Panorama photography basics for beginners
Shooting for a panorama scene without a tripod using a point and shoot digital camera.
Skill level; beginner
Most of the time people tend to think merging process of pictures for a panorama scene is the difficult part. But nowadays you can find numerous softwares with the reputation for automatically generating panorama scenes using source images with more efficiency. But the tougher part of panorama photography is taking the individual pictures.
There are 3 types of panorama scenes you can generate, which are horizontal, vertical and tile, and there is also the 360 view which is a complete circle of horizontal panorama scene. And there is also the complete sphere.
Panorama scene production can be made easier with the use of a tripod device, although if you are one of the few that can not reach out to a tripod there is always other alternatives. In trying to shoot pictures for a panorama scene without a tripod, you will need to keep in mind that those individual pictures will not properly line up although this will not trouble the panorama scene, it will only reduce the height of a horizontal scene and the width of a vertical scene. Needless to say it will still be a great panorama scene.
Approach for the actual photo-shooting
To further explain the photo shooting process; let’s assume we are hoping to generate a horizontal panorama scene using an average point and shoot digital camera, without a tripod of course. Also to keep in mind, that a great understanding of visual location of your photo or the portion of the overall panorama scene displayed in the camera and its position as oppose to the overall panorama scene is very important. You need to start from one side of the horizontal panorama scene and work your way slowly across to the other side. Everytime you move to the next shot, make sure the current shot overlap with some parts of the scene with the previously taken picture. Most cameras will have a feature that will let you see a smaller thumbnail of the previously taken picture. For better panorama outcome it is always a good thing to make sure each individual shot overlaps a great amount with other shots. Another thing to keep in mind is hold your camera still as much as you can and everytime you rotate your camera, rotate your wrist as oppose to turning your body. Rotation of wrist works just as the rotation of a tripod with lesser stability.
A tougher version of the panorama scene creation is the tile view. If you are going out there to shoot for a tile panorama scene without a tripod it will be harder than vertical or horizontal panorama shooting. You will have to continue shooting in tiles like direction while having a good understanding of the location of the current section of the scene you see in the lcd screen as oppose to the overall tiled panorama scene.
Once all done the easy part; processing the pictures is the next step. As mentioned in the beginning there are numerous software developed to perform this type of photo functions. There is arcsoft panorama maker, and several others you can discover yourself with a single google search. Also adobe photoshop comes with a photomerge feature which is a very handy tool as well.
For those who are out there thinking of trying a new adventure with panorama pictures to try to capture a larger area of scenery for the first time, I hope this article provided you with some insight and basic knowledge.
Panorama photography for beginners by ashPresentom
Photomerge Function for the photography
If you can not capture the moment in a single shoot of the button, and there is more outside the camera frame that you want to capture to remind you how unforgettable the scene was, there is always panorama pictures.
panorama creation, basic and educational material coming soon
created using the 3 pictures below.
The 10 Worst Assumptions of 2008; by Rick Newman
Rick Newman has published an interesting article about the wrongful assumptions professionals made for 2008 which never become right in USNews.com site.
For the US and globally for the most part economic conditions worsen as year 2008 progressed. But importantly 2008 will be remembered for the year that turned things around, the year that US saw how powerless and weak their economy is. Hard hit recession in 2008 and its effects on oil prices, housing real state prices, investment banking industry, increase in jobless rate will always provide hands on real time experiences for anyone to learn finance and economics. It was great learning experience how things changed caused by other.
But the great drop in DJI will be the unforgettable remark for year 2008 for US. I wish it was only US that was effected by this, but thanks to or due to the globalization, dependence of other nations on US consumer base mercilessly brought their economies down with it.
Nevertheless, 2008 will be a great educational experience for nations to open their eyes to unavoidable economic destructions.
Below are the main points Newman looked at for the year 2008.
Real estate values always rise over time.
The mighty consumer will keep spending.
A buyer will always emerge.
Banks will be careful with their money.
