The coolest thing ever in digital photography...

[Lord Nepenthean]

Go here, right now.

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

It's a gigapixel image.  a GIGApixel image, people.  Go read that page.

Technical Details. Here are some facts and figures about this image:

   * Final image dimensions: 40,784 x 26,800 pixels
   * Number of pixels in final image: 1,093,011,200 (1.09 gigapixel)
   * Final image file format: RGB Tiff using deflate compression
   * Final image file size: 2,068,654,055 bytes
   * Number of source images: 196
   * Number of pixels in source images: 1,233,125,376 (196 images * 3072*2048)
   * Lens focal length: 280mm (equivalent to 450mm on a 35mm camera)
   * Aperture: F9. Shutter speed: 1/400
   * Number of control points in PTAssembler project: 779
   * Number of seams that were manually blended after stitching: 364
   * Horizontal field of view of final image: 63 degrees
   * Time required to capture component images: 13 minutes
   * Time required to set control points: 2 hours
   * Time required to optimize project: 2 days
   * Time required to stitch project: 4 days
   * Time required to blend seams / correct misalignments / finalize image: 3 days

And a 100 x 40784 (yes, 40784) crop of the image:

http://www.tawbaware.com/...lyons/gigapixel_strip.jpg

[Lord Nepenthean]

Well Jesus.  Somebody has since made a 2.5 gigapixel image.   Take a look:

http://www.tpd.tno.nl/smartsite.html?id=966

And to view the image:

http://triton.tpd.tno.nl/gigazoom/Delft2.htm


Absolutely amazing detail.  Too bad there are some noticeable seams that they could have probably avoided if they had been more careful when taking the original photos.

[Izret101]

Thoughs are real cool.
The second one i think is better but the first one would be if it wasn't HUGEx100

[Arrrhalomynn]

oh look, dutch people did that. Aren't we awesome?
Although it's more like many small pictures sewn together.

[St0rmTK421]

That's ridiculous.  In the second picture,you can even find out what time the picture was taken.  Can anybody find it?  It'll be just like where's Waldo.

Edit: This is only for people who have WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS, like me
Can you find...
-The Samsung building
-McDonalds
-The Netherlands Flag (very hard)

[Hydrobond]

Or how about the walking torso and the buscar?

And why do you have so much time on your hands, isn't this finals week at UC?

[St0rmTK421]

Shhhh, you're not supposed to tell everyone.

[Lord Nepenthean]

That's ridiculous.  In the second picture,you can even find out what time the picture was taken.  Can anybody find it?  It'll be just like where's Waldo

I'm guessing there's a clock there somewhere?  Thank goodness EXIF data saves all of this automatically.  Digital photography has that great advantage over film photography.  Too bad it can't handle color nearly as well as film can.  If it could, film would have almost no advantages left over digital formats.

[Izret101]

There are a few clocks the ones on the big Gothic style church say 3:05.
I want to know why there are a million cranes averywhere?
Some other good ones to find the train, a risen draw bridge and a blue boat.
I found a shop in there yesterday but i can't find it again. It reminded me of a pizza shop though.

[Hydrobond]

I'm guessing there's a clock there somewhere?  Thank goodness EXIF data saves all of this automatically.  Digital photography has that great advantage over film photography.  Too bad it can't handle color nearly as well as film can.  If it could, film would have almost no advantages left over digital formats.

Well, digital cameras have a long way to go before they catch up with the resolution of even 35mm film.  

Another one of the big concerns is that the CCD of digital cameras is much smaller than 35mm film.  If the CCD was larger, then a lot of the image quality issues would go away, because the CCD is capturing much more light.  However, that would add quite a lot to the cost of the camera.
All 3MP CCD's
Cannon D30
Nikon Coolpix 995
Minolta Xi

[Lord Nepenthean]

You're absolutely right when it comes to most digital cameras.  However, if you get some mid-range digital SLRs, resolution is approaching that of 35mm because the lenses are much larger, as are the CCD's.  35mm may still have higher resolution than most digital cameras, but they also have more issues with noise once you convert the images to a digital format since in the process of scanning you lose a lot of quality.  Now, most digital cameras have other problems that 35mm does not, but high-end digital cameras are finally approaching 35mm.  For what you lose in time, money, and quality when converting 35mm to digital, many photographers are opting out for a $2,000 (or often more) investment in a good digital camera instead of 35mm.

[Zimbacca]

Oh. My. God. That is so fucking cool.

[Lord Nepenthean]

OMFG

The two gigapixel image officially SUCKS now in comarison to this:



http://www.panoscan.com/MK3/index.html

This camera shoots at a max resolution of 585 megapixels.  Yup, that's right.  A single shot.  It can be printed at about ninteen feet long at 300 dpi, assuming you can find a printer and paper big enough.  Full 360 degree image in less than 8 seconds.  OMFG I NEED ONE.  Not only that, but the damn thing can also shoot in IR and UV.  Who wants to get me one?  Christmas is coming up.  It's only about $29,000.  I could use the tripod they recommend too, which is actually under $1500 I think.

Go look at some of the example 360x360 shots they have.  I must have one of these.  I wonder if there is a macro lens available for it....  Jesus that'd be so sweet.  I could take 585 megapixel images of blades of grass and blow them up to wall size at 300 dpi.

I'm too excited to type anymore.

[Izret101]

That is wicked cool.

I am pretty sure my uncles friend is a mapmaker or some crap like that. He can print out pretty big inamges but i don't think theat big. The largest i remember seeing was a sheet that was like 5x5ish.

Not that really helps you out any.

[Hydrobond]

Is that a parallel hookup there?  That must take forever to transfer data to a computer.  Damn.  

NVM, looked on the site, USB2.0.  Still prolly takes a good 15 seconds to transfer one of those pics to hard disk.  And I see they finally caught on and made the lens at the center of the axis of rotation instead of the camera.