Go For It: Pixels are Free

One of my favorite expressions with digital photography is "pixels are free."  With no cost, photographers should enjoy complete freedom to experiment and play.  If you have an idea for a shot, go for it.  If it works, great.  Take what you did and make it a part of your photography. 

If it does not work out, no big deal.  But use the results as a completely free learning experience. Go to school and figure out what was the issue/s.  Can you make a small adjustment or do you need to go back to the drawing board and plan again. 

I recently found myself in a situation where I honestly did not know how the results would turn out.  I wanted to shoot a series of images for a landscape panorama in rapidly falling light levels.  I had the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L on my 5K Mk II; a combination not often used for panoramas.  To make matters worse I was on the back of a moving boat.  Not only was it moving forward and slowly rocking side to side but we were in a regular ocean swell so we were slowly heaving (up and down.)

Not the best situation but pixels are free so I went for it.  The results from the 42 shots are shown below. 

 
This is the panorama after the stitching process.  If you follow the bottom (or top) you will notice a nice sine wave pattern.  That is the boat going up and down with the ocean swell.  My camera support was rock solid (RRS TVC-33 and PG-02) but the boat was out of my control. 

At this point I had a nicely stitched panorama even though it is somewhat ugly in terms of how everything lined up.  But it worked and did not cost a thing. 

After a little cleanup, I had a usable, huge panorama to optimize.  For a free experiment, I will take it.

Fiat Lux!

Get Low!

 4-shot stitched panorama,



In port for a day before departing again for more eagles, whales, bears, glaciers, and fun.  Rick Sammon and I along with the cruise participants had a tremendous experience and I cannot wait to share some of the images we made.  Marc Muench joined me in Petersburg for this next cruise and I am sure we will have another incredible trip.

A technique I used often during the trip was to get low.  The image above is a four shot stitched panorama shot from a RHIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat) slowly moving through the water.  To make this shot more dramatic I placed the camera about an inch above the water and shot.  Since pixels are more or less free, experiment with different approaches and angles to your photography.  Some will work and others not so much, just part of the process.



Even though the image had tremendous color I thought I might try a black and white also.  It is great having options and experimenting with both capture and your post processing.  Continuing along that process, the image below is the combination of the color version and the black and white version's luminance values.

Fiat Lux!