Shooting a Panorama from a Moving Vehicle

I’ve always wanted to take a shot or two from the Carter Langston Bridge which connects Swansboro, North Carolina to Emerald Isle on the Bogue Banks in southeastern North Carolina but I seldom, if ever,  have anyone with me on the trip from the farm;  and driving across a long bridge that takes you some 200 feet in the air requires both hands on the wheel.  And did I mention, there is no stopping on the bridge. This weekend though, I had a driver.  My wife Jeri  was heading to a reunion with cousins on the island and of course, I agreed to tag along provided I could sneak out for an hour or so to take a few shots along the beach.  This is one of more than 30 shots I took with my Nikon D800E camera while we traveled across the bridge.   So how did I do it.

First it helps to have a tripod for shooting from a vehicle.  Many camera makers offer them as well as many of the tripod makers.  All have a special padded clamp that fits on the top of a vehicle window that is almost rolled all the way down.  Girls, you will have to sacrifice your hair- do. Mine is made by Nikon.  It has an adjustable head like the typical tripod.  You attach the camera plate to the bottom of your camera and simply lock it onto the window mounted tripod.  If I remember correctly, I paid about 30 bucks and change for it at B and H Photo Video in New York.  Monfrotto also makes a model but its pricey, almost 90 bucks. I’ve also seen them at outdoor outfitter shops.

I had my camera all set up before we drove onto the bridge.  I used shutter priority; set the shutter speed at 1/500th of a second,  metered the light while sitting at a stop light just before the bridge, using spot metering and locked the setting.  I also switched on the lens shake reduction -vibration control on Nikons.   Jeri slowed down to about 30 miles an hour when we got to the high point of the bridge and I snapped about three dozen shots using auto focus.   I’ve cropped this one quite heavily in order to remove the power lines that were in the middle of the shot.  I’ll go back and zap them in Post.

So another gizmo for your camera bag and unlike a lot of the stuff you see out there,  this one is worth the money.  Thanks for the visit. See you next time.

Photo Of The Day: A Van Gogh In Early Light

The breeze off the ocean is always marvelous here but it does create problems for me in early morning photography and such was the case this morning.   Keeping things sharp has been a challenge in situations like this so I changed my ways,  ditching Aperture Priority in favor of  Shutter Priority  and setting my shutter speed at 1/320. Its a good setting to use when in windy situations and at times when things are moving about like these sunflowers were doing this morning. The fast shutter freezes the action and keeps things quite sharp.  Of course in low light which is the norm in early morning shooting,  I find myself upping the ISO quite liberally sometimes.  This one came in at ISO 400 but occasionally, I’ve upped it to 800 with good results meaning very little if any noise.  A reminder of how far cameras have come in limiting noise.   My Nikon full framers allow me to set a shutter speed limit which helps a lot when one is preoccupied with the shot.  Might try it if you find yourself in similar situations.  It sure works for me.   Cheers everybody and have a great evening.

Nikon D600, 18-35mm lens.