Panoramic Photos of a Full Lynah?

Hi folks,

Is anyone aware of a place where I could purchase a panoramic picture of Lynah Rink (with the students in the background and the team saluting them after a win would be even better ...)? I'm envisioning those panoramic wall pictures that you can find at the mall such as a picture of the Garden after the Rangers won the Cup, the Boston Garden, Fenway Park, etc.

My wife and I are leaving Cornell after this season and want a memento to hang in our TV room!

Cheers,
Mike

yeah, I know where you can find one...

IN MY ASS

If one were commercially available, I'm sure we'd all have one by now. There was a great photo that they used for the front of the hockey pocket schedule about 9-10 years ago, back when CU Athletics used to actually make them. It was taken during warmups of a Cornell-Clarkson game from the top of the aisle between G and H, and used a long exposure so the players are blurred.

Also, last year, in an issue of the Cornell Alumni Magazine, there was a nice picture taken from the platform above A.

I'm sure they're both copyrighted. I'm wondering if the hockey office might know of the photographers, and if they would be selling large prints of such photographs. But I'm quite certain that Rob Arra hasn't been to Lynah for his famous poster series.

Thanks for your thoughts Rich. I'll keep poking around. If I find anything out I'll be sure to post it here.

On another note, does anyone know if it would be worth my while to purchase a panoramic lens for my digital camera? I suppose I could take the shot myself, though I am sure it would be less than stellar quality.

Cheers,
Mike

What camera? Not sure what you mean by "panoramic" but a 12mm fisheye or something really wide will probably get a decent spread with 35mm film, less so with digital (~18mm equiv). Either way, probably not quite what you're looking for. They make special lens attachments that are sort of like a reflective bowl that let you take 360 degree panoramas by shooting upwards, with software to process the image into QTVR or something like that. Also probably not quite right.

The very wide panoroamas you usually see of stadiums are shot with special equipment that moves the camera in an arc and uses a special technique to expose the film and process the negative. Rob Arra's not the only one that does it, but I wouldn't count on it happening.

Keep in mind it's pretty dark in Lynah, so you'll have to shoot very slow or anything printed large will be very grainy at high ISO.

All that having been said, I could take a stab at it this weekend. Probably take a series of shots and try to manually stitch them together. Not really sure where the best place to shoot from would be, though.

Cowbell Guy wrote:

All that having been said, I could take a stab at it this weekend. Probably take a series of shots and try to manually stitch them together. Not really sure where the best place to shoot from would be, though.

I recommend center ice.

Cowbell Guy wrote:


All that having been said, I could take a stab at it this weekend. Probably take a series of shots and try to manually stitch them together. Not really sure where the best place to shoot from would be, though.

Canon makes an *awesome* app for this that is unimaginatively called PhotoStitch. However, the version that came with my PowerShot only runs in OS9. I *guess* I could load the version I have onto my wintel box, but then I'd need to take a shower.

Seriously, the newer versions of PhotoStitch run fine in OSX but I don't really want to buy a new camera just to get a dot-release on a piece of software I already own. If anybody bought a Canon camera recently and could part with the included CD, that would be excellent.

I have a panoramic picture of Lynah, put together using this technique (stitching together digital pictures). It's at a women's Hockey game, taken from Section O. The problem with trying to do this at a crowded game, with players on the ice, is that it takes at least 1/2 a second to compose and shoot each exposure, which means that people will have moved. As a result, there tend to be artifacts, such as the appearance of having too many players, or people's bodies getting cut in half.

[Q]The problem with trying to do this at a crowded game, with players on the ice, is that it takes at least 1/2 a second to compose and shoot each exposure, which means that people will have moved. As a result, there tend to be artifacts, such as the appearance of having too many players, or people's bodies getting cut in half.[/Q]

Unless it's done when no one is moving? Perhaps as they're lining up (or during) for the national anthems?

Avash '05 wrote:


Unless it's done when no one is moving? Perhaps as they're lining up (or during) for the national anthems?

Hey! Show some respect! Your supposed to be throwing your arm in the air and shouting "RED!" during the national anthem, not taking pictures!

Sorry for being such a tyro. I had no idea this would be so complicated. If anyone is willing to give this a shot, I'd be happy to compensate you for your efforts.

Cheers,
Mike

I wonder if you'd be allowed to stand in front of the locker rooms, or just behind the opponent's net to get this shot...?

