Tag Archives: Panamatic

Photo-A-Day

The Wheel of Sheffield

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The Wheel of Sheffield
Photo-A-Day #1615

Today was my first full day in England. I stayed at the Hilton in Sheffield. Sheffield is a pretty cool city. After demonstrations today we drove back into the city and to the hotel. I went outside on the balcony/deck/outdoor eating area and it overlooked a river area with lots of long boats. I guess you can take rides in the boats and hop on and off to pubs that are along the way. The boats only go 6 miles and hour up through the locks so if you wanted to see the city that way and liked to take it leisurely you could do that. I went and set up my mini tripod and the Panamatic to take this little panoramic shot. I used the timer and jumped into the shoot too.

Hilton Sheffield

And I shot my rig setup to show you what I was using..

The Panamatic in Action

After that we hung out in the bar for a while and I worked online making my panorama and checking in on e-mails and seeing what was happening online. I did this for a while and then Jessica (my friend and sales consultant for our company) and I went down into town for dinner. We had dinner outside in the open air at Strado. We were the only people hanging outside at that place but the area where the restaurant was located had many restaurants and one had some really nice music. We had a great dinner and conversation. We walked through town and it was really nice. The place has such old world architecture and it is really cool to look up and see the spires and turrets and the coolness of the place. I love old buildings with character. Going to places like this makes me appreciate what my home town has for history as well. I’ve taken photo walks around the town looking up at the buildings and seeing the names of the buildings, no one looks up anymore.

Speaking of looking up, when we drove into town from the demonstration we both saw this huge Ferris wheel in the middle of the city. We certainly missed that last night was we drove in but that was well after it had shut down for the night. So the Ferris Wheel, called the Wheel of Sheffield is a huge wheel. It is towering above us (almost 60 metres high (197 feet)) and it has gondola like compartments for passengers to ride within. There is even a VIP compartment with champagne and a DVD player. DVD player? Why would you pay to go up in this thing only to watch some sort of DVD? That makes no sense to me. These VIP ones also have glass floors. I would be pretty nervous riding in one.

Today is also 9/9/09 and it is the day where the Beatles entire catalog was released digitally remastered and also the Beatles Rock Band game came out. I saw it in the window of one of the shops on the way back to the hotel, it looked pretty sweet!

The Beatles 9/9/09

Tomorrow I’ll be going to take more photos and hope to get some more panoramic stuff too.

Photo-A-Day, Photography

Cairns of Cape Cod

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Cairns of Cape Cod
Photo-A-Day #1613

This morning Dad and I got up early and took Taylor with us to Woods Hole. We first went to Nobska Light So I could try out my new photography toy. The Panamatic from Lenspen. You attach your camera to the device and the device to your tripod. It has click stops at every 30 degrees so that you can create seamless panoramic shots. I tried my first one from the truck bed but that didn’t work so I moved out a ways from the light house and was able to get a pretty nice 360 shot of the lighthouse, the water and the plant life. Here is how that one came out.

Nobska Lighthouse

Then we went down into Woods Hole and picked up some breakfast stuff from Pie in the Sky.

Pie In The Sky

While I was there I logged on to the free Internet, pulled up BenSpark.com and bookmarked it and left it up for the next customer to see. Who knows maybe someone there might like my work and my Cape Cod Photos.

After Pie in the Sky we went up the street over to the MBL Marine Biological Laboratory buildings and into the inner Woods Hole Harbor. I set up my Tripod again and took a nice 360 of that harbor which also caught shots of the Woods Hole Science School (We attended as kids and Tara taught there last summer). Here is that Shot.

Woods Hole Inner Harbor

After that I walked up the street while Dad pulled the truck around. I went to MBL Beach and took a 180 shot of that area. Here is that one.

MBL Beach

Then we headed home and along Surf Drive Beach we stopped so I could take a photo of the Cairn that was set up along the Falmouth Road Race Route. I snapped this one too.

Cairns of Cape Cod (Angle 2)

We got home and had breakfast. Allison headed off Cape 1st and I followed with Eva. Having 2 cars after the long weekend stinks. Having them before the long weekend so we could get down on our own timetables wasn’t as bad.

Before we left Eva played on her tricycle from the Miners. They left a bunch of kids toys behind for Eva. Their grandchildren have grown out of the toys so the Miners cleared out some space in the house and garage. We inherited two tricycles and a bunch of tiny chairs and baby swings. Not sure what Eva will do with those. Eva played with Memere and Grandfather before she left for home.

Enjoying my Tricycle

I’m off to England tomorrow and I have to relearn how to get online and do my demonstration. Oh boy it is going to be a long night.

By The Way I did the panorama stitching in Photoshop Elements. There is an automatic function for it that works pretty well. I learned about it from this website. Here is how you buy the Panamatic from Lenspen.