Gigapixel Photo? Anyone know how?

LawrenceChiu · May 9, 2011

Does anyone here know how to make a gigapixel photo here without like a gigapan?
Is there a good tutorial somewhere that can teach me how to make one?
The biggest picture I have ever created was 20000x4000, which was a panoramic 360.
But I've seen panoramic pictures beyond that. Is there anyway to make one without buying or getting a gigapan?
Thanks.

kiwizak · May 9, 2011

Autopano pro Does a great job at stitching photos together.

Timoris · May 10, 2011

Weeeeell, You'd need to take many pictures and stitch them together.
I once used over 200 pics for a 360° view of the street in front of my home.
I once tried to obtain a Gigapixel panorama of Montreal form the top of the mountain
However, it was taking a lot of time and lighting is an issue.

The way I proceeded was with a telephoto lens and adjusting the tripod a little at a time, first panning horizontal, then going down a little and horizontal back to the start.
The greater the telephoto, the more detail in your final picture.

[ADDED] OH! and Photoshop CS5 (probably CS4 too) to automatically stitch them together, but only use a few pictures at a time unless you want your computer to Freeze and die.

LawrenceChiu · May 11, 2011

A telephoto lens would be the best? Should I have it zoom in all the way while I'm taking the picture? I got the cheap non-IS version of 75-300mm f/3.5-5.6.

Timoris · May 11, 2011

That's up to you. Depending upon the lens, especially in the cheaper Telephotos zooming all the way can induce vignetting and/or Chromatic Aberration when zoomed all in.

I almost bought That very lens. Trust me when I say that if you want a good, cheap, telephoto go for the Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5 (the one without a gold ring).

Opening any box from Sigma is like opening up a gift on Christmas - 10 year warranty, Lens Hood (Beautiful Petal hoods for the wide angle Lenses) PADDED CARRYING CASES. OH! The Joy of Sigma! You get soo much more from them than if you buy the same thing from Canon, at almost half the price in many cases.

Lawrence, you don't need another telephoto lens UNTILL you start hitting the weakness and limitations of it.
If you can't see any, than you don't need anything more.

If, on the other hand you start telling yourself "Yes, but I can't take a quick enough picture, I'd need a bigger aperture." or "Blergh, what are those bluish contour lines?" Than yeah, starting investing in something more.

But untill then, stick with what you have.

Wait, what was the question?

Oh.

Euh, take a panorama at 75mm, see how it goes. Already you'll have a pretty big image. Very big image. Then, if you want to bump it up from there, go ahead. But that's up to you.

Garbz · May 11, 2011

LawrenceChiu said:
A telephoto lens would be the best? Should I have it zoom in all the way while I'm taking the picture? I got the cheap non-IS version of 75-300mm f/3.5-5.6.

That is a decision you need to make. The more you zoom in the smaller your angle of view and thus the more pictures you need to increase your angle of view and the higher resolution your panorama.

One thing to note my 4 core computer with 8 GB of RAM comes to a crunching halt while stitching together a 200mpxl image. Expect to throw some processing power at your final set of images, and leave it running overnight

LawrenceChiu · May 11, 2011

I doubt my computer will have any problem. It's like a speed demon.
Specs: Intel i7 960 @3.2GHz and can probably overclock that beyond that.
With ATI HD Radeon 6970 2GB
12GB of Ram with a 2.0TB of memory and a nitro cooler to keep it running smooth incase of an overheat.

Sometime I wished that I actually used some of that money to buy a decent lens, but oh well, I guess I'll stick with my cheapy 75-300mm for awhile till I save up. I can always try to rent a lens too if I wanna try something out.

And thanks guys.

Edit: Also, that gigapan, do you think it's worth it? Or I'm just better off doing it manually? And how well does it pictures stitch if there's like moving objects?

Garbz · May 12, 2011

Do a few manually then invest in a gigapan if you really like it. It's a big investment for images that are very limited in scope, kind of like don't buy a telescope with camera mount unless you're really into astrophotography

With moving objects it depends. The blending algorithm will often either duplicate the object or erase it. What really sucks if the they are halfway through a frame while moving, in which case they will be cut in half. You find these things in all gigapixel photos. THere was an amusing one I saw of the Boston area where this massive bus had the cabin of a small Toyota