Pic is done:

Original post:
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What? Panoramic pic of MOTD06.

Who? Whomever can fit. No pre-sales (that may change).

When? Friday afternoon, from noon until about two. If there is incliment weather Friday, the shoot will move to Saturday noon--till-two.

Where? Base of Fontana Dam, same location as last year.

And the big question, HOW MUCH!?!? Well, the photographer would like 2 pics this year... 1 with everyone & their Mini's, and 1 with just Mini's. So with that in mind (I'm told this is cheaper than last year, and remember are 5 foot long pictures):
10 X 60 inch (approx. size) panorama prints of group with and with-out people.............................$50 each or Both for........$ 85.

10 X 60 in. panorama laminated $60 each or both for........... $105 laminated.

10 X 60 inch Framed and shipped to your door $175 each or Both for .........$295.00

How do you order a pic? George will take the pic, and then have order forms at Fontana Friday & Saturday at a table from what he's said so far. You can also contact him after the event to order...


Post here or PM me if you have questions.

We will need volunteers to help organize the row parking...
Volunteers/Row Captains:
MiniNurse
Paulr
Joyride
mielnicki
Edge
mmatarella





Low quality web version of panoramic:


There is a potential for a LOT of cars. A LOT OF MINIS!!! There may not be room for everyone, so this is going to make coordinating a bit of a hassle as well. Be kind to your guides and row captains, and allow adequate time to show up and line up. Volunteers will be on site at 11:30am, and everyone else should start arriving about 11:45. We should have everyone lined up by 12:45, and pending no rain interruption during that time frame, we should have the pic done by 1. The longer it takes, the higher the chance we can encounter rain.

If it is raining at 11am with no signs of letting up, we will defer to Saturday, and run the same drill.

 

You guys have fun with the panoramic pic. :-)

Herbert

 

No pic. Supposedly, too much of a hassle and photographer doesn't want to do it. No one standing up to do it.

PM Edge, he should have the latest info on this if there is any.

 

Surely there's another photographer...

 

\

Ask Edge, no one has volunteered, as far as I Know ... probably need a 4 x5 camera, very wide lense, etc to get that kind of detail.

 

Photographer doesnt want to do it - ouch! Does he hate us that much from last year?!

 

apparently so...geeezz

 

If someone puts up his info, 100's of us will spam him until he gives in.

 

I think its waaaaaaaayyyy too late to plan something for this year. Perhaps next year.

 

Well I haven't even been to the dragon, but anyone with a high quality Digital Camera and some computer skills should be able to get good results. From my understanding of the past pictures (one of which I've seen) the hard par would be getting the photographer in position after that all you need is a tripod and camera. I'll see if I can find the detailed explination on how to do Digital panaramics with little to no differance from film panoramic cameras.

 

My phone will do panoramas I did one that for our club fall drive last year.

Actually, I do have some software that will stitch together panoramas. I'd can volunteer to do the image editing.

I can also take the pictures if needed.

 

You do realize you also need a crane I believe.

 

I think the catch is the logistics of a cherry picker or similar lift to get in position for the photo is where the hold will be.

 

Great minds think alike, but your types faster

 

Too late? We've got 3 whole weeks, and it's 1 person with a camera? How is that too late?

Just need to find someone with the camera, and the know how... And I'm sure finding a cherry picker or lift of some sort is not impossible either.

 

I dont think its so simple as you think

There isnt ANY digital camera in existance that is going to produce that huge panaroma picture and get any kind of resolution. At a minimum, your going to need some very fine grain 35mm film with maybe a 17mm lens. Preferably, you used a 4 x 5 camera to get decent resolution.

You could get a panaroma head and take maybe 4 or 5 pictures and piecemeal them together but your not going to get that kind of quality. The pic I saw took up the entire bonnet of the car and more. Pretty huge.

 

Scroll down for the low down...

http://www.atlantapanorama.com/special_groups.htm

 

Daytona Rolex

Here is a photo I grabbed in a hurry at the Rolex 24 (not supposed to get this close to the fence, sheriff escorts you away) no tripod or framing and I had to do significat cropping, but as you can see a good res camera, even if you need to paste together 30-50 image can get just as good if not better results, it just takes know how and some time. I use the image a sig on SSM so I wasn't worried about perfect blending with that one.

