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We all know Google Earth as a great tool to get a feel for a distant location with its satellite and Street View maps. Now imagine Google Earth after a massive dose of epic combined with state-of-the-art technology, and the result is the most brilliant virtual tour ever created.
Dubai 360 is the first virtual city tour to exclusively use interactive 360 degree content, including gigapixel panoramas, time lapses and video. That’s right, all in a fully interactive 360 degree view!
Panoramas are a simple and practical way for combing multiple photographs into one with the result that you get a good overall overview of a landscape or cityscape.
Often people are struggling with mediocre in-camera panorama modes or very complicated image merging techniques in Adobe Photoshop when trying to create panomaras.
Today I want to share how I created a few huge, Gigapixel photos, using a DIYed panoramic head. Actually, it is not a panoramic head because it not only goes right and left, but also up and down.
I’ve been a big fan of panoramic photography and of landscape in general for a long time. But four years ago I was climbing a mountain and the view from the top simply took my breath away. I felt an urgent need to share the image with people don’t climb and therefore will never get access to such views.
Here is the thing though, standard photos do not have enough details. Our eyes have far more resolution that your standard digital camera, so a new project began: I wanted to build the best Gigapan Robot – an automated panoramic head for DSLR.
[editor’s note: things get highly nerdy techy from this point on]
Ben Bloom and the team at Onion Creek Productions took the little planet panorama one step further and made a video that totally plays on the concept. In a video they did for Wild Child they mounted 6 GoPros on a device to create a continuous little planet video. We have shared small planet GoPro videos before, they were more of a proof-of-concept type of show. (I think they used the same mounting device)
This video incorporates the small planet perspective warp as a creative element which I find pretty interesting
About two years ago the web was sweat with the latest panoramic trend – small planet panoramas (AKA spherical panorama). It was only a matter of time until someone got the clevers to elevate this into the next stage: Small Planet Time Lapse Video.
Photographer Jonas Ginter used a 3d printed a 3d device that allows him to capture photos from 6 different GoPros simultaneously and then combined the footage in post to create a movie of the same effect:[Read More…]
Gigapixel panoramas are getting more common now, yet, some have a bit of a twist on the usual amazing site-seeing extravaganza.
The team at Microsoft set out to show the stitching Kong-fu of Photosynth and created this ~20,000,000,000 pixel photo was made up from 2,368 individual photos taken with 600mm and 400mm canon lenses mounted on a Gigapan head.
In a similar way to the biggest where is waldo project we shared a while back, the team at Microsoft planted individual artists all throughout the image, making it a fun (yet challenging) find-the-artist-treasure-hunt. Unlike the where is waldo project, the artists were captured over the course of few weeks at six individual shootings.[Read More…]
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.
How to take good panoramas? Sounds simple, right? Take some shots with some overlapping landscape, go to your favorite stitching software, and stitch them up (I like panorama tools AKA PT, and autostich AKA autostich). Right? Not exactly…
If you’ve done a panorama or two, you must have noticed those annoying vertical stitching lines. Some are caused by wide angle distortion, some due to Polarizer filter that stayed on, and some are the “software’s fault”. Allot of those annoying stitching lines are caused due to something called parallax. In layman’s terms Parallax means that your camera’s focal plan does not “sit” (or as Neo would say – is “not in one”) with rotations axis of your camera. confused? Here is a great article to explain this. So if you want to get professional panoramas you need to do something about it; This something is called Using the Nodal Point (is it me, or does this term sounds a bit weird). Curious? here is how you find your Nodal Point. Of course DIYPhotography.net is not the first to find this Nodal thing. you can always get some cheap accessories for panorama at Manfrotto. Or you can try and build one yourself, just like Stefan Lindgren – DIY-er extraordiner.[Read More…]
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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