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North African Coast Panorama #1

Panoramic stitch photo of the North African coast, Morocco

The story behind this image

Sailing west through the Straits of Gibraltar from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic is quite an experience.

To the north you can see the coast of Spain and the Rock of Gibraltar, and to the south you can see the very impressive Atlas mountains along the North African Morroco coast, with the low lying town of Ceuta at the far eastern point of the straits.

This was an ideal view to express as a stitched panorama, long and narrow.

Normally I'd use a carefully levelled tripod to shoot the stills required for the stitch, but this wasn't possible on a moving ship, even one as big as the P&O liner Arcadia, so handheld shots with a fast shuuter speed were the order of the day.

I am always amazed at the ability of PhotoShop PhotoMerge to join images together, but this exceeded expectations, with the final stitch showing almost no distortion at all. A great reminder of a stunning view.

Image data


Filename - north africa panorama 01.jpg

Camera - Canon 5D

Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ 100mm

Exposure - 1/400sec @ f5.6, ISO400

Location - Straits of Gibraltar

This image - 1200x118px JPEG

Conversion - ACR & PS-CS5

Comments - Panorama stitched from separate overlapping exposures.