2014 Challenge, Week 9: LANDSCAPE – PANORAMA

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I’ll be filling in for Trevor this week, but I’ll stay faithful to Trevor’s Landscape theme. Before I start I have to say that I’m very happy with the effort everyone put through with my birds in flight theme. The interpretation, the amount and the quality of the images were outstanding.

This week I want to to take your Landscape images to the next level. I love landscapes but sometimes there’s just no wide angle lens wide enough to capture the beauty presented to us. I love to shoot my landscapes with a 35mm or a 50mm lens and take several images to be stitched together into a final panoramic image.

Don’t worry, an easy to use tool is available for free from Microsoft that will allow you to stitch your images together. That’s if you don’t already have a software solution at hand. It’s called ICE (Image Composite Editor). You can download it directly from microsoft at https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/

Premières neiges 2013 sur les Préalpes fribourgeoises ce matin / First snow, Fall 2013 on the Fribourg Alps this morning

In the example above I used a Nikkor 85mm mounted on a Nikon Full frame DSLR to create an image made of 28 seperate images. It allowed me to capture the first snowfall on the Fribourg Pre-Alps and the Church of Sorens in high resolution from my balcony in Sorens, Switzerland.

Les Préalpes fribourgeoises

Above I decided to go larger and get the full impact of the Fribourg Pre-Alps tucked behind the Gruyère lake from the Belle-Vue in the country-side of Sorens, Switzerland. I used a Nikkor 35mm lens mounted to a Nikon DX format DSLR.

lac Neuchatel, Estavayer-le-lac

Panoramic images aren’t limited to stitched images from DSLR cameras. Many hybrid and compact cameras have a panorama function built-in. In the above image I used my Android phone and the Panorama-360 app to create this 360 degree view of the terasse at the Estavayer-le-lac beach on Neuchâtel lake in Switzerland.

Morning at lake Neuchatel / Matin au lac Neuchatel

There’s no reason to let your lens limit the width and height of your landscape images. Again I used my Android phone to capture this field in an orchard located high above Lake Neuchâtel in Châbles, Switzerland. All done with the built in ability of Android 4.4.

Get creative, shoot your landscape and stitch your images into one amazing landscape!

The rules are pretty simple:

  • Post one shot each week per theme posted on this blog to Google+, Facebook, or Flickr (or all three). Tag the photo #photochallenge.org. or #photochallenge2014.
  • The shot should be a new shot taken for the current weekly theme, not something from your back catalog.
  • Don’t leave home without your camera. Participating in the 2014 Photo Challenge is fun and easy.

About Steve Troletti

I'm a Location Scout, Editorial, Nature, Wildlife and Environmental Photographer based in Malibu, California. I specialize in Nature and Urban Nature photography including Infrared Landscapes. The Bulk of my work takes place in the Los Angeles, California area, Greater Montreal Region, Canada, Switzerland, France and Varese in Northern Italy. Ethical wildlife photography is the main priority and focus of my work. A minimum disturbance of the animals, their habitat and the environment is my top priority. This applies as much to total wilderness areas as it does to urban nature environments. Ongoing education of environmental issues and building awareness for the protection of wildlife and wilderness areas around the world is what drives me to document the beauty that surrounds us.