The Vallee of Blanche – The Mecca of all serious skiers
Don’t let the harnesses, transceivers or crevasses put you off. The Vallee of Blanche is something that should be on every serious skiers bucket list. After taking the two the Aiguille du Midi lifts to a height of about 3,800 meters and making one hell of a hair raising traverse (see below) you have 22 – 17 kilometres of continuous skiing ahead of you, depending on what route you take. The height of 3,800 meters gives you about 2800 meters of vertical meters of skiing.
These pictures do the Vallee no justice at all, there is no concept of scale. The place is truly something to admire, so white, so big, so perfect.
Northish facing view of France and Geneva (Mont Blanc to the left) from the top of Aiguille du Midi lookout at 3880 meters.
Above is the hair raising 300 meter traverse down the ridge from the lift. We were all daisy chained together and wearing climbing harnesses. At this point the guide at a cost of 70 Euro was looking like a pretty good deal. Once again this photo doesn’t really do the traverse any justice, it may not look to steep either side of the path, but believe me it was.
The start of our 17 km ski down the Vallee. We were taken on the “Big Kidney” route. As a general rule, when you ski down the further left you are the harder the skiing.
Pausing for a breather after our first proper fresh tracks. Not easy work at all, there was just sooo much snow.
At the base of the Giants Glacier, although big probably not all that friendly.
A view from the cat track back into Chamonix Village.
Don’t worry when you do finally make it to the bottom there is a perfectly positioned pub to reminisce and drink your aches and pains away.
Note: Images were taken using a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix S3 and stitched together using the plug-in Image Composite Editor in Live Photo Gallery.
Nice, France. Panoramic Stitched Photos
Nice is a great little city, even in winter when most days it was a very mild ~15 degrees . Well worth the climb to the top of the mountain – a stitched panoramic photo of Nice taken from the hill toward the airport (facing west).
A stitched panoramic photo of the Nice Harbour, also taken from the top of the hill however in the direction of Monaco (facing east).
Note: Images were taken using a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix S3 and stitched together using the plug-in Image Composite Editor in Live Photo Gallery.
Photo Merging Comparison – Adobe Photoshop vs Microsoft Windows Live Image Composite Editor.
While in Rome I took a few pics. Quite a few of these with the view to stitch them together. I thought I’d compare the difference between Adobe Photoshop’s Photomerge and Microsoft’s Windows Live Image Composite Editor to see who’s better when it comes to stitching images together. The original images weren’t shot on anything special just a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix S3 6.0 Megapixels.
It is important to remember that automated photo merging is no walk in the park. The mind boggles to think of the maths that is going on behind the scenes. Both programs are adjusting the size, perspective, levels, etc of multiple images and then stitching them together "seamlessly" (sometimes more seamlessly than others). To best compare the programs I’ve include a series of panoramas, some made up 4 or 5 images others 26. The final images have only been cropped and in the case of Windows Live images the default black jpeg matt has been removed, there has been no further editing post photo merging such as levels etc, the results speak for themselves:
The Trevi Fountain, Rome. Made up of 9 original images, merged dimensions 9001 x 5485 pixels.
Photoshop Photomerge
Windows Live Image Composite Editor
St Peter’s Basilica and Square Vatican City. Made up of 26 original images, merged dimensions of 19524 x 7078 pixels.
Photoshop Photomerge
Windows Live Image Composite Editor
The Vatican Museum, Vatican City. Made up of 6 images, with merged dimensions of 10665 x 5933 pixels.
Photoshop Photomerge
Windows Live Image Composite Editor
The Pantheon, Rome. Made up of 7 images, with merged dimensions of 9348 x 4549 pixels.
Photoshop Photomerge
Windows Live Image Composite Editor
View of Roman Forum from the Palatine Lookout, Rome. Made up of 15 images, with merged dimensions of 8368 x 3911 pixels.
Photoshop Photomerge
Windows Live Image Composite Editor
It is clear to see that you get the best results when 10 or less images are used, also the smaller the degree of pan the better. I think that this just comes down to differences in light in different directions – meaning that there is less manipulation for the programs to do. Comparing the images side by side it is clear to see that Windows Live Image Composite Editor gives better and more consistent results. I’m really happy with how these panoramas have turned out, even with such a simple point and shoot camera. I can only dream of how they would have looked if I had a Digital SLR (maybe one day).
A slight point of annoyance is the export process using Windows Live Image Composite Editor. The default matt for a jpeg file is black, and I can’t seem to find an option to change it. Oh and in typical Microsoft form the product name is far too long…
For convenience sake original images have not been uploaded as some are 37+ MB. I am more than happy to provide originals if you’d like to hang them on your walls (for private use, not commercial use). If you’d like to use any of the images commercially just drop me an email and I sure that we can come to an arrangement.
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