I was up north in Homer, Alaska to photograph bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), but I grabbed a couple landscape shots of the beautiful Kenai Mountains, which lie across Kachemak Bay from the Homer Spit. This was my view one morning, after the clouds and snow had cleared out leaving blue skies and bitterly cold temperatures. It is a panorama, click it to see it larger.
Also see our bald eagle photos.
Another panorama from our 1997 trip to Yellowstone National Park. Seen here is the Lamar Valley, sometimes referred to as America’s Serengeti for its displays of bison, elk, antelope, bear and most notably, its famous wolf packs.
This is another panorama made with the Panasonic Lumix. Since I was touring the park with my father and my daughter, and since much of what we were seeing was new to them, we were on the move and seeing as much as we could. For this reason serious photography, which usually requires time and patience, was not in the cards, so instead of setting up for “real panoramas” I would instead hop out and blast off a series of frames with our point-and-shoot. I was using the Lumix in manual mode using RAW format so I was able to process the photos into reasonably high quality images when I got home, resulting in panoramas that stitched together cleanly and have great detail.
See more panoramic photos and Yellowstone National Park photos.
In 1997 we made a visit to Yellowstone National Park in late fall to see the elk rut and were blessed with a few days of light snow. Not the bone chilling cold of Yellowstone in winter, but “winter lite” just perfect for we underdressed southern Californians. We spent most of our time watching elk along the Madison River, seen here with a dusting of snow and overcast skies:
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Madison River, snow-covered banks and cold winter air, panorama, composite of 7 individual photographs.
Image: 22448
Pano dimensions: 3921 x 11093
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The above panorama was made with the good gear (digital slr, good glass). You can see another panoramic photo of the Madison river shot handheld with our nifty Panasonic Lumix micro-mini-handy-cam, which stitched surprisingly well with contains super detail.
See more panoramic photos and Yellowstone National Park photos.
Midway Geyser Basin is one of my favorite parts of Yellowstone National Park. Early mornings and cold days are great here. The Firehole River steams as it flows through the basin, and numerous hot springs on either side of the river create shifting fogs and mists. In this panorama, formed from eight separate photographs, the Firehole River flows from left to right. Obscured by the steam in the far right of the image are Grand Prismatic Spring and Excelsior Geyser.
See more panoramic photos.
Vancouver Island is covered with trees (at least those parts that have not been logged out yet). One particularly notable grove is Cathedral Grove, part of MacMillan Provincial Park. In Cathedral Grove enormous Douglas fir and Western hemlock trees are found, not yet taken by the logging industry and recently (in historical terms) set aside for appreciation now. They are located close to a highway that crosses Vancouver Island so the grove typically sees many visitors each day. I went very early one day and did not see another single person for the hour that I was there. I made this panorama, composed of seven individual images, with a tripod, ballhead with panning clamp and cable release. It’s a self portrait!
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Ancient Douglas fir trees in Cathedral Grove. Cathedral Grove is home to huge, ancient, old-growth Douglas fir trees. About 300 years ago a fire killed most of the trees in this grove, but a small number of trees survived and were the originators of what is now Cathedral Grove. Western redcedar trees grow in adundance in the understory below the taller Douglas fir trees. Cathedral Grove, MacMillan Provincial Park, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Image: 22456
Location: Cathedral Grove, MacMillan Provincial Park, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Pano dimensions: 9702 x 3043
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If you like this you can see more panoramic photos.
A panorama of the view from Flat Rock at sunset, viewed with your back to the sun facing the tall sandstone seacliffs that tower over Torrey Pines State Beach. This was shot from the place where yesterday’s Oranjeboom couple was standing. This panoramic photo is a composite of 10 separate photos I took by standing in one spot and spinning really fast while firing the camera on its fast motor drive. In spite of being hand-held (the best panoramas use a tripod and good technique) this particular one stitched flawlessly on the computer so that one cannot tell where one photo ends and the next begins. It is awesome in the amount of detail that it contains. If you like this you can see many more panorama photos I’ve made.
See more photos of Torrey Pines State Beach and more panoramic photos
Here is the last shot of the San Diego city skyline, over San Diego Bay, taken about an hour after the first one and the middle one, viewed from Coronado Island:
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San Diego city skyline at night, showing the buildings of downtown San Diego reflected in the still waters of San Diego Harbor, viewed from Coronado Island. A panoramic photograph, composite of seven separate images. San Diego, California, USA.
