View From The Roadside

Queen Victoria Twilight Panorama, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

I really liked the panorama shot of the Queen Victoria from Sunday. It had all that extra detail that just isn’t there in a single shot, something a subject like a cruise ship can really do with. Unfortunately, the overly soft front section disappointed me, so when I realised I might get a second chance at the shot, I had to take it.
I knew the ship sailed around 5PM, and I knew that I’d have to be there for 4PM at the latest if I wanted to take shots at twilight, as the light faded. We had a little lull in work, amazingly, and I had the camera in the car just in case, so off I went back to Marchwood.
I was the first one there, though quickly more and more people began to arrive, naturally including a fair number of photographers. I knew what I wanted to do this time, and made sure I took enough shots, properly in focus. I also made sure I made more than one ’set’ of pictures as the evening went from day to night. We all then stood around in the gathering crowd for about an hour waiting for the ship to set off, and the promised fireworks.
It was worth the wait in the end, with a spectacular display as the ship sailed out. We had no idea where exactly the fireworks would be coming from until they started, which made getting set up impossible. I then tried the wrong lens in the mistaken belief I could use it’s extra reach, which meant a quick switch back in the midst of it all, as if fireworks aren’t stressful enough to photograph.
As it turns out I needed have bothered. I had the fireworks looking fairly good, if a little lost in the frame, a necessity if I wanted the ship in the shot too of course. What I hadn’t quite appreciated was how fast the ship was moving. It doesn’t look to be going all that fast, probably due to it’s size, but every single shot, and there are quite a few, has the ship as a very bad motion blur. None are at all usable.
Not that I’m bothered. Seeing the fireworks is good enough, and more importantly for me, I managed to get the panoramas this time. That could have become a regret, now it won’t.

Queen Victoria Panorama, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Cunard’s new cruise ship, the Queen Victoria arrived in Southampton Docks on Friday before a naming ceremony and her departure on her maiden voyage. There were a number of things connected to the whole event around Southampton this weekend, so I knew she was going to be in and might be something to think about photographing.
I do have a fascination with shipping on the Solent, from the Navy in Portsmouth, to the tankers in Fawley to the container and cruise ships in Southampton. Up to now the only place I’d found with a view to the Docks was from the marina in Hamble, which is great for the usual Cunard berths at the QE2 Terminal but not much use for anything else. I’d assumed the military port in Marchwood would have blocked any decent viewing point of the main berths, where the rest of the cruise ships come into and where the Queen Victoria was, but hadn’t really had a good look around in daylight to be certain. It turns out I was wrong, and there are in fact places in Marchwood where you can get down to the waterfront and see across to the docks. I’ll remember that for the future.
Having found the place, my first problem was discovering that I had lost my little spirit level that is so invaluable taking any picture with water in it. It wasn’t too big a problem though, with plenty of other straight lines to help me out. There really isn’t much scope for artistic experimentation when taking pictures of ships. They pretty much are what they are, which is more than impressive enough anyway. I did try a few things, one of which was various shots of a Patrol boat as it passed by the ship. The last of those quick shots had the bow of the Queen Victoria as the backdrop, and I had a brainwave. A panorama shot of the ship, giving far more detail than a single shot could manage. I didn’t know it then, but that was where I slipped up a little. The last shot of the patrol boat wasn’t quite as focused as it could have been, probably due to rushing to get the picture as it moved along, but I didn’t take a fresh shot to replace it for the panorama. I’ll ruin the picture for you now, but if you look closely, you will see that the front section of the boat, from the front mast forward, is a touch soft.
Other than that, AutoStitch has done a wonderful job of the blend, giving a massive 20+ megapixel shot with enough detail that you can actually see people sitting at tables in the bar/restaurant in the top-middle section. I’ve put the full thing on flickr, so make sure to follow the “all sizes” links and view the original file. I’m new to these panorama shots, and this one wasn’t planned at all, so perhaps it would have been a better move to wait for the evening to darken a bit to bring out the lights on the ship better. I did that, but only with the more normal single shots, I didn’t try for another panorama later on. This is only the second one of these that has even worked, so hopefully I’ll learn some lessons from this one and the next one will be better again, the first lesson being that this stuff can work at all, and when it does, it’s well worth the extra effort.