Aerial Panorama at Aterro do Flamengo over Estácio de Sá Monument

This place reminds me when I was a child and used to go there with my parents to ride my bike and play with our dogs. The “Aterro do Flamengo” has been built with many successive embankments over the Guanabara bay since the beginning of the XX century until late 50’s. It is today a big leisure area with many different spaces, monuments, a museum, a marina and a freeway that connects downtown to the south zone of the city.

It is a little strange sometimes to imagine that this part of the city, that for me has always been there, once didn’t exist and has been created by men over the bay. I’ve already done other 360º pictures there, at the Monumento aos Pracinhas, Maman sculpture, that was exposed close to the Modern Art Museum (MAM) and at the statue of Marechal Deodoro, creator of the Brazilian Republic .

This picture has been shot over the Estácio de Sá monument, an obelisk, called pyramid by some, that nowadays hosts some photography exhibitions in it’s underground.  Estácio de Sá has been a Portuguese military, founder of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Cousin of Salvador Correia de Sá and nephew of Mem de Sá, other important people from the Brazilian history, he came to the city of Salvador, in Bahia, in 1563, with the mission to expel definitely the remaining French at the Guanabara bay and found here a new city. In 1565, after accomplish his duty, he finally founded the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, our Wonderful City!

At this picture I tried to play a little, shooting in the morning and then in the late afternoon. It is possible to change the panorama whenever you want by clicking at the Sugar Loaf or Corcovado icons, and you will see the sun mooving from one to the other, going to it’s corresponding position in the morning and afternoon.

As the places has many many beautiful scenes I decided, once more, to put an image album over the immersive picture, giving the user a chance to know a little bit more from the place.

Aterro do Flamengo
Aterro do Flamengo

Technical Datasheet

This is a place I wanted to shoot since a long time ago. I went there in the morning, but not too early. Maybe if I went earlier the sky color would be better, more yellow or orange, but I’m not sure if the gopro would perform well with less light, I still need to test it. Until now I prefer the aerial pictures shot in the middle of the day, this way the sun is higher and the light gets uniform in all directions, not giving me the problem of the big white sky with the sun closer to the horizon. After stitching the morning picture I thought about coming back at the end of the day to make another. My initial idea was to make one only panorama mixing the two images, getting from the afternoon one only the part of the Sugar Loaf mountain, but after trying this I decided to put both panoramas separated in a tour.

The positioning between the two didn’t get so good, but the problem was the different highs from the shootings that changed very much the overall perspective, making it impossible.

Cheers, Cartola!

360º Picture at Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago del Chile, July/2013

This is a very interesting destiny for the tourist that visits Santiago del Chile. A small hill with almost 230 feet (70m) in the middle of the city, Cerro Santa Lucía provides a beautiful panoramic view. Nothing better to register than an immersive picture. The architecture of the place is also amazing, the kids played like if they were in a castle. After climbing the stairs the reward is the magnificent view of Santiago, with an astonishing blue sky with the Andes behind.

During the climbing there are many good places to take a picture, so I decided to share other images over the panorama in a gallery. Hope you enjoy.

Vista de Santiago, Chile, no Mirante Santa Lucia
Santiago del Chile, panoramic view from Cerro Santa Lucía

Technical Datasheet:

As I shot hand held with my arm up I decided to put the lens at 8mm instead of my preferred 15mm. This made the stitching easier with only 4 horizontal images, but reduced the zoom possibility. I had also to clone some floor to remove myself from the nadir.

Cheers, Cartola.

Panoramic 360×180º picture near Teresópolis, RJ, Brazil

Hi,

here is one more panoramic picture, this time giving you the opportunity to visit the entrance of the beautiful city of Teresópolis, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This specific place is know as “Soberbo”, which could be translated to superb, and I think you cam understand the reason by watching the immersive photo. The privileged view reaches the Guanabara Bay, at more than 60 miles (100km) away. Closer to the Soberbo is the most famous mountain, called “Dedo de Deus”, which means “God’s Finger”. Many stores and other companies in the city use this name.

The city is well know from those who like tracking and scaling activities, with many different places to visit. The “Pedra do Sino” (Bell’s Rock) is probably the most famous climbing place in the area. For those who like easier workouts, I recommend the Parque Nacional da Serra dos Órgãos, where you can take a walk in nature with a beautiful river.

Panorâmica Imersiva no Soberbo, Teresópolis, RJ
Panorâmica Imersiva no Soberbo, Teresópolis, RJ

Technical Datasheet:

Cheers, Cartola.

Swimming pool in a hostel in Carolina, Maranhão, Brazil

This is one more picture made in Carolina, countryside of Maranhão, northeast Brazil. We were there, just taking some sun at  Pousada do Lajes. Bruno wanted one more time to appear in all the photos I do to make the panorama, and that’s been done. Even having many natural pools, water falls, lakes and other natural attractions, a “normal” pool has also it’s value. For the kids fun is what matters. A beautiful immersive panoramic picture is a good way of keeping this moment in our memories and makes it easy to share our view of the place. I hope you get amused with the blue sky as we did.

