23: This part of London's south bank has been transformed in...

This part of London's south bank has been transformed in recent years. The building on the left is the Mayor's headquarters, and the other buildings are new office developments which hadn't been built when Google's satellite imagery was taken!

10 comments so far...

Paulo Brabo Team 23 December 04, 2007, 07:51 PM

Eye bending.

StevieB December 04, 2007, 08:55 PM

Thanks Paulo - that's a 10.5mm fisheye for you!

Gergana Vasileva plus December 05, 2007, 12:30 PM

WoW! Great!!! Looks so surreal! :D

StevieB December 05, 2007, 12:35 PM

Thanks, Gergana!

Ethan December 15, 2007, 04:34 PM

When I was in London, all I heard were jokes about "oh, so that's where the mayor's balls are."

But the South Bank is brilliant, erm, up to that part actually! But you've captured it nicely.

PimpDaddy January 13, 2008, 12:59 AM

What kind of lens did you use here?

StevieB January 13, 2008, 08:39 AM

@PimpDaddy: it was Nikon's 10.5mm DX format fisheye lens. Subsequently I used the GIMP with the Panotools plug-in (both absolutely free!) to create a rectilinear version. I also used the GIMP to deal with the excessive contrast caused by the fierce back-lighting. It's a technique I worked out myself, but it's a sort of mini-HDR but based on a single exposure.

PimpDaddy January 13, 2008, 12:10 PM

Thanks for the description :-).

It sounds like you are doing what alot of people call "pseudo HDR". Did you just take a single picture and save it with different exposures and by that way make a HDR as if you had 3 different exposed pictures?

StevieB January 13, 2008, 05:54 PM

Yep, that's about it! With RAW you can "pull" or "push" the exposure by at least +/-1.5 EV which gives you a good 3 stop range. Then I just merge the different "exposures" using a layer mask to decide which bits of each exposure to use.

PimpDaddy January 13, 2008, 06:00 PM

"Then I just merge the different "exposures" using a layer mask to decide which bits of each exposure to use."

Nice variation :). Noted.