Panoramic Photos of a Full Lynah?

[RedJeff20]

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

[blahblahblah]

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

IN MY ASS

[rhovorka]

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.

[RedJeff20]

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

[CowbellGuy]

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.

[KenP]

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.  :-P

[jeh25]

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. :-P

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.

[Shorts]

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.

[Section A]

[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?

[Rick \'71]

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!

[RedJeff20]

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

[dss28]

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...?

[Shorts]

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.

[dss28]

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

[CowbellGuy]

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.