Here is 3 images at Sebring

This was from 4 images same scene

And a Lake scene (Warning Large file)

The last image prints out at 67x10 with zero downsizing

 

That also shows massive distortation ...

According to the website link above, they use a Widelux panaroma camera. They retail between 1700 and 3500 for medium format which, I would think he used.

Lots of luck!

 

A Zenit Horizon can do the trick.

 

That is why everybody lines up in a semi circle not a straight line at the past panoramic shots. Had everyone been in a straight line you would have seen the same thing.

 

Not sure if you were there last year... but I was going to explain this.. then saw that Cooperation already posted it.

Last year it sounded like there was a fair amount of prep work and calculations on the photograpers part that went into making it look like a simple line up. Not to mention organizing the presales to make sure that it was financially feasible to bring someone in & print them, etc.

 

Panarama cameras dont worry about distoration.

In any case, I hope you guys work it all out. It will be interesting to see if you do ...

I bet somebody will just climb up real high, pull out the cell phone, take a pic. then post itwink:

 

Go for it, Will You have 3 whole weeks to organize it!
It took 2 hours to get the cars arranged, then he (George, the photographer) had to to take numerous pics cuz the light was bad (cloudy day), plus it was windy and the cherry picker( which was very old, beat up, and belonged to Fontana, I think) was swaying like mad.
Last year, we had 144 cars, and the ones in the back looked very tiny, and you can barely see the owner's faces. If that number was doubled, with double the numbers of rows, you wouldn't be able to even see the cars in the last rows much less faces.
You'd also have to find a time slot to do the shoot in, as well....not easy this year.
I believe we had to pre-sell quite a few, but I forget how many.
So, step up to the plate,Billiam and make your contribution to organizing this year's Dragon.

 

More power to you if you can set this up, especially if you can convince George at Atlanta Panaroma to come up and do this. George uses a special camera for the job, there's no cutting and pasting to assemble the image, and when you see the photo taken last year, the quality is impressive. Those of you who are saying that you could do a better job with a conventional camera and digital editing software need to find a copy of last year's photo that you can view in person, what's on George's website is (deliberately) a low quality photo that really isn't representative of the delivered product.

Things to keep in mind...

This can't be done at the drop of a hat. It takes George (and probably any experienced panoramic photographer) a significant amount of time (think days here) to diagram out the location of the photo and determine how and where to position the cars for the best results.

Due to the number of cars that will probably be in the picture, you MUST obtain the services of a cherry picker or other lift truck... Otherwise the cars in the first row will obstruct those in the back rows.

To take this photo at Fontana Dam permission MUST be received from TVA. That in and of itself took a lot of time to negotiate. They were extremely reluctant to allow the photo last year, it was John Bunch over at Fontana who managed to push the right buttons, and still TVA withdrew their support just hours before the picture was scheduled. Until now, few people knew that there was a mad scramble behind the scenes last year to get TVA to let us take that picture.

If TVA doesn't allow the photoshoot there are a limited number of places that it could be held. We discussed the ballfield at Fontana, however we were never able to answer the question of how many cars we could fit on the field and there was also concern about the trees surrounding the field casting shadows across the group.

Weather is a HUGE factor. Rain or wind will force the photo to be scrubbed. While it wasn't too windy last year, it was windy enough that George had difficulty keeping everything stable, which is one of the reasons that it took so long to actually take the photo last year. If it's anywhere near as windy this year as it was last year, you can bet that George wouldn't be willing to go back up in the truck to take the picture. George uses a special camera to take the picture, it captures the entire scene in one shot. The way it works is that he triggers the shutter, then the body of the camera rotates around capturing the scene only closing the shutter when it hits the rotation stop, because of this it is essential that he be on a completely stable platform when the picture is taken.

Time is also a concern, as Katie mentioned, last year it took close to two hours just to get all the cars into the area and positioned for the picture, after that it took something like 30 minutes for the photoshoot. Is there a hole in the schedule big enough to accomodate this? Will enough people be around to make this worth while?

We went with George and Atlanta Panorama last year for several reasons, first he's the closest panoramic photographer to the Dragon, which among other things means he's the cheapest to get up there. He's extremely knowledgeable and very passonate about what he does, spend 10 minutes on the phone with him and you'll discover this. He's a perfectionist, while some in the back rows last year were upset with how small their cars were in the final product, the reality is George worked for quite a long time to determine what the best postitioning would be in order to get as many cars in as possible with them being as clearly visible as possible.