Image: 22254
Location: San Diego, California, USA
 View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 5219 x 13486
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See more of our San Diego City Skyline Panoramic Photos (or more panorama photos from places other than San Diego). They were shot with a 21 megapixel camera and consist of anywhere from four to thirteen separate frames. The amount of detail in these images is staggering, they can be printed absolutely huge! Maybe even lifesize?
Here is another shot of the San Diego city skyline, over San Diego Bay, viewed a little while after the first one and from a different vantage point on Harbor Island. There just a bit of after-sunset color left in the sky.
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San Diego city skyline at sunset, showing the buildings of downtown San Diego rising above San Diego Harbor, viewed from Harbor Island. A panoramic photograph, composite of four separate images. San Diego, California, USA.
Image: 22253
Location: San Diego, California, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 3415 x 14649
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See more of our San Diego City Skyline Panoramic Photos or more panorama photos from places other than San Diego!
We have had some mild Santa Ana winds the last few days, blowing the haze out to sea and leaving behind fantastic visibility. I went down to a few of my favorite spots around San Diego Bay to get some new photos of the San Diego city skyline, including some panoramas. Here is the first of three that I’ll post. There was a haze offshore over the ocean that turned the sunset light the color of butter:
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San Diego city skyline, showing the buildings of downtown San Diego rising above San Diego Harbor, viewed from Point Loma at sunset, with mountains of the Cleveland National Forest rising in the distance. A panoramic photograph, composite of six separate images. San Diego, California, USA.
Image: 22252
Location: San Diego, California, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 3144 x 16621
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See more of our San Diego City Skyline Panoramic Photos or more panorama photos from places other than San Diego!
The Wave, that much-photographed geological oddity on the border between Arizona and Utah. I spent some time there on my last visit trying to shoot appealing panoramas, but was not entirely satisfied, it is a tough landscape to capture that way. This was one of panorama photos I was happy with:
We’ve got permits for March and April already, and hope to get out there again this spring.
I got up early one morning while we were in Morro Bay to photograph the view from Morro Bay State Park, around the bay and north to Morro Rock. There was a slight offshore breeze and the air was cold and dry giving clear views in every direction. My father-in-law’s fishing boat is tied up to the Coast Guard dock near the power plant — it is the biggest boat in the harbor and you can see it if you squint really hard.
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Morro Bay panorama, showing Morro Bay State Park (left), Morro Bay and barrier dunes, Pacific Ocean, and Morro Rock (right). A composite of eight separate photographs. Morro Bay, California, USA.
Image: 22247
Location: Morro Bay, California, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 2269 x 24021
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See our photos of Morro Bay as well as more Panoramic photos.
The weather we experienced in Whistler in July was spectacular. Warm, sunny, with hardly a cloud in the sky. However, that lack of clouds made for some truly uninspiring landscape photography. I only found one image from our stay in Whistler that I was very happy with, and that is a panorama of Green Lake taken fairly early in the morning. The lake was glassed off and the float planes had not started flying yet, so it was dead quiet. Blackcomb Mountain is to the left, and Whistler Mountain is dead center.
We had a few hours in Tofino one afternoon. Our choice was to go kayaking or take a boat ride over to Meares Island to walk the Big Trees Trail. We choose the latter. Arriving on the narrow shoreline after a 10-minute skiff ride, our boat driver told us he’d be back to pick us up in an hour and a half and unceremoniously left. OK. We walked past the small sign for the Big Trees Trail and into a wall of trees. Although short and not at all challenging, the trail is fun. It is set deep among the old growth trees, heavily shaded, verdant and green. There are a few really big trees on this part of Meares Island, and we stopped next to one to make a panoramic photo. The image below is akin to what you would see if you were facing the big tree and then tipped your head way back, scanning all the way up the tree, then through the forest canopy to the sky, and then further back until you scanned down the tree behind you, eventually falling and hitting your skull on the ground. I believe that the two large trees are red cedar but don’t hold me to it. Click on it to see a larger version.
This is a 360-degree panorama showing, in a single image, a hiker in Buckskin Gulch both coming and going. I set my camera on a tripod in the middle of the trail through Buckskin Gulch, leveled it with a bubble level, and spun it in a complete circle taking sixteen photos roughly evenly spaced as I did so. In two of the photographs I set the camera’s self-timer and jumped into the picture myself. Later, the images were then “stitched” together on a the computer with panoramic imaging software, resulting in the single image you see. Click on it to see it larger!