Standing at one end has a couple main problems:

1) The goal judge's box.
2) It's not a particularly good vantage point of the ice (which is why most people tend to prefer sitting on the side of the rink). You wouldn't really get much from a panorama taken from the end of the ice that you couldn't get from a regular picture taken from higher up in the stands at the end of the rink (except for the close-up of any nearby players, and looking through glass rather than netting).
3) When you're standing at the end of the rink looking towards the other end, there's a lot of reflected light from the ice, and so most automatic cameras will tend to take a darker shot (either faster, or smaller aperture). In fact, such a picture ends up looking ok. But, when you try to match it up with a picture that includes the less-well-lit stands or locker-area, if you want the seams to look continuous, you end up having to either make the other seats look quite dark, or make the on-ice players look washed-out. The same thing happens when you try to take pictures of landscapes when the sun is in or near the field of view.

Also, in response to Avash's suggestion--I've found that, sometimes, this paradoxically has worse results then when people are moving around a lot. If you cut of half a person in one shot, but the person is out of frame in the overlapping shot, then you can just move the seam to take them out of the picture altogether. If the person is still in the same place, but has moved a little (ie. shifted weight or turned head), especially if everyone's lined up so that the seam is guaranteed to be on some person, you wind up with players with extra heads or missing limbs. I have a picture of the marching band lined up in the "tunnel" for the team to run through for a football game, and even though everyone was standing in place, it was really hard to find people who had actually not moved.

Would you still have to worry about over/underexposure if you used a graycard? I know it works for snowshots... just a thought.

For an 8-bit digital camera, it's a problem. Just not enough range to get everything. I shoot 12-bit RAW images, so effectively there's more data than what's visible. I can bring up the crowd without losing detail and leave the ice alone so it doesn't get blown out. It's a pain in the ass to do, and I usually only bother for wide shots, but it is doable.

As for location, I still have no idea. The corner by the hockey office or in the middle of the short side near the concessions stands might work if there were no netting. But there is. Dunno.

I have a contact who's specialty is panoramic shots (although he usually does them in India or China) and he is willing to do this for us. Does anyone know how he would go about getting permission? Obviously time is of the essence because the season is ending. Any ideas you might have are appreciated.

Also, if you have knowledge about how he would approach the Campus Store or someone else about selling the photo as a poster, that would be great too.

If you are interested in seeing his work go to:
[www.shaiphoto.com]
and click under "places" then click on the white squares

Pretty neat, but we still have the inside exposure problem.

Olympus has (had?) a similar feature that is present in my point and shoot digital. I have never played with it.

So, here's the picture (if I'm posting the image correctly). As Age suggested, it's from near the concession stand.

I am told that the "inside exposure problem" will not be a problem with the right equipment.

that looks pretty good for not having the big $$$ set-up ... i would stick with that angle, it seems to capture everything from the rafters and banners to the intimate feeling that lynah is known for. taken with a full house i think it'll look great.

btw ... is that three frames stitched together?



Post Edited (02-27-04 09:44)

With a typical "serious" set-up, ie. a reasonably wide-angle lens, you could probably get that shot in 3 frames. With a specialized fish-eye lens, you could probably get it by cropping a single exposure (although with only one frame, you probably couldn't blow it up to poster size...maybe you could with film). With my point-and-shoot digital, which has a minimum focal length of 5.8mm (35mm equiv. is 38mm), it actually took 7 vertical frames stitched together.

The wider you go, the more distortion you'd get, so stitching more vs. less photos together will probably give you a better result. I'll try it with my Nikkor 17-35 and see what happens.

Your choices: Get a single shot with an ultrawideangle 35mm camera lens say down around 12mm. It will be a lot but not the whole arena.

Stitch a couple digital or film photos together electroncially. If you had a film camera and motor drive you could do it so quickly the player movement on ice would be minimimized. Try for the anthem when nobody's moving. (Or using Photoshop drop into the center of the frame the players on ice, all from a single frame; if fans move int he background, it's too blurry to notice.) Or just before a faceoff. Use a tripod so the sequence of photos is lined up. Overlap by one-third.

Get a couple people to shoot at the same time and stitch the photos together. But unless they're the same cameras you'd have color balance issues. Even with the same model cameras they'd have to be balanced.

Rent a panorama camera. It's a couple hundred dollars. (Film moves past a vertical slit/lens that turns; some other cameas actually rotate on a tripd.) You might screw up taking the picture. So rent the pro at the same time. There must be one or two Ithaca pros who've used them at one time.

