Amazing job! Looking forward to the "Making of" post, especially the hardware part and stitch times!

I don't want to demean it in any way, but the sky banding is pretty nasty. Also, I think this image has no resolution to offer beyond, say, 35-40GP. Looking at the road signs on one of the bridges at full zoom, it is clear the image is pushed beyond its limits. 6-8 clicks on the Minus sign (zoom out) later, it looks much better. I also dare say the whole pano lacks contrast - I cannot find a deep black shadow or truly bright spot.

Hey Julian!

I still admire your extremely impressive - in any way - pano of this church-dome you did some time ago.
That is one of the best made highres panos i ever saw. And it makes sense! Not only technically but it also
shows beautiful details which usually remain unseen.

To be honest: i have my problems with gigapixel panos of the kind you show us above.
Heading for the amount of pixels often means to "show as much as you can" - but does it serve in any way
a NEED? Or just makes FUN? I mean: no. Because i see an image - but not a picture.

The Paris 26gigapx is a very rare example in which an interesting motiv is combined
with very high resolution.
That`s based on the point of view the Kolor crew chose to shoot from: i feel "integrated" in a surrounding which
invites me to explore it.

In your picture - as well for example with the Dresden 26 GPx pano and most other gigapx images - i feel no vital
reason to look that deep into it as you make it possible to do: the chosen point of view physically is so very much distanced
that it causes an emotional distance . . . as came to my mind spontaneously.

I visited Vienna some times for shooting jobs. It´s an amazing city of unsusual visual attractions to me as a photographer.
In your kind of post-card overview nothing attracts me to dive into - it`s all so far, far away . . .

So we have a technically impressive piece work - but for what does it serve? To show how much pixels can be used in a pano?
Is that enough?

best, Klaus

for the love of got please dont put spaces in your URLs

very impressive!

thanks for sharing it was fun to watch

Henrik

Yes, Looking forward to the making of....

gkaefer wrote:

so why not using this 50 giga pano as entrance to jump to the indoor and outdoor sights?

Right - there is no reason not to do so!

best, Klaus

julian kalmar wrote:

mediavets wrote:

julian kalmar wrote:

-1st. picture: 08.48, last: 11.42 .....no motorized pano head

Julian

So was this shot using your modified Nodal Ninja 5 pano head?

Yes, in my opignon, the only way of not getting hundreds of ghost pictures is to avoid them when shooting the image by looking into your camera.

So you shot 3600+ images in less than 3 hours manually. That must demand great stamina and concentration. 

Do you use LiveView, or look through the viewfinder, or do you shoot from a tethered laptop with on screen viewfinder display?

Do you adjust focus during the shoot?

Last edited by mediavets (2010-07-22 19:21:34)

I estimate that you are shooting at a rate of about 20 shots per minute - does that sound about right to you?

The records don't last very long these days, do they?

Rio: 67GP -

http://gigapan.org/gigapans/54825/

gddxb wrote:

Just crunching some numbers.

50.5 gigapixels from only 3600 images? That averages out at 14MP per image.

I'm assuming this was with a 5D MkII?

Also - why so much sky? With the Dubai one, I've kind of had an excuse because I have to get the full height of the Burj Khalifa in the shot. With this one, there seems to be no reason at all for including so much sky in the field of view as pretty much the entire content is below the horizon?

Why 14MP ?
A mkii has 21MP overlaping about 20%

julian kalmar wrote:

gddxb wrote:

Just crunching some numbers.

50.5 gigapixels from only 3600 images? That averages out at 14MP per image.

I'm assuming this was with a 5D MkII?

Also - why so much sky? With the Dubai one, I've kind of had an excuse because I have to get the full height of the Burj Khalifa in the shot. With this one, there seems to be no reason at all for including so much sky in the field of view as pretty much the entire content is below the horizon?

Why 14MP ?
A mkii has 21MP overlaping about 20%

That's what I meant - at an average 14MP per image (50GP/3600 images), you had to have been using a 5D Mk II

REALLY nice quality by the way. Also great linking to your other panoramas inside this one. The church ones are amazing.

julian kalmar wrote:

gddxb wrote:

The records don't last very long these days, do they?

Rio: 67GP -

http://gigapan.org/gigapans/54825/

This is the best example, why I´m not using an automatic head

but the Rio pano is more interesting !!!
Very few sky and a very interesting veiw (bay of Rio)...

So...

taf wrote:

gddxb wrote:

The records don't last very long these days, do they?

Rio: 67GP -

http://gigapan.org/gigapans/54825/

who will break the 100GP record first ????
Kolor, it's an idea, no ?

If it wasn't for the terrible air quality here in Dubai through the summer, I would have done a 100GP+ panorama already. As I mentioned in the comments on my 45GP image, the air quality really is too poor to "seriously" attempt this kind of thing at the moment.

I'll do one later in the year, but there's little stopping someone doing a 100GP+ panorama right now from what I can see.

The hardware and software seem to be capable of handling these now. The real challenges to maximising the gigapixels are simply practical:

1. You want to maximise both horizontal and vertical fields of view.

The former means ideally a 360 degree pano. The latter means having an "excuse" to have a big vertical field of view (without simply putting in sky for the sake of getting more pixels). For me, I've got a bit of an advantage living in a place where the world's tallest building will typically be the focal point of any large pano I take. I can genuinely justify having a large vertical field of view because I need it in order to get the Burj Khalifa in shot. (This is one of my issues with this particular Vienna panorama - regardless of the quality, which, I want to stress, is exemplary, it's hard to justify having so much sky in the pano. The sky simply seems to be there to almost double the number of pixels in the final panorama, without actually adding much to it.)

With regards a 360 degree horizontal pano, if you're also looking to maximise the vertical field of view, this can be highly restrictive. The ideal location is somewhere high up, with minimal interference in the view when you pan vertically and horizontally. The Vienna example is a great example of a 360 degree horizontal field of view, but the vertical FOV is severely limited.

This is why I could - weather permitting - easily do a 100GP+ pano. I shot my 45GP Dubai pano from the corner of a 40+ story building currently under construction. That building has a crane (actually 2) on top of it. I have access to the crow's nest above the crane cabin if I want it. This would enable a 360 degree horizontal and (estimating here) 60 degree+ vertical field of view (justified by the fact the Burj Khalifa will be in shot) with minimal objects blocking the view (basically, just the crane arm itself)

To put this potential into perspective, my Dubai 45GP shot was roughly 245x45 degree FOV. Extend this to 360x60, and you're already looking at 86GP. Stick a 2x teleconverter on the 100-400mm zoom as was used in the Rio panorama, and - well, you do the maths...

2. Optically, you want to maintain a decent quality with your chosen camera/lens combination, and you need decent air quality.

Obviously this gets very subjective, very quickly. But - regardless of my comments above re the "excess" sky the Vienna pano - there is clearly a huge difference in quality between this one, and the one taken in Rio. I really don't think this has anything to do with the software used, panorama hardware used, or approach to taking the source images themselves, it's all to do with the camera and lens. Air quality I can't comment on re the Rio 67GP image, but I do know it's massively limiting for me here in Dubai.

I'm not sure what was used for the Vienna shot, but I very much doubt it was a 2x converter put on a zoom (albeit, L) lens. There are very few Canon lenses that you can get away with using that converter with and then go pixel-peeping, and the 100-400 zoom isn't one of them - hence the quality of the output. That's not to belittle the technical achievement though - I think it's a remarkable accomplishment of a combination of dedication, software, and hardware.

Put the above two together, and in late September/early October, I'll be able to pull off a 360x60 degree panorama with a Canon 300mm f/2.8 + 2x teleconverter on a 7D. The quality should - stitching software permitting - be outstanding. I could do it next weekend were it not for the poor air quality here in the summer months.

If my maths is right though, that panorama would come out to around 200GP.

Last edited by gddxb (2010-07-24 19:57:26)