Largest photographs in the world

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Most of the photographs that are claimed to be the largest are usually stitched from smaller images. The Legacy Project photograph made in Irvine, California is an exception to this in that it was made as a single exposure on a seamless piece of sensitized fabric using a building as a huge camera.

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[edit] Print

The largest seamless photograph made in a single exposure was made using a Southern California jet hangar transformed into a giant camera. The most recent claim to the largest image stitched together was by the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

[edit] Largest seamless example

  • Claimed by: The Legacy Project; (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada)
  • Photograph of: control tower and runways at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Orange County, California
  • Dimensions: 32 feet (9.8 m) high x 111 feet (34 m) wide (9.75h X 33.83w meters). Aspect ratio is 3.47:1.

On July 12, 2006, six photographers (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada), unveiled what Guinness World Records plans to categorize and certify as the world's largest camera and photograph.

The 3,552-square-foot (330.0 m2) photograph was made to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography.

A decommissioned Marine Corps jet hangar (Building #115 at El Toro) was transformed into the world's largest camera to make the world's largest picture. The hangar-turned-camera recorded a panoramic image of what was on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura" or pinhole camera. An image of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station appeared upside down and flipped left to right on film after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door. The "film" is a 32 feet (9.8 m) by 111 feet (34 m) piece of white fabric - one-third the length of a football field and about three stories tall - covered in 20 gallons (75.71 liters) of light-sensitive emulsion as the "negative".

After exposing the fabric for 35 minutes the image was developed by 80 volunteers using a giant custom-made tray of vinyl pool liner. Development employed 600 gallons (2271 liters) of black-and-white developer solution and 1,200 gallons (4542 liters) of fixer pumped into the tray by ten high volume pumps. Print washing used fire hoses connected to two fire hydrants. The hangar/camera will eventually be torn down, so the photographers jokingly state that they have also made the world's largest disposable camera.[1]

[edit] Largest Example Assembled from Multiple Pieces

  • Name of project/picture: Unknown (Grand Hall diorama background)
  • Claimed by: Canadian Museum of Civilization
  • Photograph of: Canadian Aboriginal forest
  • Dimensions: 112 m (367 ft) (W) x 15 m (49 ft) (H)
  • Photographers: Rob d'Estrube assisted by Dirk Heydemann of DESTRUBE PHOTOGRAPHY of Victoria B.C. Canada

The photography was originally produced on 6x6 cm transparency film shot with a Hasselblad 80mm lens in many overlapping sections. 80 rolls of film were used over several sites with this scene being finally chosen. The site is the estuary of Nasparti Bay at the base of the Brooks Penninsula on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Shot in 1987 or 1988 to be ready for the opening of the museum in 1989. The installation is actually two scrims of identical size, one behind the other in mirror image to give the viewers a 3-dimensional experience while walking beside it.

There is much more technical infomation available by contacting rob d'Estrube DESTRUBE PHOTOGRAPHY LTD, rob@destrube.com


Within the Canadian Museum of Civilization, one wall of the massive Grand Hall is composed of a scrim covered by a photo of a forest. The photo is about 100 m (328 ft) by 15 m (49 ft).[2]

[edit] Digital photograph

  • Name of project/picture: Yosemite-17-Gigapixels/Glacier Point
  • Claimed by: Gerard B. Maynard, New York, NY, USA
  • Photograph from: Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, CA, USA
  • Dimensions: 214,414 pixels X 80,571 pixels
  • Size: 96.5 GB
  • Pixels: 17,275,550,394
  • Year: 2008

Full size zoomable image

[edit] Previous

The 16.1 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl. The project "The Last Supper" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1677 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel in size.

The Last Supper - full size zoomable

[edit] Previous

  • Name of project/picture: Harlem 13 Gigapixels
  • Claimed by: Gerard Maynard
  • Photograph of: Harlem, New York
  • Dimensions: 279,689px (W) × 46,901px (H)
  • Size: 48.8 GB
  • Pixels: 13,117,693,789
  • Year: 2007

The 13 Gigapixel size was reached by Gerard Maynard.

The 2045 images were taken with a Nikon D2X with 300 mm lens mounted on a modified Peace River Studios PixOrb. The stitching and exporting was done automatically by Autopano Pro.

Full size zoomable image

[edit] Previous

The 8.6 Gigapixel size was reached by HAL9000 Srl.

