Hohenzollern Castle - an Eagle's view from the Flag Tower

So why is this panorama important enough to me to make it my "Best of 2005"? Simply because I had a wonderful weekend visiting friends in the vicinity, and this work also introduces some new equipment: it was my first panorama shot with a Nikkor Ai-S 8mm fisheye and the first to be digitized with my new Hasselblad scanner.

The Castle
is the seat of the House of Hohenzollern, and a castle of that dynasty is documented right at this place since 1267. This one is from around 1850 and was meant to be a representative place, not for simply living in it or defending the surrounding region. There is so much more in life than war (e.g. showing off).

Baron Friedrich von Steuben had served here before he met Benjamin Franklin and headed for a career in the United States' Army.

One of the more famous descendants of the Hohenzollern dynasty was the last German Emperor Wilhelm II. who has been my great great grandfather's employer.

A map of this truly impressive landmark is available on the castle's Virtual Walk homepage where you can see the flag tower located at the left side of spot No. 3. That same website also features a webcam installed at the same tower. Last time I visited that site it showed snow and a huge light in the image suggesting that the cannon in the court had just been used. Hopefully not against a busload of tourists.

Technical Challenges
The hardest part was to get rid of all those ghosts. Not those introduced by stitching errors but the type of ghosts that are typical for old German castles. However, two of them (spooky Ulrich and Carl) remained on top of the flag tower.

I hadn't figured out at that time how to effectively shoot back in the direction where Ulrich Matern and I were trying to hold the camera and not drop this heavy weight. So a little part of the complete sphere is just missing on the four photos I took, and that's why there is the silly "tripod cap". The time to retouch that hole in my belly went amiss when I also decided to try out my brand new scanner without going into the depths of noise reduction. Shame on me but I hope you like the view just as much as I do.

Trivia
Sometimes I call this place Castle Vascon since the signs on the towers are so very close to the emblem of Luca Vascon. Have a look at the round signs in black and white. Just ask Luca for one of his business cards when you meet him and you will see what I mean. Please think of adding such nice symbols when you plan a new castle, they really make nice control points for us panoramists!

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Europe / Germany

Lat: 48° 19' 25" N
Long: 8° 58' 6" E

Elevation: 855

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

• Nikon F3 with Nikkor 8mm Ai-S, very basic pole shot construction partly based on sturdy Novoflex equipment

• four shots (left, up, right, down) on Fuji Reala negative film

• Full 16 bit workflow with FlexColor, PTMac, XBlend, Photoshop

• CubicConverter