CARIBBEAN CRUISE PANORAMAS
by Michelle Bienias
 Photographer: Jook Leung of 360vrm.com.When: February 2 - 6, 2004Where:
Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas Bahamas cruise vacation, between Nassau and Key West, Florida.What:
Two panos from the cruise ship deck: one taken poolside in the day, with many people and belly-flop contestants; one was taken at night when most of the passengers were eating insideWhy:
Jook writes, “During the day, many activities were happening to get vacationers to leave their worries and inhibitions behind. This poolside activity was one of them. I wanted to capture the energy and excitement and be close to the center...next to the cruise director.The sunset/twilight pano was an image I imagined in my mind long before I captured it. We were always sitting down for dinner at sunset so on the 3rd day we skipped our dinner appointment that evening. The ship was headed into the sunset towards Key West from our earlier port of call, the island of Coco Cay. I searched the length of the ship for a vantage point. With the light of day fading quick, I finally found my position. I was lucky with the bright moon and sky with the beautiful clouds...no clouds were moved around for this pano.” How:
“I felt the poolside pano was harder to accomplish because I needed to find my spot moments before the event was over,” writes Jook. “This is a more descriptive image of what happens on a cruise and was done handheld with the camera over my head standing next to the cruise director as he said ‘okay guys, jump!’
The twilight pano was taken with the camera on a tripod and I needed to set the camera's self timer so that I could give myself enough time to get out of the picture. ISO 200, f4, 1-4 sec exposures. For both panos, I shot a set of 4 frames to complete a spherical panorama using a Fujifilm S2 Pro DSLR and a Nikkor 8mm/2.8 fisheye lens. This lens is hard to get but it's a nice prize if you can track one down. My handheld panos are taken at the height of the moment and do have large parallax errors. They also are not very level. The frames are hand stitched with PTMac and Panorama Tools software. PTMac, PTGui, and Panorama Tools are excellent with creating a successful stitch with fisheye image sources.” If you want to see Jook in action shooting a handheld pano, check out. Aldo Hoeben’s partial Jook Leung object VR.
Email: jook360@earthlink.net
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