The project Parete Gaudenziana was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, it is a stitched photograph created merging 1145 shots from a single point into one photograph, each shot 12.2 Megapixel big. A story of the picture has been published by Rob Galbraith.

[edit] Previous

  • Name of project/picture: Cologne 8 Gigapixels
  • Claimed by: André M. Hünseler
  • Photograph of: Cologne, Germany
  • Dimensions: 171,800px (W) × 46,600px (H)
  • Size: 20.0 GB
  • Pixels: 8,005,880,000
  • Year: 2009

The 8.0 Gigapixel size was reached by André M. Hünseler.

The ~600 images were taken with a Canon EOS 400D with a 300 mm Tamron lens.

Full size zoomable image

[edit] Previous

  • Name of project/picture: Gigapix
  • Claimed by: TNO
  • Photograph of: Delft, Netherlands
  • Dimensions: 78,797px (W) × 31,565px (H)
  • Size: 7.5GB
  • Pixels: 2,487,227,305
  • Year: 2004

The previous record belonged to Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research.

One of these attempts was by Dutch company TNO. The project dubbed "Gigapix" was claimed to be the largest digital panoramic photo, although it is a stitched photograph by merging hundreds of small sections into one photograph. According to an article in The Register and a Slashdot story, the photograph is 78,797 by 31,565 pixels large. It was taken on a Nikon D1X camera.

A preview of the image can be seen at:

[edit] Previous

Bryce Canyon, USA
  • Name of project/picture: Unknown
  • Claimed by: Max Lyons, Gigapixel Images
  • Photograph of: Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA
  • Dimensions: 40,784px (W) × 26,800px (H)
  • Size: 2.06GB
  • Pixels: 1,093,011,200
  • Year: 2003

The previous record belonged to Max Lyons of Gigapixel Images. He had at one stage claimed to have created the largest photo. It consisted of 196 images that were stitched together. Since then this claim has been surpassed by that of the TNO attempt. TNO's Gigapix is 2.5 times larger.[3]

[edit] Previous

  • Name of project/picture: Portrait of a Coral Reef
  • Claimed by: Jim Hellemn
  • Photograph of: Bloody Bay Wall Coral Reef in Cayman Islands
  • Dimensions: 76,934px (W) × 23,010px (H)
  • Size: 4.95GB
  • Pixels: 1,770,251,340
  • Year: 1999

The previous record may have belonged to jim Hellemn of Blue Ocean Art. In 1999, Hellemn created a 1.77 gigapixel underwater photocomposite image, which was designed to facilitate life-size reproduction of a 20ft high by 70ft wide section of Bloody Bay Wall, a vertical coral reef wall in the Cayman Islands. The image consisted of over 300 images that were manually stitched together from 4000ppi drum scans of Fuji Provia 100 transparency film. To make the image, a grid of 280 frames was photographed with 30% overlap to accurately cover the reef wall with full-spectrum light revealing the natural color and detail of the reef. Additional frames of marine life carefully photographed in the same grid composited in place to complete the scene. The on-site photography, requiring 23 dives and over 12 hours underwater to complete, was accomplished over a ten day period by Jim Hellemn, with assistants Larry Hellemn and Peter Neubauer, using a neutrally-buoyant camera platform Hellemn designed specifically for the project. The post production of the image was completed in six months using multiple Macintosh G4 computers at Photographix in Poway, California, a digital graphics company owned by Hellemn.

A zoomable version of the image was made available to the public in 2000 using the ER Mapper's Image Web Server software on a site operated by Fugro-Pelagos, allowing visitors to explore the life-size image. The project and the techniques used by Hellemn inspired researchers at Miami university to use similar methods to produce wide-coverage video mosaics to study coral reefs. RSMAS. 2006 Annual Report The image was published in the October 2001 issue of National Geographic Magazine, "Portrait of a Coral Reef".

A preview of the image can be seen at:

[edit] References

  1. ^ "World's largest photo taken in defunct El Toro base hangar". ocregister.com. July 13, 2006. http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1210585.php. 
  2. ^ "Canadian Museum of Civilization: Grand Hall". Canadian Museum of Civilization. 2006. http://www.civilization.ca/aborig/grand/grandeng.html. 
  3. ^ "Breaking the Gigapixel Barrier". Tabaware. December 14, 2003. http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm. 

[edit] External links

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