DIYPhotography.net

What's better than Obama? An Obama Panorama, of course.

If you clicked the link above, you will find a 1,474 Megapixel image of president Obama inauguration. Yup you heard right. 1,474 MP.

This image was made possible with a cool robotic device called the GigaPan. The GigaPan is an automated robotic cradle that tilts and pans in small steps to complete huge panoramic views. It even has a little robotic arm to press the shutter release button for you. And now it is going DIY.

The cool guys over at the DIYP Instructables group came up with something quite unique. A DIY version of the GigaPan.

The Panorama Robot Head by waldy is build for a canon and uses the very cool CHDK s a shutter release mechanism, and a self designed ROBOT to rotate, pan and tilt the camera.

Final results are displayed here (plug in required).

I wish I could say that this is an easy weekend project. Sadly, I can't.  It's cool. It's innovative. It's an "I wish I'd built it", but it is not a one weekend project. If you're into one weekend projects, you may want to try a non robotic panorama head.