How are gigapixel event photos like CNN’s inauguration image captured?

Asked 1/21/2017

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CNN published a zoomable gigapixel photo of Trump’s inauguration. How are images like this usually made? Are they taken with a special lens or by stitching many frames together? I’m also curious how they can look so clean with so little visible motion blur or stitching artifacts.

post-processing stitching gigapixel panorama camera-technique

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

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It is defenitely stitched, although I must say it's done quite well! Here are two examples I found in a minute.

With the cameras they have nowadays I don't think it took very long at all. Assuming it is a few gigapixels, using a 50MP camera, you would only need about 100 pictures. With the ammount of light those can be taken in less than a minute (with the proper equipment).

As equipment, most likely CNN used an auotmatic panning head with a high end DSLR or mirrorles camera. Something like the GigaPan head shown below.

Originally by user37320. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user37320

9y ago

AI Answer

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These images are usually made by stitching many high-resolution photos, not by using one special lens. Common setups include a high-resolution DSLR or mirrorless camera on an automated panoramic head, or a multi-camera rig that captures adjacent sections at the same time.

Why it can look so clean:

Modern high-megapixel cameras mean you may only need around dozens to ~100 frames for a multi-gigapixel result.
In good light, those frames can be captured very quickly.
With plenty of overlap between images, stitching software has enough information to align frames and hide many seams.
Retouching can fix remaining issues.
In a crowd watching a speech, many people are relatively still, which helps.

It isn’t artifact-free, though. Community members noted visible stitching/movement errors in the published image, such as duplicated people and other small misalignments. That’s normal in panoramas, especially when subjects move between frames or when nearby objects create parallax.

So: no magical lens—mostly careful panoramic capture, lots of overlap, fast shooting, and cleanup in post.

How are gigapixel event photos like CNN’s inauguration image captured?

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