February was actual quite a productive month for photography, and choosing my picture of the month was actually quite a hard decision. However I have opted for a shot from towards the end of the month mainly because of the symbolic meaning of the image - This image was captured on my last photography session before the impending birth of our second child and I think that this image captures the spirit of an arrival of a new life perfectly.
I shot this image using my Digital X-Pan. Oh, if only that was the case! I really do wish that Hasselblad would release a digital version of what was my all-time favourite film camera. OK, medium format quality in a small, 35mm size camera is now easily achieved with cameras like the Canon 5D Mark 2 but I do miss the ease of creating a panoramic with the X-Pan. Multiple frame stitching works but can be time consuming in the field. Or so I thought until my recent purchase of a 24mm Tilt & Shift Lens.
This shot was captured just before sunrise and was created using the shift function on my new Tilt & Shift lens. Basically I took 3 exposures. The first with the lens shifted to the left, then the center and finally the right. All 3 shots were then merged in PhotoShop and slightly cropped to an X-Pan style preset I have set up in Lightroom. It takes a couple of seconds to adjust the shift on the lens to the new position - Far quicker and simpler than the traditional method of taking panoramic images and also results in far less problems with parallax error that can occur with using a normal tripod head as opposed to a specialist panoramic head designed to eliminate parallax errors.
Of course all that really matters is the final image, and I must say that my 'Digital X-Pan' set-up really does deliver the goods and this shot just looks great as a 28" x 10" print!
I was definitely be exploring the virtues of using my new X-Pan in the coming months, after the birth of my own little Angel of course!
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