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Buckskin Gulch hiker. A hiker moves through the deep narrow passages of Buckskin Gulch, a slot canyon cut deep into sandstone by years of river-induced erosion. In some places the Buckskin Gulch narrows are only about 15 feet wide but several hundred feet high, blocking sunlight. Flash floods are dangerous as there is no escape once into the Buckskin Gulch slot canyons. This is a panorama made of sixteen individual photos. Buckskin Gulch, Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona, USA.
Image: 20699
Location: Buckskin Gulch, Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 4771 x 15311
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I shot this panoramic photo, a series of six individual photographs, one morning last week, shortly after sunrise, from the upper deck of the boat Horizon. Guadalupe Island was covered in that great golden sunrise light that only lasts for a few minutes. The ocean surrounding the island was covered in clouds, but we were sitting in a broad pocket of clear sky — the 4257′ tall island was holding the clouds back. You can just see some clouds peeking over the topmost ridge, but that’s as far as they got. A beautiful morning.
Vista House was built in 1918 as a memorial to Oregon pioneers and as a comfort station for those traveling on the Historic Columbia River Highway. The octagonal stone structure towers 733 feet above the Columbia River and provides a spectacular view. Click it to see it larger, or see more panorama photos in our collection.
While in Astoria recently, we took a little drive across to the Washington side of the Columbia River to see North Head Lighthouse. It was overcast, sort of pre-storm looking, perfect weather for walking around a blustery promontory high above the coast and checking out an old lighthouse. Below is a panorama of the bluffs beside the North Head Lighthouse, spanning about 180 degrees up and down the coast. Can you see my daughter next to the lens inside the top room of the lighthouse? Click it to see a larger version, or see more panorama photos in our collection.
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The North Head Lighthouse was built in 1896. 69 steps lead to the lantern room, which is 65 feet from the ground and 194 feet above sea level. The first-order Fresnel lens, which came from Cape Disappointment, was lit for the first time on May 16, 1898. Washington, USA.
Image: 19390
Location: Washington, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 4757 x 20503
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I took some photos of the total lunar eclipse last night from my backyard. At the peak of the eclipse, when the moon was totally in the Earth’s shadow, no direct sunlight reached the moon so it was lit only faintly by light refracting (bending) through the relatively thin layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As this refracted light passes through smoke, dust, smog and haze in the atmosphere, it takes on a distinct red tint. Since direct light reaching the moon is whitish-yellow and is many orders of magnitude stronger than the red-tinged refracted light, the red color is only observed at total eclipse when it does not have to compete with direct sunlight. Thus comes the name “blood moon” for such an eclipse. Click the panorama strip to see it larger.
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Lunar eclipse sequence, showing total eclipse (left) through full moon (right). While the moon lies in the full shadow of the earth (umbra) it receives only faint, red-tinged light refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere. As the moon passes into the penumbra it receives increasing amounts of direct sunlight, eventually leaving the shadow of the Earth altogether. August 28, 2007. Earth Orbit, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe.
Image: 19391
Location: Earth Orbit, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe
Pano dimensions: 1826 x 14162
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For some reason this animated GIF looks terrible compared to the actual images out of the camera, something about limiting to 256 colors I think. Anyway, here is an animated version, over roughly one and 1/2 hours from full eclipse to no eclipse:
Last summer we went to Lake Tahoe for a wedding. Lake Tahoe in summer is beautiful. I found a turnout on the highway above Incline Village which offered this view. This is a panoramic photograph obtained by stitching 6 separate images together on the computer. If you like this you can see more panorama photos in our collection.
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Panorama of Lake Tahoe, viewed from above Incline Village. Sitting between the Carson Range to the east and the Sierra Nevada to the west, Lake Tahoe was formed about 2 to 3 million years ago and is now the second deepest lake in the United States, and tenth deepest in the world, at 1645 ft (501m) deep. It lies at an altitude of 6225 feet (1897m) above sea level. This view is from the north end of Lake Tahoe looking south. Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, Nevada, USA.
Image: 19128
Location: Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, Nevada, USA
View this Image in Google Earth!
Pano dimensions: 3116 x 20490
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From the 2005 archives: I left Seattle in the late afternoon and began my speed run south, home to Carlsbad. I planned to stop at three spots: Mount St. Helens, Crater Lake and Oakland. I reached the Johnston Ridge viewpoint of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument (say that three times quickly) before sunset and had the entire place to myself. It was eerie, I was wondering if I had missed an eruption warning or something. This is a panoramic photo, composed of 4 separate images stitched (on the computer) into a single picture.
Click the image to see it larger.