Contact Cornell sports information. And/or the team. Maybe they could lend a hand in cutting red tape. The picture could make money. Could be a nice recruiting tool.


Lighting will not be a major problem with the right film or a higher speed digital camera.

Good luck. - Bill Howard '74

Well, here's my first stab at it. Still playing with stitching software and I have a few more sequences I haven't even looked at yet.



Bigger version here:

That's nice!

I'll post the 2 photos I mentioned earlier in this thread. Oddly enough, it seems that Clarkson is our preferred opponent for rink photography.

This one appeared in an issue of Cornell Alumni Magazine over a year ago. It was probably taken in the mid-90s, judging by the presence of the old cloth banners and the few ads that are on the boards. The photo is credited to Chris Hildreth/UP.


This was on the front of the pocket schedule around 1993-1994.

i don't know how feasable this would be, but a panoramic shot of lynah at the "red" during the National Anthem would probably look really nice

obviously this wouldn't be possible if you were taking multiple pictures and stitching them together

I think I did that (at least for the student side) in one of the sequences I haven't looked at yet. We'll see how it looks.

OK. It wasn't a sequence. Just a single wide shot.

That is really great! I'm going to set it as the backgound on both my office and home computer.

I love that you captured "RED!" Awesome touch.

that picture rocks, age. the others are great too guys

What a shot! Those are fantastic.

Amazing. You should sell that as a poster or something!

Age

That's a great shot. How large do you think I could print it before it lost some quality?

Cheers,
Mike

Not only did I set it as my background, I rearranged all my icons to the periphery.

Boy my wife is gonna have my ass....

Please don't print my photos. See what happens when I don't protect them?

[Q]Author: Cowbell Guy
Date: 03-02-04 10:04

Please don't print my photos. See what happens when I don't protect them?
[/Q]

People print them and put them on their walls? Is that the problem, or are you more concerned with them showing up on webpages/in newspapers without giving you your due credit? (not trying to be snooty or anything here, you do take great photos, just curious).

I do agree that it would be great if that photo could be blown up to a poster size. It's a great shot.

Both, actually. As far as appearing on web pages, I don't generally mind as long as I'm credited properly, but I want to know when it happens. Very few web pages do more than cover their cost, at best, and I'm certainly not out to milk anyone.

Appearing in print is a very different issue. Magazines and newspapers, by and large, are revenue-producing entities and printing someone's photograph without permission is entirely illegal. Even when someone purchases the rights to reprint an image in a publication, on merchandise, etc. the original photographer still maintains the copyright on the image.

By that same token, someone making prints of my photos is illegal. Places like Ofoto actually take this seriously. When I started making prints through them, they wouldn't print my photos until I provided them with signed documentation that I was the owner of the images. Unfortunately other printers might be less scrupulous. It took literally years of failed attempts to come up with the method to protect the images that I'm using now on eLynah with Flash. And when I post a couple of unprotected pictures and get this kind of response, can you blame me?

Above and beyond the legality of it, if someone takes a low-resolution image I post on the web with considerable JPEG compression and makes a crappy looking print of it with my name in the corner, that reflects poorly on me. Like it says on eLynah, anyone can purchase prints of any of the images, and you can be sure it will be done right with full resolution, minimal compression images from the RAW NEF source, carefully cleaned up and professionally and legally printed by Kodak.

I'm happy to lug around $10,000 of camera equipment to the rinks and spend hours processing the images that can be viewed for free on the website, but please have a little consideration.

Age,

Have you thought of a shopping cart area where people could select the image, desired size, framing if any, cost, etc., and purchase your photos online?

ahh..so there IS a legal method of getting prints. I was unaware of that.

I can see where you're coming from. You do great work with the photos, and I'm sure I speak for all e-lynah posters (and probably the lurkers too...) when I say we greatly appreciate it.

Aside from the work of setting up the e-shop stuff, that would require having fully cleaned up versions of every image ready to go. When someone wants a print, I go back and pull out the original RAW image and clean it up manually. The ones on the webpage are fairly crudely processed in comparison, and my process is constantly improving (compare even images from early last year compared to the most recent ones). Also, there simply hasn't been much demand for prints, so it's not real high on my priority list. One of my zillion projects is a new image gallery for SalsaShark.net that incorporates subscription-based viewing of images and automatic ordering of prints, but that's still a ways off. (And don't worry, eLynah's not in danger of going to subscriptions. Donations were very generous this year. Thank you to everyone who helped out.)

