Sharing LF images in full resolution/Stitching

[Ed Richards]

One of the most frustrating problems in LF photography is showing an image at full resolution in the iPad world. I have been experimenting with the free service from Gigapan. It allows you to upload an image of at least 50MP for free and it generates a URL to view it. This is the St. Mary’s Assumption Church, New Orleans:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/ed4aa67e84d40ffe419eb3ef428e2018

The image is LF by stitching - FF 6x7 matrix, by 3 exposures for dynamic range expansion. That gives my about a 3.5"x5" effective imaging sensor. Nikon D610, 55mm f2.8 macro AI-S. (Sharp and no distortion). If you hit diagonal double headed arrow it change the display to full screen. You can click to magnify and drag. It allows magnification to about 200%, which is a little too much.

[mdarnton]

That's pretty impressive!

[vinny]

cool, but what's it got to do with large format photography?

[Ken Lee]

Moved to lounge.

[Ed Richards]

This image was made stitching 4x5 film:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/161414

How about moving me back now? :-)

[NickyLai]

If this forum can support the viewing of the Zoomify tiled format for very large image, your can show off here too. Your large file can export from PhotoShop (supported) zoomify format and upload here then. This is an example of a 485MB Paris satellite image in zoomify viewer:

http://www.zoomify.com/assets/dynamic/5-View-FullScreen-parisSatellite.htm

It looks like they too have a lot of viewing features too.

[tgtaylor]

Beautiful church. I attended St Alphonsus school just a block or two away.

Thomas

[Ken Lee]

This image was made stitching 4x5 film:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/161414

How about moving me back now? :-)

Is that link broken or incomplete ?

[Ed Richards]

Works fine for me. it should bring up St. Louis Cathedral.

Ed

[Peter Mounier]

Works fine for me.
Excellent work Ed!

[Drew Wiley]

Works even on my office PC. But its still a web whatever, so no substitute for directly viewing a real print, esp a large one. Might be nice for some of my architect or contractor customers, who want to zoom in on views of completed project, and show clients things that way. But they already know about it. I don't see why anyone would be impressed with mere detail when they can't contemplate with respect to the complete image all at once. Give it a try. But other than general theme
or a crude sense of color, I don't see the web as an effective presentation tool for large format imagery at all. Kinda like driving around an expensive sports car
with a flat tire or two.

[Ken Lee]

I moved this thread to Image Sharing and Discussion. If you would like it elsewhere, send me a PM please.

[ic-racer]

The image is LF by stitching - .


No Large format camera, no Large format film; no chance. If anyone with a big digital file is now a large format photographer, I'm in the wrong place.

[Paul Cunningham]

Thanks for the tip! I uploaded a couple of test 4x5 scans, and it's pretty cool.

[Jac@stafford.net]

If you have Photoshop you can create the same using File -> Export -> Zoomify.

[tangyimail]

Hats off. Excellent.

[johnmsanderson]

very cool!

How many images is this composited from?

[Ed Richards]

The black and white is 3 sheets of 4x5 film. The color is 6x7 rows x 3 bracketed exposures per location for a total of 126. I composited them to a 32 bit image so I could control the brightness of the stained glass.

Thanks for the zoomify tip. I will give that a try.

[Tin Can]

Very cool and obviously going to spark debate. Sandy King has a question on another thread about what is LF.

I agree with Drew, that any current digital viewing system is poor.

Where are those super 8K whole wall screens Science Fiction has been promising for decades?

4x5 film stitching is for sure LF, but is the color one 4x5, stitched in a 6x7 pattern? I first misread it as 6X7 film size.

The Mods will decide.

I gotta get back in a church, preferably with a LF pipe organ...

[Ed Richards]

The first one is FF Nikon digital. From my perspective, it is about 3.5x6, it was just harder getting there.:-)

> I gotta get back in a church, preferably with a LF pipe organ...

One pipe organ, 4x5, really wide lens.

http://www.epr-art.com/galleries/b4a-la-ca-churches/photos/1880.jpg

[jp]

Zoomify works great; I hadn't used it for a couple years and liked it then. Looks like it has improved quite a bit.

[JeRuFo]

That would be a nice feature to have on your website. I think I'm going to look into zoomify.

Played around a little with gigapan.com. Works nicely, but is geared more towards their own products and not integration into your own product. I do like the fullscreen option though, really shows off the image well and works quick and intuitively. I uploaded one image to test it : http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/615450333e96b3e7a657f53b508f8e38

Too bad zoomify has no trial mode.

