About
Contact
My Bikes
Guides
Reviews
Trips
Videos
Photos
Subscribe
Deals

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Commuting and a Panorama – January 5

IMGP6281I was completely dark and –9F as I rode in this morning, but soon after I arrived at work the sun came out.

I left early so I could go for a short ride since it was so nice out. I know +10F doesn’t sound nice, but I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t at all cold, and actually turned my heated vest off near the end of the ride (getting sweaty). There wasn’t many cars on the road yet, so I was free to enjoy the sunshine without a lot of distractions.

I stopped and took a bunch of pictures. I also found time to experiment with making a panorama using the Autostich software Bobskoot mentioned. I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt.

Panorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. PaulPanorama Pics of St. Paul

The photo below was created from the above ten images of downtown St. Paul, MN. panorama of downtown st paul - smaller

Click here to see the full uncropped version: 17,048 x 3322 (4MB)!

I also stopped by Como Park in St. Paul and took a couple of shots.

Lake ComoLake Como

Lake ComoLake Como

The last shot is of the pavilion which is home to a small cafe. During the summer there are a number of events held on the outdoor stage.

Lake Josephine in January

Lake Josephine above. I was very temped to ride down the boat launch and out onto the Lake. You can see the tracks from the snowmobiles and the trucks that appeared to have also been practicing emergency winter maneuvers.

The parking lot and most of the side streets in St. Paul are covered in thick ice (2-6 inches) with deep ruts; the suburbs are better. It really felt like I was riding on a rough ATV trail. Fun! I need to check if the Ural counts as an ATV – most of the off-road trails in Minnesota are for ATVs not motorcycles.

I visited a couple more lakes, but didn’t take anymore photos as I was having too much fun hanging off the side of the Ural in the curves. The numerous lakes in the city can provide some curvy entertainment when the fun country roads are too far away.

Posted by Chris Luhman at 6:38 PM
Labels: , , , ,

7 comments:

  1. Your pan did turn out nicely. I can agree with that statement.

    However, 10º not feeling cold ... sorry, but I can't agree with that one! LOL!!
    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris:

    I see you discovered the options on page 2 where you can change the scaling %. Nice photo. I think you speak with forked tongue, 10 f is cold.

    I really like those snow images, but pictures will suffice. we don't want the real thing

    bob
    bobskoot: wet coast scootin
    ReplyDelete
  3. Chuck: Thanks -- next time I should use a tripod. I lost a bit of height on the pan to the right.

    Bob: Yes, I played with the scaling %, and will play with it some more. 100% is too much, and the default 8% isn't enough. I also played with the memory settings and bumped the 0.25GB up to 2.0GB (I have 8GB) which seemed to make it run faster when I increased the scaling %. It is a fun program to play with.
    ReplyDelete
  4. chris, guess I am missing something but can't seem to view the pano in its full glory....still, the small version looks very nice....I can't spot color graduations in the sky which is where I usually have issues with panos....even using exposure lock....

    re being tempted by frozen lakes, yeah, I must confess I too am tempted but...so far, fear of a cold drowning death and worse yet, the loss of my ural, have stopped me.
    ReplyDelete
  5. Charlie6: try this direct URL to the image... to get it I clicked on the link, then all sizes, then original size:
    http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4249457614_4ba7d27f7a_o_d.jpg

    frozen death has crossed my mind every time I think about riding on lakes (we have thousands of them you know...). It has been near 0F for quite some time, so probably safe but I want to see a bunch of cars on the lake first.
    ReplyDelete
  6. thanks Chris, that let me download the full size image to my PC for viewing, nice.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)