Elk's Memorial Rotunda

Ian,

This was shot from a lift, it's about 20 feet or 7 meters up. The facility had the lift for maintenance tasks, and they actually suggested I use it, instead of bringing in a very tall step ladder which was my original plan.

The floor shot is a bit of a pain however, shoot many more shots that you think you need, and shoot them both straight down and from an angle. It also helps to have a boom arm or mono-pod extension for the down shot if you use a lift and of course you have to move the lift for the down shot.

Good Luck!

Robert

I sat here with a friend and both of us (over a few drinks) sat and talked about how you did it, and we came up some crazy ideas.

First one was we thought probably a scaffolding stack used for cleaning or maintenance.

But then we started thinking of others

Some kind of helium balloon, i have done kite photography before, worked similar, but impossible to stitch as its always moving.

We then thought of a huge long stick that pushed in the air

and on and on.

But sounds like we were about right with the first one.

We have a problem here mind you with what i want. Durham Cathedral is an incredibly stunning building, but it has taken me almost 2 yrs of badgering to get them, to allow me to use a tripod. They said under no circumstances are tripods allowed in there.

But eventually after showing them my insurance certificate, the soft feet on my tripod, and saying i will come in at 6am before the public and services, i was granted permission. So i think the chances of me getting permission to take in a scaffolding stack, or a cherry picker is pretty slim lol.

Thanks for the advice, and well done on the photography, looks great, hope mine comes out as well.

Can i ask what camera and lens you used, and what did you stitch it with, as i am about to buy all the equipment to take spheres, ive been getting loads of advice of which to buy. Been taking cylinders for about 9 or 10 yrs mind you and now im looking at a canon 5D with a 8mm sigma or 10-20mm sigma lens and Realviz.

Best wishes
Ian
www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com

Ian,

Thanks for the compliment, good luck in your shoot!

For this shoot I used a Canon Mark II with a 16-35mm lens. To be honest I can not remember if I used Stitcher or PTGui to stitch it, it was stitched a few months ago, but I got too busy to finish it - the dreaded nadir clean up was not easy, took way too much time in PhotoShop to finish.

If you've not used PTGui before, you should try it, it's really one of the best values in this business. I also use Stitcher from time to time as it does have some nice features when it works. Having both is a nice option if you're doing this as your business.

Instead of a lift I could have used a pole system. There are a few companies that make extremely tall tripods or pole systems and/or of course you could make your own.

I also shot a view from the floor, you can see it at my web site, it's the second VR under that menu. http://www.robertharshman.com

And if you want to see a church I shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico, have a look at my bio page at:

http://www.robertharshman.com/bio/biopage.html

I've not have time to integrate this into my site yet, maybe next week.

Regards,

Robert Harshman