Photography PICTURE GETTING THE BIG
The art and science of shooting panoramas that portray the sweeping grandeur of the underwater world that we see on every dive (provided visibility is decent) and that no camera can capture in a single frame
Text and Photography by Justin Gilligan
even with a 10.5mm fisheye lens locked into place on a recent visit, I still felt limited by the 3:2 ratio of my viewfinder. It was an exercise in frustration to see with the naked eye – which is a remarkable organ – aquatic vistas reaching to the limit of sight in every direction and know there isn’t a camera on the planet capable of recording with fidelity the sweeping grandeur of these reef scapes in a single frame. To distill the essence of these
T 54
reefs would require multiple pictures and I’d been experimenting with landscape panoramic images at the time, using a tripod and a specially designed panoramic head by Nodal Ninja, which allows the user to position the camera on a tripod in portrait orientation to take a series
Magazine
he coral reefs of Papua New Guinea are jammed with life. They can be found at the very heart of the ‘coral triangle’, and
of overlapping images (around 25 percent overlap), then later stitch them together using post- processing software to manufacture high resolution panoramic scenes. While using this type of specialized
equipment to achieve technical precision underwater is possible, it is very time consuming to set-up, to say nothing of the hassle of dragging the gear around all day, which is impractical on most dives. It then dawned on me that I
could attempt this method from a single point on the reef by holding my camera steadily in a horizontal format and panning my body along the horizontal axis, intermittently stopping, to capture a similar series of images to those from my first attempts at underwater panoramic photography. The following tips and tricks come
from my experience and will hopefully help you on your way to creating your own underwater panoramic images.
Equipment A wide-angle lens is the key to this technique; I used a 10.5mm fisheye on a dSLR. Be warned, however, the wider the lens the greater the distortion, which can be a problem when it comes to stitching the final panorama. A rectilinear wide-angle lens such as a 12-24mm (DX) or 16-35mm (FX) is likely to provide the best results.
Set-up Visualize the scene and try to pick a subject(s) that will fill the entire frame and result in a complimentary composition. Experience and practice will help you develop the skills to visualize panoramas in the field. If you’re in mid-water you need
By shooting RAW you will ensure that you capitalize on the highest resolution available on your camera
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68