The wider view - Panoramas

Caha Mountains, Cork/Kerry border (Canon 1Ds Mark 3)

Back in the good old days when I was shooting slide film I owned a Hasselblad xpan, a beautiful camera that was able to produce panorama 24x65mm images and 24x35mm images on the same roll of film. Panorama photography ruled my world for a while.

Rock of Cashel, Co. Tipperary (Canon 1Ds Mark 2)

When I switched to digital my panorama days were over. With resolutions of 6MP or 8MP crops were impossible. And as I am mainly working with long exposure times or under weather conditions with fast moving clouds and ever changing light stitching wasn't an option either.

Howth Harbour, County Dublin (Canon 1Ds Mark 3)

Enter the Canon 1Ds Mark 2 and even better the 1Ds Mark 3. With resolutions of 16MP and 22MP panorama crops still have a satisfying quality even for bigger prints.

To keep the dimensions of my panoramas constant I put grid focusing screens in my cameras. When using the top and bottom line of the grid as image borders I get an aspect ratio of about 2.4:1 which is a bit wider than the Hasselblad xpan. The image is then cropped in Lightroom where the aspect ratio can be saved as a custom function. This is almost as easy and quick as working with a real panorama camera.

Bantry Bay, County Cork (Canon 1Ds Mark 3)

So I am happily back in the panorama business. Sometimes it just has to be the wider view.

C.

Images are Copyright by Carsten Krieger - all rights reserved

Donegal, RTE and a new book project...

The past few weeks have been very busy so I get to the news straight away. I have been working on my third book for a while now but deals with publishers take time. Now it's official. The working title of the book is "The Landscape of Ireland" and if everything goes to plan it will be out in spring 2010. The challenge for me is to show all the famous Irish places like the Cliffs of Moher, the Rock of Cashel or the Giant's Causeway in a new and never before seen way. Below is one of the most recent images made for this project. It's my attempt on Slieve League, County Donegal. After waiting for 2 days the clouds lifted only for a bit more than 30 minutes and I was presented with perfect conditions. A photographer from the UK whom I had met earlier that day in Killybegs and who was working on a book himself, missed this amazing moment for only 5 minutes. Sometimes our job can be very cruel.

This Tuesday I had some unlikely guests. A camera team from RTE (National Irish Television) was filming a feature for the Nationwide series with me. It was interesting being in front of a camera for once, however I have to admit that I feel much more comfortable behind the lens. A big thank's to Diarmuid and Enda for making me feel not too awkward. I almost enjoyed myself and I can only hope I didn't make too much of a fool of myself.

My recent trips brought me, as already mentioned, to Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo (the image above shows Killybegs harbour at dusk) which I enjoyed very much. The north-west is simply one of the most breathtaking parts of the country.
I also payed a brief visit to Howth in County Dublin. It's a beautiful little fishing village north of Dublin city with an even more beautiful coastline. If it wasn't for the journey along the M50 I would go back immediately...
Closer to home I managed to pay a visit to Lough Derg and the Burren. The latter has been long overdue.
I will post some images from these trips over the following days.

Next week will see me around Kerry, followed by trips to Wicklow and Meath and another week in Northern Ireland in November. I try not to think about my carbon footprint too much...

See you around,

C.

Images are Copyright by Carsten Krieger - all rights reserved