Because it's Friday: 360-degree landmark photography

You might recall back in June I posted a music video with some stunning shots of San Francisco, including this circumnavigation of Sutro Tower:

I wondered at the time how you could make such a video, and the creators have now revealed their secret. It turns out the process is pretty simple:

• On a map, draw a circle centered on the target landmark
• Using Google Street View, find locations along the circle where the landmark is visible. You'll need around 20 locations, fairly equally spaced around the circle
• At each location, take a couple of photos spaced a few feet apart. Each photo should align the landmark with a reference mark in the viewfinder. Using two photos allows the foreground to move in parallax, giving a sense of motion.
• Stitch the photos together using PhotoShop. Align the landmark position so that it rotates in place, and add movement blur to the foreground to give a sense of motion.

The whole process is explained in the video below, and demonstrated with Toronto's CN Tower.

 

PetaPixel: How to Shoot Photos for a ‘Space-Lapse’ Animation Around a Tall Building

Comments

[Fred Smith]

Woah! I'll need to see about doing something like that with some landmarks in Boston. Thanks for sharing the video on how to do it!