Thanks! I liked that effect too - detail and blur co-existing peacefully. I don't know Lake Tapps? When traveling I always look for little lake cottages because they offer me so many opportunities like this early in the morning before my traveling companion rolls out of bed. Kumsal offered a nice crop but I'm sticking to the original so far.
Sept. 23, 2026
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Very nice. The beautiful huge curve of water that dominates the image is a wonderful visual guide through it. That point is a visual point of interest to draw us in. Well composed and well constructed.
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This looks much better on my PC monitor than it did when I first looked at it on my phone!
I can now see all the details of that shoreline in a sea of mist. -
A great set of panos !
1 & 4 are my favourites -
Many thanks. These were all with the Nikon Z105, F2.8 macro on the Z7.
I find the Z7 + Z105 combo focuses quite slowly. My previous F version of the 105, F2.8 was heavier, but seemed to focus faster and I got more keepers with it.
Others, especially those using the the Z8, have reported that the focus speed using that camera is just fine with the native Z105.
Yep, patience is needed to find a scene where the bee is fairly close and also lined up with a background that's quite a bit further back so that it blurs and leaves just a nice gentle splodge of colour. I took multiple shots each time and selected the good ones. They were all heavily cropped, so the Z7 with its hi-res sensor worked well for these. -
The light is wonderful and makes this shot special - very well spotted and captured!
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Congrats!
This pano works very well. Although it's a long thin wide format, it has a lot of depth taking you all the way back into the distance. Those leading lines of the two cliffs on both sides and the river help with that too. -
Well generally, as with any other photo, an image with a foreground, a mid ground and a background, displays more depth and is often more interesting to view. Your eye can search around and discover the place.
A pano that is "just" a long thin strip of land with perhaps just a bland sky above and calm sea below is often less interesting. -
interesting!
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More on bower birds
Below is a western bower bird I photogrpahed while it was building and decorating. It decimated the small fruit on our limetree before they could develop. This version comes from central Australia.
The satin bower bird is more striking than my photos show. The beak is a soft creamy colour. It looks like ivory and complements the rich blue black gloriously.
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If you hadn't told us that this was a stitched panorama, I would never have known.
So the job was well done.I am glad you walked us through this (and the challenges).
It's an interesting technique but way above my paygrade (and level of patience).
I would probably try to get such a result with a combination of focal length and aperture that would give an approximation of this impact, and then crop that single image to the panorama ratio if I wanted that ratio. I realize that the DOF shallowness would probably never be equally razor thin, but it would have to do, given my skill level.
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While I enjoy looking at all of them, the first is the most spectacular in being a portrait of a bee against an almost studio-like background and with intricate lighting from different angles.
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Very interesting thoughts, well expressed.
I've seen The Odyssey in true Imax and it is spectacular in its composition almost on an individual basis for every scene.
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Impressive how that bird collects blue tidbits to create that stage (I suppose: for baltzing purposes?)
Are those birds that used to human presence that it would use a random hand as perch?
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Impressive expanse.
However, shooting from Topkapi, it seems that many of the familiar landmarks of the city (Blue Mosque, Other Mosque nearer to the River, Agia Sofia, and Topkapi itself) are hard to get into the frame. Or am I missing them?
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Gibraltar is such a particular place (I have visited it once, maybe 25 years ago).
I think the book-ending of the image with people standing at the panorama viewpoint is very effective: it creates a sense of immersion.
Meaning: it illustrates that this is not a drone shot of the peninsula, but a shot from an actual location where people can stand, and it places the viewer right in that spot. -
That is indeed STRAIGHT out of Tolkien (or from "A Song of Ice and Fire" - the unfinished novel series from which "Game of Thrones" is adapted).
The low-key treatment is perfect to inject this spot with mystery and suspense.
If you try to imagine the same door lit by bright sun, the effect is just not the same. -
The way the water curtain is separated by the irregularities in the stone wall is quite interesting.
The individual "strands" of water look almost like ice stalactites.A slower shutter speed (often used for that "silky waterfall" look), would certainly not be as effective here.
