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Gigapixel images are so fun to explore, especially if they show cities you strongly want to (re)visit. George Palov and Michael von Aichberger teamed up and created one for the city I’ve strongly wanted to revisit for years now: Barcelona, Spain.
It took three months to complete, and the duo faced many challenges, but in the end – it was all worth it. We chatted with George about this project and learned plenty of interesting facts about the project.
Famous Dutch painter Rembrandt is known, among other things, for his incredible attention to detail in his work. Now you can explore every little detail of his painting “The Night Watch” thanks to a ginormous 717-gigapixel image of the painting. It was released by the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, and it’s the largest gigapixel image so far.
It was bound to happen, really. In a city that size, an image that covers that much of it, with a resolution so high, finding a naked person was as inevitable as Thanos believed himself to be. And now, the Reddit detectives have found one. Some guy, sitting naked in a chair by his window.
The image was created using EarthCam’s new GigapixelCam X80 80-Gigapixel camera, although this particular image is actually 120-gigapixels. From its vantage point atop the Empire State Building, it points primarily towards lower Manhattan (the rear behind is mostly blocked by the Empire State Building itself) and shows some incredible detail.
Huge resolution images have become all the rage the last few years, with a number of cameras now featuring the ability to create “super high resolution” images in-camera without any external software. But EarthCam’s new camera, the GigapixelCam X80 really takes the cake, producing whopping 80-gigapixel images. To celebrate the launch of the camera, the company made the largest and most detailed image ever created of New York City.
The camera is perched atop the Empire State Building, pointing towards lower Manhattan, and it holds a pretty insane amount of detail. Inside it, is a 61-megapixel Sony A7R IV driven by Sony’s SDK, to capture thousands of images in a full 360 degrees of rotation with full pan, tilt and zoom control over IP, 4G LTE and 5G networks.
I’ve seen my fair share of stellar Milky Way images over the last couple of years. But Finnish visual artist and astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has raised the bar. He created a high-resolution gigapixel class mosaic image of the Milky Way that took nearly twelve years to create. He used around 1250 hours of exposure between 2009 and 2021 to create enough data for this photo. And although it was extremely labor-intensive, it was well worth it!
You’ve always wanted to visit Rome and see the Sistine Chapel, but you can’t travel because of the pandemic? Worry not, there’s now a book made from impressive 270,000 images of the iconic chapel. The only problem is that the book itself costs way more than a journey to Italy – the price tag is a whopping $22,000.
The lens of the world’s largest digital camera was introduced to the world around this time last year. Now the sensor has been completed as well, and Stanford researchers have taken the first 3,200-megapixel images in the lab. Yeah, you read that well – 3,200 megapixels, and these are the largest photos ever taken in a single shot.
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has created some wonderful imagery since it landed on the planet’s surface back in December 2012. Its original two-year mission has been extended indefinitely and it continues to pump back a lot of data and gorgeous photography to earth. It’s even shot its own selfies.
Now, though, it’s really outdone itself, by capturing almost 1,200 individual images over four days to create this stunning 1.8 billion pixel panorama. This beats its previous record by a whole half a gigapixel, and boy is it a beautiful image.
Massive multi-gigapixel images are starting to become a little more common now, with today’s computing power being what it is. But they still rarely fail to impress. Especially when they cover vast distances and include a lot of detail to zoom in on. This massive 195-Gigapixel image comes from Shanghai, shot from the top of Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower.
It’s not often that one has to wipe down, cover up and head into a clean room to check out a camera. For the guys at Gizmodo, though, when visiting the SLAC National Accelerator Lab at Stanford University, it’s a requirement. And it’s easy to understand why. This 3.2 gigapixel camera is destined to sit inside a telescope in the Andean foothills of Chile to survey the skies.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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