Click on the image to view the LDS Conference Center - Front of House spherical panorama
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Tags: audio engineering, lds, lds conference center, mormon, panorama, spherical panorama
Click on the image to view a spherical panorama from the LDS Conference Center pulpit
About a month or so ago, I visited my friend Jason at his work and shot a spherical panorama of the LDS Conference Center from the point of view of the conductor. That time, I visited in the evening and the lighting people were all gone – so I shot it with just the “work lights” on. As good as it may have looked then, it deserved a second visit when the lights were on.
Tags: lds, lds conference center, mormon, panorama, pulpit, spherical panorama
Panorama of Mount Nebo at Midnight
This trip was about as last-minute as you can get. We decided to hike to the north peak of Mount Nebo Friday afternoon, and left my house around 4:30 PM and headed towards the Nebo Loop in Payson – planning to stop for food along the way.
It turns out, there is only really one place to get fast food on the road from Spanish Fork to Payson, and once we realized that we had passed it we backtracked to it. It’s a Burger King that is attached to a Chevron station. We place or orders, buy some gatorade and misc stuff, and then head back into the car to head to the trailhead.
Tags: hiking, panorama, Photography, Utah
On Friday, I went with a group to Zion National Park and descended Behunin Canyon. I’ve done this canyon a number of times before, but it’s been a while since the last time I have done it. The view right before the last rappel is quite stunning, and it is one of my favorite spots in the park. While standing on a ledge next to a 200-foot drop, I carefully shot this series of images to stitch together for a Panorama of Lady Mountain, Deertrap Mountain, and Mountain of the Sun from the end of Behunin Canyon.
The LDS Conference Center
I visited Jason after he was done for the day and he stuck around for a while so I could shoot this set of images. All of the lighting people have left for the day, so the lights you see here are just the default work lights. Although I think these lights look just fine, as you pan around you can see how many lights they have that they can work with and it’s easy to imagine what someone with talent could do to make this place look even more amazing.
About the panorama
While you view the panorama of the LDS Conference Center you can click on the amazon MP3 link at the bottom to hear some songs of the Tabernacle Choir singing – I’m not a huge fan of music on web pages, but this is one place I will make an exception since it fits the mood of the building.
About some of the sound equipment
Some of the microphones that are hanging down are used only to generate sound for use in-house. There are a number of thin microphones hanging down that are used to create reverb and make the sound feel more natural to people sitting in different sections of the Conference Center. Though other groups sing on this stage, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is by far the most frequent group performing here. One feature of the stage you will notice is that on the walls there are several large white speakers. These speakers are set up to help the choir hear each other – on the women’s side of the stage, the speakers play a mix of the men’s side and vice versa. By pumping sound out to the choir like this, it replicates the same experience that the choir has naturally signing under the parabolic dome in the nearby Tabernacle.
Tags: architecture, conference center, lds, mormon, organ, panorama, Photography, salt lake city
Climbing with kids in Maple Corridor
Friday I went to Maple Canyon with Rhett and Steve Boynton and his family. In the afternoon we climbed in the Maple Corridor, and I took a panorama of Maple Corridor in Maple Canyon is pretty cool because of it’s rather unique geology. The entire thing is hundreds of vertical feet of conglomerate – which is more easily described as “big cobblestone cliffs”. Climbing on it feels like you are climbing on a never-ending antique chimney. It’s also unique because it has areas where an extremely easy climb will be only a few hundred feet away from an extremely difficult climb.
The kids had fun, in particular because the most fascinating stick in the known universe was apparently found there. Both Rhett and Porter (the other boy in the picture) were infatuated with this one stick, and no other stick would satisfy them. Eventually Porter relented and let play with it for most of the time there, but in exchange Porter got permanent custody rights when we left.
This is an HDR panorama, but to get the kids faces not so blurry I took them from a single exposure and merged them in with the 32-bit merged exposure. I think in the future this might be how I approach moving subjects in hdr photos that don’t themselves have a large dynamic range (i.e. people or other things that are moving) – it worked well but still keeps the aspects of HDR that are good (such as the brighter rocks towards the top not being blown out or the shadows in the dark areas not having any detail)
Tags: climbing, maple canyon, panorama, photos
Panorama from Panorama Point - Capitol Reef National Park
I couldn’t resist taking a 360×180 Panorama from Panorama Point in Capitol Reef National Park. I took two, one at sunset and another at sunrise. The sunset one I haven’t bothered stitching together because the sky in it is boring (no clouds that night) but this sunrise one I thought came out nice.
The panorama actually looks quite a bit cooler than I remember it being when I was there in person. Perhaps that’s because I spent less than 5 minutes there – and all 5 of those minutes consisted of running from my car up to the spot, setting up the tripod, and shooting 120 different shots (40 different angles, 3 exposures each bracketed 2 stops +/-), then taking down the tripod and running to the car. (We were in a hurry to get to the middle of nowhere to do angel cove canyon)
Tags: capitol reef, panorama, Photography, sunrise
Background
Angel Cove Canyon is a small slot canyon south of Hanksville in the middle of nowhere. Last Saturday the weather was looking rather sketchy most places, and we were already in Bicknell Utah after spending the day in Capitol Reef National Park with my wife’s family. Three of the people in our group were new to canyoneering and we were looking for a canyon that had at least a couple of rappels, was relatively close to where we already were, and had a relatively small catch basin to protect against the danger of a flash flood.
How to find the canyon
With the help of Dave Pimental’s excellent Minislot Guide to the Colorado Plateau website we decided that Angel Cove Canyon would be an excellent choice. Had the weather and time permitted, we might have also done the nearby Angel Slot canyon.
Related Posts
While in the canyon, I took several sets of 360×180 panoramas to try to help give a feel for what the canyon is like. The first one I took shows a panorama of a minor crossroads in Angel Cove Canyon. Later on down the canyon it narrows up and becomes quite pretty so I took another panorama of the narrow slot canyon part of Angel Cove Canyon and finally I took a panorama of the two-stage rappel sequence at the end of Angel Cove Canyon to try to give a feel for that part of the canyon. On our way out of the canyon, a thunderstorm moved in over us and I captured a single-row panorama of flash flooding causing waterfalls on Sandstone
Summary
My overall summary of the canyon is that it’s a fun short canyon that can be done by beginner canyoneers without too much difficulty.
More experienced canyoneers will enjoy the scenic sections and will appreciate the extremely short approach. It has no bolts, so if you aren’t comfortable rappelling off of a big pile of rocks you might want to go elsewhere. It’s narrow sections are photogenic and it is close by other canyons. It’s remote setting and lack of crowds is also appealing.
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Tags: angel cove canyon, canyoneering, canyons, photos, trip report, Utah
Early on in Angel Cove Canyon
The first part of Angel Cove Canyon is fairly wide with some occasional downclimbing. When we were there, there was a bunch of knotted rope left behind by an earlier party at each of the drops. I think it is more fun to do canyons where there isn’t a bunch of crap already there from the groups in front of you – part of the fun is figuring out how you want to get down the specific drops. When there are fixed ropes left sitting there it eliminates a lot of the thinking.
The particular area of this shot you can see part of our group going down one of the downclimbs while another part of our group hangs out in the shade of another finger of a canyon coming in from the north.
This is the last of my angel cove 360×180 panoramas. I have plenty more pictures I will post later, most likely on my flickr photostream.
Tags: angel cove, canyoneering, panorama, Photography, Utah
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