If you stay off the New York Thruway between Albany and Buffalo, the upper end of the Taconic Parkway (runs from near Albany down toward NYC), US20 Pittsfield to Albany and of Pittsfield Mass. and environs you should be safe from me. If I get the grant and the D1s and hit the road I'll send out a warning :-) Something pneumatic for shutter actuation might be good. This or an electronic solution would also make mounting the cameras outside of the cab more practical. Shutter lag is also an issue. Things happen fast in this field of photography. I've been thinking about where I would want to mount them on my small pickup truck. Hood mount would be nice, since it would be closest to the normal driver's viewpoint. Unfortunately there are likely to be camouflage considerations. This really isn't the sort of thing I'd want to have to explain to a state trooper... I don't think I have quite enough truck to handle triple chromium bucking bronco hood ornaments. When I get the grant and the D1s I could consider switching over to one of those truck with the six wheels. Till then the best bets seem to be the roof of the cab, a la volunteer fireman light bars, though I might have to become a volunteer fireman... or over the front grille like fog lights. These options might make waterproof housings possible. I think multiple cameras are the way to go, though you might be right about distant panoramas being possible by swinging the camera. The real fun is liable to be in the close objects, of course! Tell your wife not to worry about the camera getting dropped! It's just not very important in the scheme of things. This is probably not a form of photography, at least the free hand variant, to be adopted by photographers with young children, regardless of the adequacy of their life insurance coverage:-) The main thing of course is not to get too into getting the shot-all joking aside, the photography has to come second to safety. You don't want to be thinking about the camera.It's just like learning to drive, go slow and stay out of traffic at first. If you don't think about the camera, it's not taking your attention away from the road. The only weird thing is that now whenever I drive I find that I look at the road photographically. That is a little odd... I took a trip to Buffalo recently, 600 miles round trip on the NYS Thruway, and took about 100 pictures. It was actually a decent way to pass a portion of the time. And when this jacked up pickup truck with two great big flags mounted in the bed blew past me at 90 mph, I just let him go, even though it hurt! Not as much as trying to chase him might have! >Alan, what are the routes you most frequently travel? (so that I can avoid >those). :) >I have used Ulead 360, a stitching software, it removed the appropriate >curvature etc depending on the focal length of the lens used. >Some sort of balloon like trigger attached to shutter release of digicams >(like old view cameras?) joined (through multi-way splitter) to one flexible >tube with other balloon at your end may do the trick. Electronics may be >much easier, if it works though. >Other thing may be to have your camera mounted on some sort of rotational >device, which rotates a fixed angle after each shutter release. Since the >panoramas may be distant, actual distance the car travels (from first >shutter release to last) may not cause that much of a difference? >After seeing your Stop sign picture, I must admit that with my Kodak DC280 I >tried similar thing, it produced interesting results. It was, however, not >very interesting to my wife, who was worried about me dropping the camera. >:) >achal > > > > > >Achal Pashine >Pediatric Immunology >Center for Clinical Sciences Research, Room 2120 >269 Campus Drive >Stanford, CA 94305-5164 > >Tel: 1-650-498-7574 >FAX: 1-650-498-6077 > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Alan P. Hayes" <ahayes@berkshire.rr.com> >To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" ><photoforum@ase-listmail.rit.edu> >Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 12:33 PM >Subject: Advice sought on Hare-brained Scheme > > >> As part of my death-defying pursuit of pictures from cars in motion I >> have for some time wanted to be able to take action panoramas while >> driving. >> >> I think I may have hit on a semi-safe way to do this. I'd like to run >> my idea by the camera mechanics on the list. >> >> It's fairly simple actually. I'm thinking of mounting 3 or 4 digital >> cameras so that they would encompass a wide angle of view, shooting >> them all off at once and then combining the images in photoshop. >> >> It would be nice to use Nikon D1s but until I get my grant I figure >> on using 25 dollar digicams (there are such things!). >> >> I've thought of a few possible difficulties. Any comments on them or >> anything else that occurs to anybody would be gratefully received. >> >> I anticipate mounting the cameras on some sort of semicircular rail. >> This would give me some flexibility in terms of positioning them. I >> understand that this sort of geometry might result in some sort of >> parallax issues. I think these are likely to be at a level that I can >> deal with post-exposure, judging from the results I've been able to >> get combining even hand held images (satisfactory to me). >> >> Likewise, while it won't be as much of a problem when I get the D-1s, >> I plan to deal with distortion through post processing. Again this >> has been feasible in my experiments with panoramas so far. >> >> I would like to be able to set all of the cameras of at as near the >> same time as possible. Also my wife would like me to be able to do >> this without taking my hands off the steering wheel. I've seen >> devices for attaching cable releases to cameras without the proper >> fitting and it seems that a similar mechanical system might work for >> this application (though it might end up being foot operated!) >> >> Another possibility given that these are mainly electronic cameras, >> would be some sort of electrical arrangement. Since I've got the >> possibility of using $25 digicams, it might be possible to sacrifice >> one. It would be nice to have some inside information, so to speak, >> on these cameras. >> >> I haven't really worried much about waterproofing, hood mounts, how >> to explain to the highway patrol, et cetera. There's a time for >> everything. >> >> Thanks in advance for helping me "stay alive at 55!" >> >> -- >> Alan P. Hayes >> Meaning and Form: Writing, Editing and Document Design >> Pittsfield, Massachusetts >> -- Alan P. Hayes Meaning and Form: Writing, Editing and Document Design Pittsfield, Massachusetts
