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Nelson’s western vista—what are we looking at?

12 July 2009 in Photography | 9 comments

It all started with a phone call from my friend Ian last week. From his place he gets a clear view of Nelson’s western ranges, and he remarked on how stunning the snow-clad mountains looked. Since I live near Tahunanui Beach, I wondered whether I should go down with my camera and have a look. A short time later Ian and I were at Tahunanui’s back beach with my camera in tow.

Indeed, the mountains looked rather beautiful, calling for a panorama shot. Unfortunately I left my tripod at home, and the best I could do was a handheld photo shoot, trying to keep the camera level with the horizon and estimating the scene overlap. 50 seconds and 16 shutter releases later, I had digitalised the view.

Combining the photos to a panorama was next (after a nice lunch at the Beach Café). There are a lot of photo stitching programmes out there, among them Tobias Hüllmandel’s PanoramaStudio which I find excellent and fast.

What are we looking at?

Over the years I’ve managed to climb most prominent peaks that surround Nelson, and was able to name them and point them out to Ian.

Since the result of my handheld photo shoot is viewable, I thought it would be nice to produce an online reference, and here it is:

Nelson's western vista

The mountain panorama’s viewing angle stretches roughly over 100°, from the Lookout Range in Kahurangi National Park all the way to Abel Tasman National Park, with Tasman Bay in the foreground.

You can view/download the panorama as a small or (very) large file, free for private, non-commercial use:

(To download the panorama right-click on the link and select Save Link As [in Firefox] or Save Target As [in Explorer].)

Daylight Saving ends—how many hours of daylight have you saved?

5 April 2009 in Curiosities, Varia | 2 comments

Last night, daylight saving finished and the clocks were put back one hour to New Zealand Standard Time. I’ve always considered it an usual term, “daylight saving”. Imagine for a moment the possibility of being able to save daylight for later use. Wouldn’t that be great? Well, yes and no. Undoubtedly it would result in some sort of conflict. Daylight saving rules would have to be put in place, on who gets to save how much, when it can be used, how much “daylight interest” can be earned, and so forth. Then there would be the scenario of getting into daylight debt—oh, I see, here comes the Daylight Credit Card—good as gold!

The British refer to daylight saving as summer time, equivalent to Sommerzeit in German, and heure d’été in French. Whatever the terminology, over the years I’ve listened to some heated debates on the pros and cons of daylight saving. How could tweaking a time zone cause such intense deliberation?

Perhaps it shows how much our lives revolve around a set timetable. The alarm clock rings at a set time, work hours are fixed, traffic jams occur with peculiar regularity, meal breaks are scheduled, as are TV programmes, sports events and club meetings, and the list goes on…

If it wasn’t for our timetabled and scheduled lives, daylight saving would be irrelevant. After all, our planet keeps on orbiting the sun, the seasons come and go, no matter how we arrange our time zones. I often become aware of that when I go tramping in New Zealand’s wilderness, away from schedules and any electricity. I get up at dawn and hit the sack at nightfall; I make most of the daylight in between—whether it’s saved or unsaved!

Sunrise at Anapai Bay, Abel Tasman National Park

Sunrise at Anapai Bay, Abel Tasman National Park

For more photos please refer to my sunrise or sunset gallery.