Piscina na Pousada do Lajes
Pool at Pousada do Lajes

I just need to remember of recording the sound to create a better environment to the picture.

Other panoramas in Carolina

Carolina - View From Church
View From Church
Kids at the Farm
Kids at the Farm
Itapecuru Falls
Itapecuru Falls
Torre da Lua
Torre da Lua
Square in Carolina
Square in Carolina
Zipline
Zipline

Technical datasheet:

See you, Cartola.

Day and Night on the Roof at Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Hi guys, I know some fellows that will probably complain when they see this photo… third time at the same place … 🙂 I can’t help it, it is the most practical place to try new ideas.

This time I tried to repeat exactly the same shooting point of the previous picture, but at night! The challenge was the long exposure using the pole. I think it looks good, check it out!

Dia e Noite num Telhado do Leblon
Day and Night on the Roof at Leblon

Night picture data sheet:

The data sheet of the daytime picture is in this other post.

See you, Cartola.

Republic Museum Gardens at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In this immersive panorama we can see a group of friends from Trilharte in a photographic meeting at “Museu da República” (Republic Museum) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum is installed in the old Palácio Nova Friburgo (New Friburg Palace), also known as Palácio das Águias (Eagles Palace). Nowadays it is called Palácio do Catete. Built between 1858 and 1867 it has been the headquarters of Brazilian Republican government during 64 years. 18 presidents have used its installations. Juscelino Kubitschek has finished the presidential age of the place, with the transfer of the federal government to Brasília in 1960. The presidential room has been where the president Getúlio Vargas has committed suicide in August, 1954. More information in Portuguese at the Museum’s site.

Republic Museum's Gardens

Technical datasheet:

I still need to increase the pole stability somehow. It has been used at half high in this picture. One of the problems of the way I am using to stabilize it now is that it takes me too much time. I am using strings from the top until each tripod leg extreme. I need to put strength to each rope little by little in order not to bend the pole. I am thinking of some kind of gear to pull the three strings together.

See you, Cartola.

Naval Club Noble Room in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Hi folks,

this 360×180 panorama will surely get into the highlights. It was shot in June 14th, 2011 and I only finished this by now, in January 2012. I’ve had some difficulties that made me postpone the final result to make it good enough as this one deserves.

I have visited the place casually for the fist time. I went there for a music meeting when I did another panorama and saw that room when I passed by. Then I have called the club asking to make this picture. This was the first real test I made with my new (at that time) Sigma 10-20mm.

The place is quite beautiful and has been restored in 2011. The building has been built between 1907 and 1910 and have been opened in June, 1910. According to the Naval Club site (in Portuguese), has been projected by the architect Tomazzo G. Bezzi, built by the responsibility of the engineer Heitor de Mello and the artistic decoration was made by Hélios Aristides Seelinger. The building in eclectic style, with Italian Renascence elements, has been protected by Brazilian law in 1987. Together with the Municipal Theater, the Federal Justice Cultural Center (old Supreme Federal Tribunal), National Museum of Fine Arts, National Library and Pedro Ernesto Palace integrates the Downtown Cultural Corridor in Rio de Janeiro. I personally would put the Portuguese Royal Reading Cabinet in this group.

Noble Room at Naval Club - RJ, Brazil
Naval Club Noble Room - RJ, Brazil

 

Technical datasheet:

This has been the first panorama I did with this lens, mentioned below. I was still using my first self made panorama head in my tripod and this one was a little harder to adjust. With my lack of experience with this lens I got two big holes in the floor, without any image corresponding to them. It took me a long time to cover them, because I have tested many ways to do that in order to learn and to find a better one. I still think it could have been better done, but it comes a time when you need to choose when to stop, otherwise you never finish. Who knows someday I don’t take it again to make it as perfect as I wish. The best way I think would be manually cover the wholes with the clone and healing tool in GIMP.
A very nice discover has been Multiblend. It is much much faster than Enblend. Although people said it doesn’t make a much smart seam choice, this image didn’t need that, so the faster time has been really good here. It took less than 2 minutes and Enblend would take about one hour I guess. Using Multiblend I could achieve a bigger image that I used to do. From the 12,000 x 6,000 pixels that I used to do, I passed to 25,000 x 12,500, coming from a resolution of around 90megapixels to around 300, what makes a much better zoom experience. Another thing that contributed with the possibility to work with a bigger image has been a new computer I got. Only on it I got to edit the final image for last little corrections and I also did it on the cube faces instead of the equirectangular, reducing the size of the edited image.

Another curious thing that I experienced with this big image was a “convert” memory limit (convert is a tool from ImageMagick). It has not been able to transform the final image to generate my thumbnails. I tested it on Windows and FreeBSD and it crashed due to lack of memory. GIMP did the job with no problem. Maybe there is some configuration option I don’t know in convert, but I guess it could be a little smarter by itself. I ran it with 8GB of RAM and it didn’t use it.

See you, Cartola.

%d bloggers like this: