It’s been almost 3 decades since I produced serious, large format images using view cameras. Their film sizes ranged from 2 1/4″ x 3 1/4″ to 4″ x 5″ to 8″ x 10″.
The larger the negative, the finer details and higher print resolution it would produce. That opened the door to making larger, more finely detailed prints.
So, with today’s lower resolution digital cameras, it was inevitable that someone would once again push this limit and perhaps surpass it!
My Christmas present this past year was a robot. It’s name is Gigapan. It’s battery powered (6 AA cells), computerized as well as mechanical. It came out of the design of the “PanCam” used on the very successful Mars Rovers from the team that developed their software at Carnegie Mellon University.
Compact, weighing only about three and a half pounds, it fits neatly into my camera bag.
Mount a compact digital camera … in my case, I’m using a 9 megapixel Canon SX110 IS with it’s 360mm equivalent lens (same magnification as most binoculars) … and it can produce incredibly detailed, panoramic images that contain more than 1,000 megapixel resolution!
In an effort to facilitate cross cultural understanding amongst the peoples on our planet, Carnegie Mellon University, working with the United Nations and Google have joined together to produce Gigapans that can be found on a special layer of GoogleEarth that reveal how we all live.
My primary interest is related to the photography aspect of this project. Most photo printers can attain a print resolution of 300 to 360 points per inch. At the gigapan resolution it is possible to make prints that are 4 feet high and 20 feet wide at the limit of the printer’s resolution!
The process of creating such a huge panorama is much like it was in the days of my large format view camera works. Once again, it is the choice of the location of the tripod that is the key to success. Lighting, composition, etc. are still critical but, first you must setup and level your Gigapan on it’s tripod.
With the old view camera work you were stuck with the view of the lens you had. But with the Gigapan you select the upper left and then the lower right of the frame of your image. It is as if you now own an infinite number of lenses that can cover any angle of view! This greatly extends your ability to capture what your mind’s eye envisions.
The gigapan will then precisely locate and take each of the overlapping exposures (as many as 500 or more of them!) that will later be stitched by the amazing software that produces the panoramas.
Each 360 degree image can then be uploaded and linked geographically so that it will appear as a sphere, floating over GoogleEarth. Click onto one of these and you will ‘fly’ into it and be able to pan around as well as zoom into all views at that location. You can even take ‘snapshots’ of things you find within these gigapans and share your discoveries with others.
For me, as the photographer, I personally prefer to restrict my photographs to only small segments of a panorama and then use the stitching software’s ability to produce a TIFF or RAW file which I can open and print at ultra high resolution. These partial panoramic images are still the equivalent of hundreds of megapixels, each!
What did it all cost, you ask? Combined cost of the Gigapan robot (beta), including the stitching software plus the Canon compact digital camera was less than $500.
Check out the ultra high resolution panoramic images on GoogleEarth OR at gigapan.org
I believe that you will find it to be a fascinating project worthy of your time and possibly your involvement!
I just stumbled on to this post, intriguing…