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Home Ondas del Lago 1995 Panoramas

These panoramic shots, derived from video motion pans, have been “stitched” together from my original videotape taken in 1995 to form single images. I recently digitized my Hi8 tape, which allows me to 'grab' snapshots of the tape and stitch them together.

Although far from “seamless”, if one looks past the obvious exposure and perspective mismatches caused by changing light conditions, shifting camera angles, speed of the pan (which causes blurriness of the still image), & lens focal length changes, they allow for a wide, comprehensive view of video motion pans in still image format that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

This is a view of the Hotel del Lago tower taken from the area of the “Casitas”. The “Casitas” still remained as they had been in the past. But the tunnel that led from this area to the laundry and, further on, the basement elevators and under-water pool windows, is gone. In its place is a stairway (visible here in white right below the tower) that leads up to the upper rooms.

The bottom area of the upper rooms were suites that had small patios right behind the hedge. Sun Oil Company (VenSun) had the last suite on the end, and it was here that we spent about 3 months when we first moved to Maracaibo in 1962 before we finally found a home to move into.

This is a 375° pan of the Hotel del Lago beach area. The physical camera pan actually started on the right, then proceeded around to the left in a complete circle.

A low retaining wall has been built along the edge of the beach, and the old cannons are aligned in a semi-circle facing out towards the lake. The area that used to contain grass with a narrow sand beach has been enlarged with added sand to allow for a wider beach. This allowed for the placement of some nice thatch umbrellas, seats, tables, and loungers. It's a far more visually pleasing and efficient use of the area than existed in the 1960's.

This pan was taken from the dock that goes out from the Hotel del Lago shoreline. It shows the same view as the previous shot above, but from the perspective of being out over the water looking back towards the hotel.

This is about a 105° pan of the Hotel del Lago lobby. It shows the entrance and Reception area on the left, then pans to the “Snake Pit” in the center, finishing at a view down the hall to the restaurants and the door leading to the lake.

The perspective of this shot is quite deceptive in that it appears that the hallway to the restaurants runs parallel to the lobby, In fact, it lies perpendicular, or at a 90° right angle, to the lobby area. Also, the doors to the lake look farther than they actually are, which is caused by the wide angle focal length of the lens at that point in the pan. Remember that the “Snake Pit” actually has windows on the left wall of the room that look into a palm-planted courtyard facing the general direction of the lake.

Another pan of the Hotel del Lago lobby, it starts at the stairway on the far left that go up to the rooms, past the sitting area, then scanning across the lobby to the front glass door entrance, past the Concierge & Reception Desk, and ends looking down the hallway to the shops. The mirrored columns and the refletions they cast can confuse the perspective a bit.

This is an approximately 190° view of the front of EBV, facing the front gates. Although the school grounds have further changed from when this panorama was taken in 1995 (for example, there's now a guard building at the front gate), it still affords a good view of all the buildings and high-rise apartments that now stand across from the school. In the 1960's, none of these tall buildings existed.

This shot pans from the back classroom area on the right, past the fenced tennis courts (the new gym can be seen in the center background), over to the old gym on the right.

This panorama view shows the back staircase and back classrooms. It pans to the right showing the relationship of the tennis courts and new gym (and further on, the old gym) to the back classrooms.

This is a compilation of two pans of the old gym that many of us remember so fondly. The kindergarten classrooms that now stand behind the gym can clearly be seen. In the '60's, this area behind the gym had two sheds that held scout supplies, and the rest was just green grass. Also, notice that there's now a parking lot to the right of the gym, which didn't exist before either.

This was a tricky panorama to make up because I walked around as I was panning the camera. So in order to come up with about a 290° panorama, I was forced to stitch it into two individual sections. But I believe it's good enough to get a rough feeling of standing there in the gym and looking around in a semi-circle.

This is a panned view of the soccer field in the rear area of the campus behind the back classrooms.

This pan of about 100° shows the elementary school classrooms that sit to the right of the front entrance of EBV.

The perspective and Doppler-like focal length shift falsely makes this straight section appear to have an angle to it. Standing back further while making this pan would have reduced or softened the effect.

This panned view of the Lago Maracaibo (Creole) Club runs from the administration building on the left, past the “Big Screen”, the pool, and then to the concession stand on the right.

The image gets a bit muddled in the area of the concession stand because of the rapidly changing exposure levels that the camera made, with it's narrower angle of view than this overall image, when compensating for the changing light, but it's good enough to get the general, continuous panorama of the scene.

This is a pan at the club running from the “Big Screen” on the left, past the pool & pool seating area, the gym building (in the background) , and over to the tennis courts on the right.

This roughly 320° pan was taken at the far side of the pool and shows the cabana at the end of the pool on the left, past the two-story gym/exercise room and the "covered area" at the other end of the pool (where we all used to run under when a rare rainstorm passed over as we were watching a movie). It then proceeds past the concession area, the front door and administration areas in the background, and ends at the right wing of the “Big Screen” on the far right.

This is an interior view of Mi Vaquita.

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