Click here for viewing the full-size panorama.
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Comment left by: bbbean (bbbean@beancotton.com)

You're far too modest.

Comment left by: Eric Pederson (epederso@darkwing.uoregon.edu)

Thank you so much for providing the "full-size". It would be nice to print this and paste the ends together. I always thought that 360 panoramas should be viewed this way.

Comment left by: siddiq (no e-mail specified)

err, dont mean to break the bubble of joy accomplished thru long ardous work, but wouldn't stitching software help like, a *lot* here? head ye to Panoguide.com. you're welcome :)

Comment left by: Da Photographer (no e-mail specified)

Siddiq: I am actually aware of such special stitching software, and over here at work I inquired about it. I was recommended to use Quicktime VR, but they also told me that it would be hard manual labour anyways, due to the huge differences in colour/contrast/levels etc. between each shot. So, I decided to jump to the occassion of finally having a good reason to learn Photoshop. :) Perhaps at a later time I will publish the images that comprised this panorama. Thanks for the link! Eric: A thing that works very nicely is to create a scrollable Flash animation of it. I was going to do this and add a link to it, but I noticed the horizon is "falling off to the right". Perhaps I'll create such a Flash animation later, in which case I will add a link to it.

Comment left by: Wayne Harridge (no e-mail specified)

I admire your patience

Comment left by: Ron Ashford (ron.ashford@watchdog.net.nz)

like the format, "way-wide and short," good sky and clouds

Comment left by: Roger Wesson (roger@worldtraveller.f9.co.uk)

Even with stitching software making a panorama is time-consuming. I've just started trying to make some and it can be frustrating work! To do it manually is very impressive indeed. The sky is fantastic, and I think leafless trees are always great.

Comment left by: Andrew Fildes (afildes@netlink.com.au)

Just getting into stiching panoramas myself with a Russian Horizon (120deg., scan in 2 parts, manual stitch) so I sympathise on the workload. Absolutely essential to make sure that there is NO variation between scan options (like autoexposure) and the same obviously goes for the shots (I'll use the OM1 to make sure, I think). I found most stiching software heavy on the spherical VR and distortion correction options so simple butt joins are probably not too hard to do manually. Time I found out. Damn good concept and very impressive - worth doing again for sure!

Comment left by: Mike Lazzari (no e-mail specified)

Makes me want to try this myself.

Comment left by: Jim Caldwell (jamesfc@gte.net)

I've attempted these shots myself - and they aren't easy to pull off!! This one is great, and I'm glad you included a link to the larger version!

Comment left by: Jez Cunningham (no e-mail specified)

Too wide man! The middle bit with the two trees and the great sky in between is the keeper. Unstitch!

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