People are weird about photographs. People would never think to make a copy of a sketch or an art print and frame it, but if a photo appears anywhere on the net, they think it's fair game for anything they want to do with it. I was at Watkins Glen for the vintage races this year and there was this guy with mediocre prints that went straight from his camera to Wal-Mart for printing. He couldn't sell the prints fast enough. If some guy's car left a puddle of oil in the corner of the image, they had to have a copy. I came home with 1300 images, went through them all and cleaned up the good ones, had a bunch published on motorsport.com, and to this day, six months later, I still get e-mails from car owners saying how wonderful the photos are and ask if I have any more I can send them. I have yet to hear back from a single one of them when I offer to print photos. And these are guys racing cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for fun. I guess since it appeared on a website, they don't feel like they need to pay for it. I dunno.

DisplacedCornellian wrote:
ahh..so there IS a legal method of getting prints. I was unaware of that.

It's just a small line at the bottom of the index pages with the thumbnails. I figure if people want them, they'll e-mail me for more information. I've already gotten lambasted for over-advertising SalsaShark.net around here, so I try to be relatively unobtrusive about it.

By the way, if there are player parents reading, this doesn't apply to you. You can have jpegs, prints, or whatever you want on me. It just might take a while (as some of you already know... sorry )

Age,

If you were to setup an e-shop for selling Cornell Hockey photos, would there be rights issues that you'd have to settle with Athletics? For instance, having the Cornell logo appearing on the players' jerseys?

Yeah, possible/probable. That's another reason.

You've hit on an interesting question - who gets paid fees if you take pictures at a sporting event? Newspaper photographers in the past supplemented their incomes by selling prints for, say, $10 a pop, from sports events or fires or whatnot. That's small potatos. Now, the NY Times wants to sell prints by the hundreds of sporting events and Major League Baseball wants a cut of the action. Or Babe Ruth's estate does. It's an area in legal flux. Individuals photographed alone seem to be more contentious -- Tiger Woods is more likely to sue for a picture-for-sale of him alone than the Yankees are to sue for a picture taken of the entire Yankee Stadium during a game. I haven't gotten press passes lately but I believe a lot of them now say the pass is for the work you were assigned to do for your publication, not for selling stuff on and after.

Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Just take the picture.

Age,

You should probably at least put a price list somewhere. I too was unaware that you could buy prints/posters of these pictures. That single wide shot is especially nice.

Hi Age,

I hope I didn't send the wrong signal with that last message. I have no intention of printing your photos. Rather, I meant to ask you whether photos such as the one you took during the anthem would be of good enough quality for you to make the panaromic sized photos I originally inquired about? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'd be very willing to pay you to do this for me!

Cheers,
Mike

Ah, ok. Sorry. Well I ordered a print from Ofoto today, about 19" wide. Resolution isn't a problem. Guess we'll see how it comes out in a few days.

If you think the photo is worth buying, I'd love to order one from you. In addition, if you ever have any success with the other photos discussed in this thread, I'd be one happy customer.

In any case, thanks for doing all of this. Cornell hockey wouldn't be quite the same without it!

Cheers

I got the print. Quality is fine, but it came out a little brighter than I intended. They're approximately 7 1/2" tall by 20" wide, with about a 1/2" white border around the image. I have 4 of them and will offer them for $30 each. The next run will be darker, but they'll cost more. If you're going to be at Lynah this weekend, I can bring them there. If not, shipping will be about $5. Please e-mail me if you're interested.

age@salsashark.net

bump. I've still got 2 left. If you want me to bring them to the game tomorrow, drop me an e-mail and you can take a look before or after the game.

[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:

bump. I've still got 2 left. If you want me to bring them to the game tomorrow, drop me an e-mail and you can take a look before or after the game.
[/Q]

Age,

I wished I could come get one from you. However, I'm stuck in Salt Lake City for the weekend.

If they are still around after this weekend I'd love to get one from you.

Cheers,
Mike

I'm still not completely done with it, but here's a look at what the next panorama will probably look like. I changed from rectilinear to cylindrical. You get more of a fisheye look at the top, but there's less distortion at the sides and you can get more of the images in there.

Can I just assume that the pic is from Game 1 without being told otherwise? That way I can enjoy it.

Heh. Yes, it's from game 1.

Is there some sort of VR environment (maybe with Flash) that this could be put into? That would be cool.

i really liked the "official" pic from behind the sect H goal