Fun With A Camera Phone

[clovehitched]

the_local_echo and I were in London today to see Sara Thomas, our electrologist, for some hair zappery and gossip. A splendid time was had.

Afterwards we tubed to South Kensington to visit that wonderful bit of Victorian excess, the Natural History Museum. I hadn't been there since I was a small child, and I'm sure the Diplodocus was much bigger back then. I digress, however - it's a very photogenic place, and one of the advantages of having a nice shiny phone with an 800MHz processor is that it can do clever things like create stitched panoramas, and be fast enough that it does it before the battery is flat, thus:



I haven't cropped the edges because I think the panorama stitching, which gives it a curvy lumpy edge, is kinda cool. I made the image by taking 6 photos, carefully rotating the camera around the lens between each one, and then just throwing them at a pano-stitcher application, which runs on the phone and which I downloaded from iTunes. A few seconds later I had my nice wide-angle shot. The reason some of the people look like ghosts is because they are in bits of the image which occur in two overlapping frames, and they moved, and the stitching software seems to average the pixels in overlapping areas (this is why it's important to rotate about the lens, otherwise you get duplicate edges on walls and such, which looks like camera shake).

And then it occurred to me that this made the picture look better, because they look like ghosts, and the Diplodocus is also a ghost, of a kind.

Anyway, I think it's really nice what one can do with a mobile phone these days.

Then we had tea in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was really civilised, and then we walked to Hyde Park, where I climbed trees, because I am twelve.

Now we're having a beer in St Pancras Station, and all is well with the world.

Originally posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/210351.html - you can comment here or there.

Comments

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Everyone says that about the Diplodocus XD

[fyremane.livejournal.com]

thats just very very cool

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-)

[fyremane.livejournal.com]

and i agree to the fact the the ghosting images is cool, i love the affect.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I've never thought of the Brit Mus Nat Hist as being excessive- just a fabulous bit of Victorian Gothic- but then, I'm strange like that :op

Nice pic though!

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Thanks :-)

It's pushing it to call it gothic, don't you think? Granted, there;s a bit of vaulting and stuff, but the arches are all semicircular which seems to be harking back more to Norman/Roman type stuff to my mind...

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the exterior looks more Gothic than the interior. It's a bit hard to do Gothic with a steel frame I suppose, although a lot of the detail (the carved creatures and stuff) is certainly Gothic influenced :o)

[amokk]

I like the ghost effect.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

I might restitch it on the iMac later and selectively blend the composites, so only the little girl is a ghost - I think it might make the image more visually interesting.

[hazelstitch.livejournal.com]

That is fantastic!

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[hazelstitch.livejournal.com]

I love the Nat. Hist. - I got mocked for taking photos of the walls though :(

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

But the walls are cool, with all the monkeys climbing them!

[hazelstitch.livejournal.com]

Exactly! That's why I was taking photos!

[nicollegurrl.livejournal.com]

I was there and did see that one also! :D

[notinventedhere.livejournal.com]

Wow!!

That looks fantastic!

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[elodiesdream.livejournal.com]

I love iPhones! Going to get this app.

[techiebabe.livejournal.com]

If you're in St Pancras with ££ then do go to the champagne bar. I love it!

[dave holland (from livejournal.com)]

I love all the different (sized) arches in that picture.

[emperor]

I love the NHM. A cathedral to science, if ever there was one.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

That's a very good observation, thank you!

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Love it, especially the ghosts! Yay tree climbing too ;)

[parmonster.livejournal.com]

Ahem!

Bad enough you made me miss out on museums last time, don't go using up your quota before I get there!

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

It's OK - we were just scouting out places to take you. Yeah, that was it. ;-)

[natalie-456.livejournal.com]

lovely xo