Tuesday, May 19, 2009

View from Mt. Sugarloaf

I took the long way home yesterday, and decided to check to see if the access road to the top of Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield was open yet. It was, so I rode up to the top to check out the view.

There's an observation tower on top of the mountain, and I climbed up to the top level of it to take the photos which I stitched together to get this panorama.




It's quite a lovely view from up there. Off to the left is the bridge crossing the Connecticut River into Sunderland. To the right is the quiet town of South Deerfield. And if you look real close at the left third of the image, you can see off in the distance the towers of the University of Massachusetts, my alma mater. -- PL

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

whenever you take these panoramic pics i am always amazed. nice view, something i wish i can check out one day.. thanks for sharing.

Neil Vitale said...

Peter :
Totally off topic, but I found a new april for movie 5.

Bryce Dallas Howard

She was on Monday's Craig Ferguson show and stars in the new Terminator movie. All I could think of while watching the rather boring interview was, 'she'd make a great april' :)... and sort of reminded me of judith hoag in her expressions

Splinter's Iroonna said...

I love the panorama pics. I want make my own.

~ tOkKa said...

-->> .. what % of accuracy in stitching these together does the software provide ??

(( Still have not made the time to try it, ))

PL said...

"~ tOkKa said...
-->> .. what % of accuracy in stitching these together does the software provide ??

(( Still have not made the time to try it, ))"

Dave, it does the best job of any software I've tried (and I've tried about five or six programs that purport to do this). If your source material is set up properly, I'd say almost 100% accuracy.

What do I mean by "set up properly"? Well, for example, when we went up to New Hampshire a few weeks ago, we stopped at the beach on the way home. I took a bunch of photos with which I intended to make a panorama, using my typical technique: take a shot at one end of the intended panorama, then turn a bit, take another shot, turn a little bit more, take another shot, and so on.

What I didn't realize until I got home and tried stitching them together is that in each shot, the waves had moved! So the program couldn't figure it out, and I couldn't create a panorama. Now, if you had say eight or nine cameras, and you could set them up in an array covering the arc of the intended panorama, and you could trigger them all simultaneously, THEN this kind of image might work. But I don't have the gear to do that. -- PL

~ tOkKa said...

-->>.. guess i hadn't counted on all that and yeah the movement of water.


I've mostly been excited about it after your experiment with the art work weeks ago.

Unknown said...

I can attest to the awesome view as I've seen it in person! I had the privilege of attending Hampshire College (Umass' off-beat neighbor) and fell in love with the pastoral landscape of western mass. I graduated a year ago and am missing it dearly - thanks for the post.

BTW - was this lookout featured in one of your vol 4 issues?

PL said...

"Josiah said...
I can attest to the awesome view as I've seen it in person! I had the privilege of attending Hampshire College (Umass' off-beat neighbor) and fell in love with the pastoral landscape of western mass. I graduated a year ago and am missing it dearly - thanks for the post.

BTW - was this lookout featured in one of your vol 4 issues?"

Actually, I think the scene you're referring to was set on another cool mountain view spot in our area -- Skinner State Park on top of Mount Holyoke. -- PL