Caption:
PoTM 2010 March: Pte De Razis (2571m), La Foret Blanche
Commentary:
Despite being in glorious sunshine it was flippin’ freezing and intuitively it didn’t feel like the time to start messing about with a camera for any length of time. Yet I knew that was exactly the right time to get the camera out given the superb view up to Point de Razis. Apart from anything else, what else could I do for the next fives minutes?
The clear dawn had given way to a cold day and hence skiing, rather than photography, was always going to come out on top. I sacked off my DSLR and packed the digi compact instead. It’s an Olympus Mju and few years old now at that (mental note to self to upgrade…) and only 4mb. True enough, it’s loaded with a fair few whistles and bells but like many P&S compacts, it’s a long way of the quality and versatility of my DSLR rig. The Mju doesn’t have manual exposure or exposure lock nor does it have image stabilisation but it does have a neat panoramic function though.
So back to the ski lift. I switched the Mju into panorama mode and then working left to right, I rattled off a sequence of five shots for the pano sequence. Job done, it was back on with the gloves and wait for the top to come - I’d only been sans gloves for less than 2 minutes from start to finish but I’d reduced my fingers to the sensitivity of (frozen) fish fingers. Some times you have to suffer a bit for your photography.
Stitching the images later I was pleasantly surprised. I cropped out a gnarly sun flare from the far right and kept the ski lift roughly a third of the way into the image. The lighting was pretty even anyway and the images blended together reasonably well given that the Mju had set the exposure and white balance, as well as focus, to suit the first image of the sequence. Suitably cropped, I tweaked the colour balance a little and hey presto a five-shot pan...
It reinforced several important photographic ‘must do’s for me. Firstly, and hence the #1 golden rule, always pack a camera – without a camera even the best photog in the world can’t get any images. Secondly, no matter what the circumstances, make the effort to shoot – you might bag a winner. Thirdly, don’t forget to think wide – panoramic images regularly add that extra dimension. Fourthly, don’t forget your thin gloves when you go up into the hills and you intend to shoot. And finally, that you don’t always need a mega cam to get keepers…
Capture Notes:
Olympus Mju, 5.8mm, 1/640 secs @ f8.8, matrix metering – 5 landscape images stitched
Keywords:
La
