GigaPan – Large Scale Panoramic Photography
Recently I borrowed and then bought my own GigaPan. I have gone for the GigaPan EPIC entry level model and I am using it with my trusty TZ10.
Essentially the GigaPan is a robotic camera mount to create high-resolution panoramic images. You mount your digital camera on the GigaPan, set your camera to maximum zoom, set the desired extent of the panorama on the GigaPan (top left / bottom right) and then it automatically moves the camera to take the required photos (often several hundreds). Once you are back at base you can use the GigaPan stich software (or other software) to stitch the images together into a large panoramic image. Users can upload and share these images on the web site gigapan.org.
The big difference compared to other standard resolution panoramas is that gigapans are highly ‘zoommable’ and therefore provide an ideal tool to explore a ‘scene’. For example here is one of my window view GigaPans:
I got interested in GigaPans as I am always interested in new kinds of photography that have been opened to us through cheap digital cameras. In the film days no one could ever afford to experiment with huge numbers of exposures and the overhead of scanning images was high. Now we have the great opportunity to see what you can do with hundreds of exposures to represent the experience of a ‘scene’ in new ways. Previously my panoramas were just 30 or so prints blu-tacked onto whatever wall I could find as I could never afford to take real risks and experiment.
So I have been having a lot of fun (and some frustrations) with the GigaPan trying to create new mountain scenes, snow scenes, urban environments, parties, cakes, interiors and even some portraits. Some worked, some didn’t'! I am planning to do some blogging on my experiences and tips over the next few weeks.
The various GigaPan models are available from GigaPan Systems in the US.
