Understanding Gigapixel Photography and Its Process
Gigapixel photography is basically taking a panorama that is on steroids. They are an ultra high resolution photographs which are merged together from hundreds of photographs to create a huge photo photographs. As the name suggests these pumped up panoramas are so large that they are exceeding normal count in Megapixels and have to be addressed in Gigapixels. Technically not all of my “gigapixel” panorama photographs are truly gigapixels, some of them are “just” 200-300 Megapixels but I am eager to take many more that exceed 1000 Megapixels. You will see some of my examples and learn more in this Gigapixel photography guide.
Exploring Resolution
Most of our average smartphone photographs are taken around 12 Megapixels and I would say that on average DSLR and mirrorless cameras are taking around 24 Megapixels these days. So this would mean that even my average 318 MP panorama photographs exceed any typical camera resolutions. And my largest photographs of 1124 MP is a true gigapixel photograph. Some people are even taking this to extremes and they are capturing several gigapixel images. The largest photograph is an absurd 846 Gigapixels.
Purpose Behind High Resolution
For me it all started with wanting to capture larger, more detalied photographs for printing. I began exploring these merged panoramas and I became a little obsessed with the level of detail. It is just amazing zooming in on the image and seeing even the most distant objects. My first 350MP landscape photograph of mountain Triglav was a turning point for me. I captured it just for fun but when I zoomed in and saw the top of the mountain I wanted more. So I practiced more and more, had some failed attempts, and finally got to my 1.124 GP panorama.
Final result of my 1.12GP landscape photograph “Magical winter sunset with mountain Triglav”. Isn’t it amazing that 100% previews below are barely seen on the image?
Essential Equipment
To get the best results with gigapixel photography it is absolutely necessary to put your camera on a tripod and do some preplanning. I mean if you would like to merge your photograph from 10-20 photographs you could go without the tripod but it is always best to use it. You’ll also need a bit longer lens, at least 70mm, if you’d like to get maximum details out of the photograph. Having a tripod head with incorporated panning base is welcome, but if you don’t have one you can buy just a tripod panning base which goes under your tripod head. Another nice thing to have is a remote so you minimize camera shake every time you press the shutter. Any remote, even the cheapest will do the job just fine. If you don’t have a remote I would recommend setting a 2 second timer on your camera.
Panning base with degrees of rotation on a Sirui ball head.
Levelling the camera
One of the most important part of the setup is having the camera absolutely levelled while panning. I had some photographs completely destroyed because of this. So always pan the camera left and right before the shoot and be sure that it is straight all the time of the panning motion. If your camera has a level built inside, turn it on and check that it stays levelled when panning. If it doesn’t have a level get one of those small ones that you can attach on hot shoe of your camera.
Taking the photographs
Usually gigapixels are taken with a much longer lenses like some telephotos at around 200mm to get the most details. In some extreme situations people also use much longer lenses, even 400mm or more. But those gigapixels are usually done with a special hardware, an automated system you mount your camera on and it does all the work for you. However, with good preplanning, capturing large images is feasible without the need for such systems.
Capturing my highest resolution photograph of mountain Triglav just after sunset and freezing my fingers. I went low to the ground as the wind was fierce and I wanted to eliminate shaking.
Preplanning for Success
Good plan is always the best way to get the best results with gigapixel photography. As I already said, keeping the camera levelled so it pans straight is the first step. Then, you have to visualize the ending photograph and decide on the amount of details you want to capture. I usually take gigapixel panoramas with my Canon EF 70-200 F4 L USM. I always take vertical images because it is easier to pan and you don’t need to be as careful with positioning. When you are decided on the focal length and ending photograph you find the starting point. You pan up, on the highest point of the image and remember the position of the camera. You have to keep in mind the height of the camera and starting point, number on your panning base. Then you start taking pictures at set intervals from left to right, move slightly down and repeat. Keep in mind that you have to overlap each photograph by at least 20-30%. Check the image below under “merging them all”.
Ease of vertical photographs
If you have a ball head on your tripod you should always take the photographs for gigapixels vertically as this will make your job much easier. By setting the camera in this position it is basically “locked” and it cannot be moved horizontally. This way you can always be sure that it will stay levelled when you pan up and down.
Vertical position of ball head on tripod locks your horizontal camera movement.
Editing the photographs
You will end up with a huge amount of RAW photographs and it will take some time to edit them before export. I use Adobe Lightroom Classic so I will write my process with it. First I select all the photographs and group them into a stack so it is easier to navigate through. Editing the photographs can be somewhat of a chore because you have to make sure that all of them look good. I select them all and while selected I choose a random one and I edit it. When I am happy with the one I go back to gallery and I sync settings with CTRL+Shift+S. Then I check them all again and if those from the bottom are too dark I boost shadows and sync settings again. I repeat this process until all photographs look good. Just be sure to always sync settings.
Merging them all
If you want to try and create something gigantic you don’t need any special hardware. But you will need some software to merge all this photographs together and make some magic. I still use ancient and discontinued ICE (Image Composite Editor) by Microsoft that works great but it is long gone from their website to download. You can still find in on the internet if you would like to give it a shot. Many people say good things about PTGui and Hugin. I might try those two out just to see how they work out.
This is an example from my 1.12GP (44971x25000px) or 1120MP taken from 136 24MP photographs, 8 rows of 17 photographs. Here you can see the overlapping of photographs.
Setting up the software
When you edit and export your photos you open your merging software of choice and import all the images. You set the direction of your photographs and the amount of them by rows and columns and let it work its magic. If all done correctly you will be left with a huge high resolution photograph that your computer will struggle to open. That’s the goal isn’t it? 🙂
My first “gigapixel” photograph of “just” 350MP. Check 100% previews below.
Check all of my ultra high resolution gigapixel photographs here: Visit