[Drew Wiley]

I should have clarified something. I still believe a tool like this is ineffective for someone just trying to show a lot of detail in a print for sale, for example. But if you are using it educationally, like on instructional site concerning an elaborate architectural space, or simply to preview a massive print project via stitching, it does seem useful. If I was interested in comparing the ornamentation of naves of various cathedrals like the one illustrated, I would be nice way to do it. And like I already said, I know people who show their restorations of major projects to potential new clients in this manner, though they tend to use MF digital cameras from the
get-go. One more tool in the kit, for when you need it.

[jp]

I wouldn't use it for an art photo, as the composition/presentation as a whole is the important thing. Like Gigapan, it's good for panoramas.

[JeRuFo]

I agree that it is not useful for showing the level of detail in a print, just like showing a bunch of images on a website doesn't show the depth a print can have. It is useful to illustrate the level of detail large format can bring though. I wouldn't do it with every image, but maybe one or two, to give people a feel of what LF can do and how it differs from a snapshot. Most people that I show my work to have no clue what a truly high resolution is, most just know the DSLR and P&S and do question why I go through all the trouble of bringing such a big camera on long walks.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Around 10 years ago, I did it on my own website like this, just for one image, to give a sense of the detail in an 8x10" negative:

http://www.davidagoldfarb.com/photo/imviaduct.htm

With current bandwidth and screen sizes, I could go larger, but that's what made sense at the time.

[Racer X 69]

One of the most frustrating problems in LF photography is showing an image at full resolution in the iPad world. I have been experimenting with the free service from Gigapan. It allows you to upload an image of at least 50MP for free and it generates a URL to view it. This is the St. Mary’s Assumption Church, New Orleans:

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/ed4aa67e84d40ffe419eb3ef428e2018

The image is LF by stitching - FF 6x7 matrix, by 3 exposures for dynamic range expansion. That gives my about a 3.5"x5" effective imaging sensor. Nikon D610, 55mm f2.8 macro AI-S. (Sharp and no distortion). If you hit diagonal double headed arrow it change the display to full screen. You can click to magnify and drag. It allows magnification to about 200%, which is a little too much.

I agree that as the prevalence of smaller and smaller screens becomes more commonplace it will be more difficult to express image quality only achievable with large format. Indeed, as more people become accustomed to viewing images on their phones or small devices like the iPad, they also become less critical about image quality. It is rare these days that people even look at a picture in any other venue than on those tiny things.

I did view your images on my desktop system, which has two LARGE 24" HD flatscreen monitors.

All I can say is WOW!

The images are fantastic. The level of detail (even though the others say it still does not show the full capability of LF) is very good.

I like it!

[NickyLai]

Where are those super 8K whole wall screens Science Fiction has been promising for decades?



If you mean the super 8K model of the BetterLight digital scan back, here are links to a 2.8 Gigapixel panoramic image using their super 6K model (less super than model super 8K), with 4x5 view camera captured in 2008 by Mike Collette - the inventor of the scan back.

http://www.betterlight.com/gigapixel.html

This is the same image in full resolution for details with the Zoomify viewer:

http://www.betterlight.com/zoomify/zoom_panamint.html

Enjoy

[Tin Can]

I have seen a few of those images. They are very detailed. My personal preference is images of cities, where the immense detail is really needed. I think the last one I saw was of London.

Who's going to shoot Chicago?

What I was actually referring to was, ScFi novels that talked of interactive surround video in living rooms. The people on the walls would talk back...



If you mean the super 8K model of the BetterLight digital scan back, here are links to a 2.8 Gigapixel panoramic image using their super 6K model (less super than model super 8K), with 4x5 view camera captured in 2008 by Mike Collette - the inventor of the scan back.

http://www.betterlight.com/gigapixel.html

This is the same image in full resolution for details with the Zoomify viewer:

http://www.betterlight.com/zoomify/zoom_panamint.html

Enjoy

Yuknam

[NickyLai]

What I was actually referring to was, ScFi novels that talked of interactive surround video in living rooms. The people on the walls would talk back...

I wonder if it may happen in an image captured with the Lytro camera, when they can make it into LF. Their image is shot first focus later interactively. The viewer click to focus a point in the image, if background sound added properly it will be like talking back to you when clicked:cool:

[NickyLai]

.....

Who's going to shoot Chicago?

...

This one is Chicago

121448

Click here for the full resolution with full-screen button in zoomify viewer. (http://staticpix.touchbyphoto.com/zoom/140907-95ten-chic-bnb.html) Plus information of the photo.

Hope you like it.

[Tin Can]

I like Chicago bridges.

Sorry, not zoomfried.

121456





This one is Chicago

121448

Click here for the full resolution with full-screen button in zoomify viewer. (http://staticpix.touchbyphoto.com/zoom/140907-95ten-chic-bnb.html) Plus information of the photo.

Hope you like it.