A few years ago, I first saw such enormous, multi-gigapixel panoramas on the internet. These images are more of a curiosity, in my opinion, but they can be quite fun to play with.

I went up to the top of the 17-story building with prior arrangement and permission. The primary motive was a 12-month panorama project I was working on. However, on one occasion, since I was already there, I decided to shoot a gigapanorama. The climate was very clear, so I took advantage of the opportunity.

I took 170 photos in 4 rows. I processed these in Lightroom, and then I stitched the edited, TIFF-exported images together in Photoshop. This was the most challenging task of the entire project. I used the TIFF format for the best quality, but this resulted in the processed base images taking up nearly 23GB of space. Generally, I think the best method is to import all the images into PS at once and let it stitch them together. However, with so many images, this doesn’t always yield the best result. Despite my efforts to equalize the images as best as possible in Lightroom, PS couldn’t blend the tones evenly when stitching. So, I had to try something else. I attempted to arrange them into groups and assemble the final image from smaller sections. I don’t remember exactly how many attempts it took to piece it together, but it was definitely a significant struggle, and I spent about a week trying before achieving the final result.

I did the stitching on my own computer with an i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. When the RAM filled up, temporary files were moved to the hard drives, sometimes taking up 4-500GB of space.

The final result was a 105,668×17,612 pixel image, which could be printed at approximately 860×140 cm at 300 DPI in decent quality.

To take the pictures, I used a Nikon D750 body and a Tamron SP AF 70-200 mm F/2.8 Di LD IF Macro lens at 200mm.

The full-sized image can be watched here:

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/189527

In the meantime, I remembered the reason behind its creation. This year, the high building was demolished, and I wanted a large picture of Pécs that still included the 25-story building. Opinions about the high-rise vary, but regardless of any positive or negative feelings, it was a defining element of the city’s skyline, a point of reference. Which now no longer exists.

The 12-month panorama project from the 17-story building also came to mind for this reason. This project is about the demolition and the change in the city’s skyline. Once it’s completed, I will be shared too.