[Leica] Re: Was clueless: Now good moments

[Andrew Nemeth <azn@nemeng.com>]

>Ted Grant wrote:
>SNIP
>> Any good Leica moments anyone?

A couple of weeks ago, the Dodgers vs. Chargers game at Sydney's 
Stadium Australia (the new olympic stadium at Homebush Bay), as 
part of updating my online VRSYD project.

I wanted to do a few 360-degree VR shots in the crowd, but
the problem was getting in with all the usual custom camera
mounts and rotators and tripod and whatnot.

So I thought, what the hell, I'm a VR 'wizard' - I'll leave
the mounts/rotators etc at home and do the shots by hand,
aligning them by eye (and a bit of zen).  Worked once before
in Feb during the Stadium Australia open-to-the-public day.

(Aside for the non-VR savy: You take six or eight shots in a
360-degree rotation with a camera in portrait format.  You
then use software to merge the separate shots together into
a seamless 360-degree single panoramic image.  The trick however
is to make sure you rotate your camera around the light ray
cross-over point inside the lens - the so-called 'nodal' point.
If you don't then you get parallax errors.  The more of these
you have, the harder it is to get the separate images to line
up and join together seamlessly.)

So I only packed the R6.2 (+winder) with 16mm R fisheye, with 
a 50mm Summicron as well for a few candid shots.  My film was
the usual PJ100, and metering was done hand-held incident with 
a Gossen Sixtomat Flash.

Inside the stadium, the shoot went well.  Swapping lenses though 
in the heat of battle was a major pain and also an excellent way 
of collecting dust.  Got a few unusual stares from people as I 
spun around taking shots while holding the camera at chest height, 
trying to keep the spirit levels in the acessory shoe level.  The 
50 Summicron also worked well, and in portrait format is fast 
becoming a favourite (can't really 'see' with it though when 
horizontal).

Alas, when I got home and dev'd & scanned the negs I found out
that although the exposures were bang-on, my alignments between 
16mm fisheye shots were guessed so bad that I'm going to have 
to spend a *lot* of photoshop time to make them stitch together.  
Bummer.

Learnt my lesson.  A Leica can only take you so far...  Next time 
I also pack the VR bracket.


Regds,

Andrew Nemeth
nemeng.com
Warrimoo  Australia