This is a sample panorama produced by Microsoft’s Photosynth iPhone application. The application helps photographers make seamless panoramas from their iPhone. The stitching program makes overlaps each new image by approximately 50%, making it easy to assemble a partial or 360 degree panorama. Even though this sample is a partial panorama, I highly recommend making 360 degree views as the viewing experience is much more emotionally involving that a flat photograph and conveys far more information.

My only experience with panoramas prior to Photosynth has been creating flat panoramas of 180 or 240 degrees. Photosynth enables quick, quality immersive 360 degree panorama experiences. It dramatically enhances the creative possibilities with a smartphone camera and gives photographers a new way to express their experience of a place. The Photosynth app makes it easy to scroll and view the resulting image on the phone, or upload it to Photosynth (with a Windows Live account) for online viewing as a scrollable panorama. You can also upload flat images to Facebook.

One last thought – the online collection of partial and 360 panoramas made by Photosynth users is pretty impressive, and a great way to remotely explore travel locations. The panoramas are searchable on Bing Maps. I love the Four Corners region and found some interesting panoramas of Canyon de Chelly simply by drilling into the map. Here’s an example of a good one I found by a user known as mike.lyoung. Mike has 9 Southwestern Photosynths on his page, and they’re all quite good. Worth exploring on Photosynth to find your own favorites.

San Francisco-style Lunar Eclipse – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge framing the pre-dawn lunar eclipse seen from a roof in the Marina District looking westward to Marin County and the Pacific. © Stephen Lefkovits 2011 – pacific-landscapes.com

Westward Orientation, a photo by Pacific Landscapes on Flickr.

Thanksgiving Day sunset looking through the Golden Gate Bridge from Berkeley’s Cesar Chavez Park. November 24, 2011. Made just after holiday dinner and before the tiramisu for dessert.

The highly variable weather in the Golden Gate makes the winter months a fantastic time to make images of San Francisco Bay and the bridges with dramatic clouds near and far. Cesar Chavez Park provides gret views of the GG Bridge, as well as the possibility of having soaring seagulls fly into a scenic frame at any time. At this time of year, the sun setting behind the bridge can be seen from the next town over from behind the Albany Racetrack which has a large, convenient area of accessible shoreline you can access from 80 from Buchanan St or on a bike from the Gilman exit.

This image is a high dynamic-range composite of three consecutive frames made using varied exposures (-2, 0, +2). Image was processed in Photomatix 4 and Lightroom.

Milky Way and Andromeda Over El Capitan – The autumn Milky Way shining over Yosemite’s El Capitan on a moonless evening, October 2011. At the same time, climbers on the face of El Capitan shine their own light back at the universe in this 27 second fish-eye exposure.

Galiano Eagle-9222 – Galiano Island, British Columbia July 5, 2009. A bald eagle searching the channel for food on a quiet day. Although daylight, the background tree appears as ephemera or a suggestion of a staged backdrop rather than a substantive object. Seen by boat on the water’s edge.

This morning I knocked down this spider’s web that hangs in the upper corner of our garage door. Went for a bike ride and came back to find that she’d spun the entire web again. Here she is spinning some additional silk, seen from the underside.

From a February 2011 shoot at Marin County’s Rodeo Beach.  The light of sunset reflected off the post-storm waves churning along the coast.  This image was selected for the 2011 Emeryville Art Exhibit held October 1 – 23 at 1480 64th St in Emeryville. Two other images from the same visit are available online in my Abstracts Gallery on Smugmug.com.

American White Pelican-8831, a photo by Pacific Landscapes on Flickr.

American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) summering in the Don Edwards Wildlife Preserve on San Francisco Bay. August, 2011.

Surreal SunsetThe moment after the sun dips below the horizon as seen from Mt. Tamalpais. Perhaps my first sensational sunset moment on Mount Tamalpais, dating from 2005. It was and is the inspiration for every other trip I’ve taken up Panoramic Highway since then.

Beach Foam Sunset 4, originally uploaded by Pacific Landscapes.

Rodeo Beach, Marin County, California. February 2011