Commemorative Air Force: Arizona Wing, Mesa, AZ

[Matt Ottosen]

Here's a few of the Arizona Wing's static displays.

McDonnell F-4N Phantom II

This aircraft is a combat veteran which flew at least 200 sorties from the USS Ranger and the USS Forrestal.  The markings are the actual markings this aircraft carried in 1968.

Douglas A-26B Invader

"Miss Murphy"

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21PF Fishbed-D

It is suspected this MiG-21 may have been flown from Hungary by a pilot defecting, it caries pre-1991 Hungarian Air Force markings.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15UTI Midget

The MiG-15UTI is a two-seat dual-control jet trainer.

[Bubak]

 

[Matt Ottosen]

The Wing asked me to come out and take a pano shot of their museum hangar to update their website, their current photo was taken by Melenie almost two years ago.  I took this from the balcony above the gift shop.

[Jay Beckman]

Is this a stitched pano Matt or just a cropped wide-angle shot?

It's a nice, clean look at the interior of the hangar but I'm not sure about the curvature of the Stearman wings.

[Matt Ottosen]

This is 8 portrait oriented shots stitched together in Microsoft ICE.  I'm not thrilled with how it turned out, but I didn't know how else to capture the entire hangar.  Maybe if I stitch less images together it will result in less curvature of the wings?

[Jay Beckman]

What lens and what focal length?

[Matt Ottosen]

18-55 @ 18

[Jay Beckman]

Ok, and how was this stitched?  Photoshop?  Which type of render projection did you choose?

[Matt Ottosen]

It was stitched in Microsoft ICE:

Camera motion type: rotating motion
Projection: horizontal-cylinder

Both were auto-selected by the program.

[Jay Beckman]

Oops...  You did mention ICE up higher, sorry.   

I'm no pano expert, but I wonder if this is one of those instances where you need to really maintain rotation around the nodal point?

Maybe someone else will chime in as well but I'm going to suggest that stitching a pano in anything that has the word "cylinder" in it may not work the best when you've got a long, straight line like a wing so near the edge of the frame.  I think it's just going to want to bulge or distort in some way.

This might be one of those projects that could benefit from doing two or more rows of shots with a less wide angle lens, then stitching multiple horizontal panos together.  Like a Gigapan type image.

Just spitballin...

[Matt Ottosen]

Okay, I have reworked the photo in Microsoft ICE and Photoshop.  I have included both photos here (so you don't have to keep scrolling up to see the original), the original is on top.

[Matt Ottosen]

A couple of shots from last weekend's A Night in the 40's Big Band Dance.

[Brian Lockett]

In a cylindrical projection panorama, any horizontal line that is not on the same level as the camera will be curved by perspective.  Shooting multiple rows with a Gigapan will not alter the effect.  I am a Gigapan user.

[Brian Lockett]

I took my Gigapan Epic to the Commemorative Air Force museum yesterday and shot this panorama of the airplanes in the new hangar.  It is assembled from 481 images.  Click on the image to see a larger version.



I have more airplane panoramas on my web site at Air-and-Space.com

[Jeff D. Welker]

CAF Ramp Details