St Paul de Vence and Alpes Martimes

It is always great to see new parts of the world open up on Panoramic Earth. Recent additions by Isabel Marques show the beautiful countryside around St Paul de Vance in France. This beautiful, medieval town grew up around a hill fort in the Alpes Martimes just north of Nice. The earliest fortifications around the town date from the 13th century, and it is still surrounded by 16th century walls.

Panorama of Alpes Maritimes, St. Paul de Vence supplied by Panoramic Earth

In addition to the beautiful countryside shown in the virtual tour above, St Paul de Vence has on offer several museums, including the world famous Fondation Maegh.The town is a delight to walk around, relax in and has numerous rustic cafes on offer. It makes an ideal day-trip for those wanting a break from the bustle of Nice.

This panorama is free to embed in your site. Please see the Embed Tour page for details.

Beautiful Panorama of Rome

Just one of the many dramatic 360° panoramic views and virtual tours of Rome. This one was created from a series of images taken on a sunny day while walking around the Cupola of St Peters Basilica in the Vatican. It provides a dramatic 360 view of the Roman skyline.

Panorama of Rome from the Vatican Cupola supplied by Panoramic Earth

See the complete virtual tour of Rome, featuring pictures and information from many of the most important and popular landmarks and tourist attractions around the city, or search out your favourite place on the Rome panorama index.

Travelling to Rome? Check out these cheap Rome hotel deals.

Personal Panoramic Image Maps

Available to anyone who uploads 30+ virtual tour panoramas to Panoramic Earth is now able to embed their own collective virtual tour on their site(s). Using simple, cut and paste code, this personal tour will show the location of their panoramas linked to Google maps.

Always starting at the latest location they added, and automatically updated with you new images, this is a great way to allow people to view your latest work added to the site.

And how to get the code? The option becomes available when you reach the 30 image target. Then you simply need to go to your profile and select the Personal Maps option listed near the bottom of the profile menu. Copy the presented code and there you have it. Below is tour for Peter Watts.

Virtual tour provided by Panoramic Earth. All rights reserved.

Merry Christmas from Panoramic Earth

Wishing all our readers and site users all the blessings of the season and a great start to 2011. To round off the year, here is a fantastic panorama taken by Malcolm Etherington of a snow-covered Lyme Regis and coast in the UK after unusually cold weather. Thanks and enjoy.

Panorama of Lyme Regis Beach at Christmas supplied by Panoramic Earth

Beaches in the NightTime

Praia da Lagoinha is a very pretty beach in Ubatuba, Brazil. When sitting in the depths of the cold, English winter, one can be look longingly at the stretches of sand and sea, viewed here at sunset under a full moon.

Panorama of Praia da Lagoinha Noturna supplied by Panoramic Earth

Much thanks to Emilio Campi for sharing this image with us. Can we come and visit please?

London in the Snow, December 2010

Regents Canal in after Snow, December 2010. 360 panorama (c) Peter Watts - all rights reserved

Once again London was covered in snow, and once again the news became snow-obsessed. And yet, much of the infrastructure in the capital kept running, with only 5% of bus routes affected much. However, traffic levels were greatly reduced and the airports closed, making the pace of life and noise levels much more pleasant. Though bemoaned by many, snow is welcome by many as well, who make the most of the opportunity to throw the stuff around, roll about in it, slide down hills on it and build stuff out of it.

This panoramas below shows how snow can transform a scene, creating a little magic for those who stop complaining long enough to enter in.

Panorama of Regents Canal and St Marks Bridge in Snow supplied by Panoramic Earth

And nearby is Primrose Hill, whose southern slope provides both excellent views over the snow-covered city, and equally fantastic tobogganing opportunities. In an almost 'anything goes' manner, all kinds of objects are used to slide down the slope. Even lying on other people (hopefully friends) seemed acceptable, with trays, cases and road signs converted into possible toboggans for the afternoon.

Tobogganing on Primrose Hill, December 2010. 360 panorama (c) Peter Watts - all rights reserved

Canon EF Lenses - Change your Photography

Canon produce a vast range of EF lenses for their EOS cameras, making them an excellent choice for anyone looking to buy a new digital camera. Not only that, the range continues to expand and grow, allowing budding photographers also to explore new areas of photography. Canon EF lenses are among the best in the world, they were the first to successfully commercialize Ultrasonic motor (USM) lenses, fast, silent and precise autofocus. Many of the lenses also have image stabilization (IS) or hybrid IS technology. This provides compensation for hand-shake in low-light, slow exposure settings, making photography even easier.

Canon EF Lenses

This video below provides an excellent introductory tutorial into Canon EF lenses.

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Before starting out on selecting a Canon lens, it is always important to ask what kind of photography you want to do. However, whether you are interested in wide angle, scenic shots, macro work or need zoom for wildlife photography, Canon have got it covered.

The Canon EF lenses are identified by several factors:

• Focal Length – given in mm, with low numbers providing wide angle images and higher focal lengths providing greater magnification of long-range objects, but with a narrower field of view. The Canon EF range is very diverse, covering 8mm fisheye lenses through to 1200mm lenses.
• Aperture – marked as f/1.0 or similar. The number indicates the lowest setting at which that lens will work. A lower f value indicates that the lens will allow more light in and therefore work in lower light conditions.
• Macro – these EF lenses are specifically designed for very close up work, and the work best for these kind of images. So, if your thing is photographing details of stitching or capturing bug-eyes and mushroom gills, then this is the thing to look out for.
• USM – The lens has an ultrasonic motor for focussing. These motors are faster and quieter than other types of auto-focus motors and consume les power.
• IS – EF lenses marked IS have image stabilization technology built in.
• DO lens – These EF lenses have special Diffractive Optics glass and are usually smaller, lighter and perform better than non-DO lenses. Be prepared to pay for them.
• L-Series – the EF lens ‘Luxury’ series, top of the line, with the best optical qualities and build, and with a price tag to match. They all have DO lens technology. Unless you have a lot of money, are mad about your photography or a professional, the L-series are what most of us drool over from a distance.

So there is a brief overview of lens nomenclature. The best way to choose a lens is to find a friend and see if they will be willing to let you use their kit. If you have that kind of friend be very grateful. Otherwise, make sure you can try them out in the shop, even have an attendant stand with you as you shoot some frames on your own body from the shop door. Of course, often budget plays an unfortunately limiting role in the lenses we can buy.

If you are buying a new lens, consider the kit lens, if it is of good quality. These often cover the range of circumstances most of us are likely to find ourselves in. The EF 24-105mm IS USM lens I have covers pretty much all I need for most things. The quality of the images has been great, and the IS has helped greatly in photographing moving objects like birds from a boat.

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