Panorama

    All the best flowers peak around the time of my birthday. The rare rocky shoals spider lilies of Landsford Canal State Park in the northern part of the state towards Charlotte always peak around now. As they bloom out in the middle of the Catawba River, it makes for a nifty, almost spectacular sight. A beautiful panorama.
    When I found out that I could use my phone camera to take panoramic shots, I was very excited. There were two places I was particularly excited to photograph: Landsford Canal and another up the side of a mountain. I haven't been up too many mountains lately, and after Landsford Canal I'm not sure I'll go. Paul and I went today. The word had certainly gotten around that the lilies were peaking. The lot was overflowing, the trails were overflowing, the viewing area was overflowing. But that would have been okay if the pictures had been better. I forgot something important about the Catawba River: it's pretty wide. (Downstream a bit, it's called the Broad River.) The flowers were way the hell over there. So with a telephoto lens or zoom function, you can get a good shot of the lilies. Panorama doesn't work with zoom. So I've got these nice pictures of a pretty river with itty bitty flowers way the hell over there. And I took three pictures with the Nikon, side by side (panoramically, if you will) and stitched them together using different panorama software. That panorama is better, but still not what I was hoping for. I did zoom in and get some pretty pictures of the lilies, but at that degree of zoom, they're also pretty blurry.
    So a letdown, though we had a gloriously beautiful day at least. And went on to Charlotte for Ethiopian food. So yay anyway, on the whole.