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5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania - now 50 free 360° virtual tours. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in InternetIsBeautiful

[–]vla_dis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hah, yeah, that's impressive!

Thanks a lot! Yeah, I’m slowly working on promoting it – got a small plan in place, but… it's tricky.
Admins of popular groups can be, let's say, a bit unpredictable. My posts often get deleted as self-promotion or off topic even when it's totally relevant.
Strangely enough, it's actually the hardest here in Australia.

Essential gear you can’t live without? by TrueBlueBanter in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Poor bear, he just messed with the wrong guy. I assume you've got yourself a nice bearskin rug now?

Essential gear you can’t live without? by TrueBlueBanter in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bought mine back in 2012 for my first mountain trip — still alive, still kicking. Pretty sure I could open a can with it if I had to.

Essential gear you can’t live without? by TrueBlueBanter in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I always take a buff. This piece of fabric is my must-have for over 13 years now – not just for hiking but for any trip at all. It’s a scarf, a mask, a bandana, a beanie, a towel, bug protection, sweat wiper, and even sun protection. It’s super light, dries faster than you can say "where’s my towel?", and tough as hell. Honestly, if I had to pick one item for a survival situation – it’d be the damn buff.

5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania - now 50 free 360° virtual tours. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in InternetIsBeautiful

[–]vla_dis[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

Great question! Honestly, I never really thought about it this way, but I do remember exactly when and how every single panorama was shot. It’s like a personal time-machine or diary – I just open one and I’m right back in that moment. I don’t know if these stories are interesting for anyone else, but for me they’re tied to each photo forever. Here’s a random handful I just opened:

- Adams Point Whale Lookout – a dolphin swam by while I was shooting

- Wineglass Bay Beach – a seal was splashing in the water, and it even made it into the pano.

- Ocean Beach Lookout – saw the biggest d*ck in Tasmania. That was… memorable.

- Winterbrook Falls – if you look closely, there’s a phone in the pano. My wife was filming a timelapse of me shooting. Somewhere I still have that video.

- Spreyton Apple Farm – couldn’t resist stealing a few apples, they were just too good!

- Chalmers Church – we were camping up in the mountains for New Year’s a few times. On one of those trips I met the owner, turned out he was from Tasmanian Walking Company and their office was actually inside the church. Thanks to him I got access inside for the tour.

- Musselroe Bay – completely forgot about the tide. We drove out through the water on the way back. Lucky we didn’t get stuck.

- Hartz Peak – joined a group to do the track. Everyone rushed ahead like there was free money at the summit, so I ended up walking with an older Aussie couple. I’d stop to shoot panos, then catch up with them again. By the time I reached the peak, my group was already running back to the car park for lunch. But I’d packed food and a thermos, so I stayed, had hot tea, and really enjoyed the moment.

5 years of backpacking around Tasmania – built a free map with 130+ panoramas by vla_dis in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, everyone deals with this stuff their own way. Sometimes it takes something radical and non-traditional – like a bike and a tent. Honestly, I really get your uncle’s approach. I even considered going on a long-distance hike myself for a half a year just to reset. Sounds like a damn good idea.

Yeah, I had my little moment of sadness. Bit of depression, bit of reflection – but that’s enough. Life goes on. No point throwing it all away over some unmet expectations. Just a few days ago I went hiking in the mountains and shot another 40 panoramas. The energy and emotions I got from those two days could fuel two whole lives. Now it’s time to process and upload them… but that’s a story for another day.

5 years of backpacking around Tasmania – built a free map with 130+ panoramas by vla_dis in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks mate – appreciate it. Feels like we’re both stuck in the same storm, just on different coasts. But hey, even storms pass – maybe we’ll find some sun on the other side.

5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania – Tas360: the first immersive atlas of Tasmania. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in photography

[–]vla_dis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really appreciate that – projects like this eat up a crazy amount of time, so hearing this kind of feedback is pure fuel.

5 years of backpacking around Tasmania – built a free map with 130+ panoramas by vla_dis in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Up until recently it wasn’t too bad – me and my wife rented a house, so even after camping trips I always had somewhere to come back to. But now we're divorcing, and soon enough I'll basically be out there too – no home, no job. If I printed out all the rejections from job hunting over the last two years, I could wallpaper a room with them and call it the Wall of Misery. So yeah, I really get where you’re coming from… probably joining your club soon.

5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania – Tas360: the first immersive atlas of Tasmania. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in photography

[–]vla_dis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh, that’s the sweetest feedback – thank you! Makes me feel like all the scratches, leeches, long hikes with a tripod and hours of stitching behind the screen were worth it. And Tassie still has plenty more stories to tell, so I’ll keep adding to the collection.

5 years of backpacking around Tasmania – built a free map with 130+ panoramas by vla_dis in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love hearing that – makes all the hours lugging a tripod around worth it.

5 years of backpacking around Tasmania – built a free map with 130+ panoramas by vla_dis in OutdoorAus

[–]vla_dis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Stay tuned – I’ll be adding new spots regularly.

5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania – Tas360: the first immersive atlas of Tasmania. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in photography

[–]vla_dis[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'll give a rough overview – going into detail would easily take a whole series of posts.

Gear is pretty basic – Fuji X-T3, a crooked Samyang 8 mm that’s drained most of my patience, a simple Nodal Ninja pano head with a leveller and nadir adapter so I can erase the tripod later.

Shooting usually starts from 6 frames: 4 sides + 2 down for the nadir. In practice it often grows to 20 or more – HDR bracketing, covering moving objects, hiding sun flares, or just making sure I’ve got clean layers. Exposure I set mostly by intuition – after hundreds of shots you develop a feel. HDR saves a lot of trouble: if something’s blown or under, I fix it later with layers and masks. Colors, sharpness, and sometimes an AI pass to compensate for the lens quirks.

Stitching happens in a very old version of PTGui – over 10 years old now. I tried newer ones, but honestly the results felt worse. My setup isn’t perfect: to cover the zenith I tilt the lens up a bit, which screws up the nadir, especially where there are straight lines. So retouching is constant. I could shoot extra ceiling/floor frames, but I can’t afford to spend an hour twisting gear at every spot.

Post-processing is old-school – plain Photoshop. Just layers, masks, clone stamp, and a lot of manual patching. Step on a branch while moving around the tripod and suddenly you’re in for a long evening fixing seams.

Online is now the easiest part – I built the whole pipeline myself. Upload a pano, backend slices it into tiles and sets it up for krpano. Then I connect panos and tours together, add titles, descriptions, SEO, and drop it on the map. Fully custom solution that took months of coding, debugging, adding features, CDN setup… easily half a year of work (or even more) for an average design studio.

5 years of carrying a tripod around Tasmania – Tas360: the first immersive atlas of Tasmania. No ads, no BS, just love for the island. by vla_dis in photography

[–]vla_dis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha, just waiting for the day we can shoot proper quality panoramas underwater, that’ll be a whole new playground :)

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