Don't worry, the smartest guys in the world are working on the problem.
Technology is the solution.
The feds will fix things.
There's plenty of liquidity.
Things will bounce back.
It can't happen to us.
Full article; http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2008/12/15/the-10-worst-assumptions-of-2008.html
Financial news catch up; Buyers Pick Up the Pace As Indexes Hold Gains
Volume picked up briskly as indexes held near the top of the session's trading ranges.
Oil prices pared losses, rising above $39 a barrel. Semiconductor and consumer electronics-related stocks continued to lead the Nasdaq, which showed a 1.7% gain.
The NYSE composite and the Dow each held 1.4% advances. The S&P 500 rode 1.5% higher, with Jones Apparel (JNY), Rohm & Haas (ROH) and Harman International (HAR) topping its upside.
More than 90% of the industry groups tracked by IBD moved higher, led by the paint and allied building product makers and auto and truck tire maker groups.
Volume picked up from mixed trading earlier in the session, rising 17% on the Nasdaq and 4% on the NYSE.
Full article; http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=1&artnum=4&issue=20081230
Photographics; nature
Apologies for low activity here in December. Nonetheless, hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season. Down here is my attempt at creating a new directional photographics picture series. Photographers eye immerse with the digital graphic designers touch; such creation is defined by ashPresentom as a Photographic. This definition can also be defined as energy creating, striking, and unbelievable photograph of a photographer, which then greatly defined and masterfully touched by a graphic designer to fabricate the piece of photographics!
Note: photographics are copyright by ashPresentom.
Photoshop Actions: sephia blur
This photoshop action will convert your images into a sephia blur image with outter shadow as shown below. This action can also be run with shortcut key F12.
Down load link:
http://www.esnips.com/web/ashPresentom
How to install:
Save the .atn file in the following directory.
C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Actions
Or,
open actions pane in Photoshop> click actions menu, and select load new action and find where you saved the file.
FinAnalysis: OCF operating Cash flow
OCF stands for operating cash flow, simply meaning cash flow provided by operating activities of a firm.
Definitions from other sites:
Wikipedia:
"Operating cash flow = Cash generated from operations less taxation and interest paid, investment income received and less dividends paid gives rise to operating cash flows per International Financial Reporting Standards"
Investopedia:
"The cash generated from the operations of a company, generally defined as revenues less all operating expenses, but calculated through a series of adjustments to net income.
It's arguably a better measure of a business's profits than earnings because a company can show positive net earnings (on the income statement) and still not be able to pay its debts. It's cash flow that pays the bills!"
Equation:
OCF = EBIT - taxes + depreciation
Why interest not deducted in here?
Interest is considered financing expenses, and most of the time it is already included when calculating WACC.
ashPresentom half-year anniversary
Oh behalf of aP, it has been a pleasure sharing the knowledge and wisdom with the viewership of aP. The growth has been very encouraging to continue to grow this blog with more and more educational and entertaining material. Thank you all of you for visiting aP blog, hopefully you did take some wisdom out from this blog. 
To celebrate this half-year anniversary we have updated the aP logo with a more organic and eye-catching logo. Enjoy! and dont forget to leave your feedback.
Election as it happened
This year (2008) as the US presidential election happened, there were several websites reporting the results in dashboard format real time. Among several are CBSnews and MSNBC, I found to be showing a very detailed and informative dashboard real-time.
But as I was observing the awaited election results, the election started with Mccain gaining the lead with first results went out, but I wondered how Obama will increase his votes and the gap as the time goes...Thats when the graph cames into place.
Below you find is how total votes for each candidates changes against time or as we moved into the election results. After 12:45a I stopped recording data and the last was the final results.
The graph below shows the percentage difference against time. Percentage difference was calculated as (Obama votes - Mccain votes/Total votes distributed among Obama and Mccain)*100. Once again I stopped recording after 12:45.
These graphs thoroughly shows how election went on against time. Enjoy!
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