Part of my
Wee Planets set.
I seem to have a gift to pick locations I should never try to shoot a panorama at (at least not with my camera and gear). This is actually the second time I try to shoot a panorama over this bridge (
Pont des Arts).
The first time is when I learnt that shooting handheld panoramas over planks is suicidal: I could never stitch it. But since that day I managed shoot a "
plank panorama" rather succesfully with a simple tripod (i.e., no panoramic head), so I decided to give it another try. Well... I think I was lucky with the aforementioned plank panorama and a panoramic head is really needed.
Here I also had that brilliant idea to come for sunrise. I had already shot more traditional pictures at sunrise for this bridge (
like this), and I know it often looks great with the sun rising up behind
île de la cité. However shooting 360° in such a light with a camera that doesn't have lockable exposure really is asking for trouble. The exposures of the 47 shots used to build this panorama was so different, that PTblender usually ended up using only 3 or 4 colors three pics away from the key picture used for correction. I had to do the whole color correction 4 times with different key pictures, then stitch the panorama 4 times, and layer the different results to select the parts that looked good (or at least that didn't look too bad).
Finally, shooting a cloudy sky on a windy day is also not a terrific idea.
This time I've realized it's better to shoot (1) horizon, (2) sky, (3) ground, rather than (1) horizon, (2) ground, (3) sky, like I used to do. Because at least the ground won't move while you shoot the sky.
(EXIF data from first picture.)