No idea where it was so don't ask. :)
We saw the turnout for the view half way up this mountain pass, and on a whim decided to pull over, stretch out and take a look. Turned out to be a really good idea. The view was amazing, even though the light was terrible and super flat. I still needed to get a picture though, so I grabbed my camera and set things up.
We you're trying to make things look more dramatic, especially the sky, it can help to use a polarizer. They filter the light so you don't get as much haze and the clouds will look a lot better with one on. I threw mine on my 18-135mm lens. It did create a bit of vignette so I had to zoom to 29mm to get edge to edge brightness. When shooting a pano, you have to made sure you have edge to edge brightness or you're going to get a bad composite.
I've started using a tripod more and more to shoot panoramic shots and HDRs. Hand holding really just doesn't cut it, even with the awesome IS that lenses come with today. To shoot with a tripod for a pano, just lock the tilt and open the pan adjust. This ensures that you're panning on a level plane and don't have to worry that your images won't mesh in Ps later.
Speaking of editing, I did a little bit of different approach. I took my raw files and processed them before I made a pano. I converted to b/w, turned expo up, upped contrast, lowered highlights, raised shadows, lowered whites, upped blacks a bit, and I think that's it.... Then I made my pano in Ps and exported it to Photomatix where I applied the Enhanced filter. This gave it a more dramatic look that I liked.
In Lr, I made a vignette (fairly strong one), and then brightened the landscape in the middle of the image. Then I added more clarity and contrast to the clouds to enhance them.
And all done!
See you tomorrow!
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