Arnaud Frich and Kolor tested the panoramic head that will be used to shoot Paris 20 Gigapixels.Paris 20 Gigapixels will be a stitching of more than 2000 individual photos. The image will be visible on its own website and anyone will be able to zoom in the minor details of the French capital.

The panoramic head was designed specifically for this project. It enables the mounting of 2 SLR cameras so that the shooting will be twice as fast and thus the lightness variations will be minimized.

For the final image, 2 Canon 1DS Mark III will be used, each one with either a 100/400 mm, f/4.5-5.6 lens or a 400mm f/5.6L lens from Canon.

Find out more about Paris 20 Gigapixels project.

The exciting collaborative project of the Panorama Book 2008 is fast approaching! Here is a first preview of some of the pages of the book, and the poster that promoted the book in the booth of Kolor at Photokina fair in September.

The book is currently being edited and will be printed in two weeks. It will be available by the end of November.

Kolor joined the International VR Photography Association, as a member and a sponsor. The IVRPA is an international association of professionals who create and produce interactive, immersive images. Its members include professional photographers, multimedia and web developers, artists, enthusiasts, students, and companies and individuals that support the VR technology with software and hardware (source: IVRPA).

By joining and sponsoring the IVRPA, Kolor wants to help promoting and support the uses of image based VR through education, community forums, networking opportunities and technical support.

In the framework of this membership, Alexandre Jenny, founder of Kolor, talked about the evolution of the panoramic photography and presented the image-stitching software Autopano Pro to the IVRPA audience during the Photokina fair held in Cologne (Germany) in September.

Find out more and join the IVRPA on their website: http://ivrpa.org

Arnaud Frich and Kolor were awarded last week the 2008 Photo Innovation prize by French telecommunications company SFR (Vivendi), during the international photo meeting of Arles (France).

This prize rewards the project ‘Paris 20 Gigapixels’ that photographer Arnaud Frich and Kolor are planning to undertake this summer. Paris 20 Gigapixels will be world’s biggest image, with more than 2000 individual photos stitched together.

Here is a presentation video from SFR (in French):

A world record!

Photographer Arnaud FRICH and image stitching experts KOLOR, editor of panorama creation program Autopano Pro, announce their project to shoot Paris in a very high definition. The final image will be a stitching of more than 2000 individual photos and will have a resolution of 20 Gigapixels, that is 20 billion pixels: the biggest image of the world!

This resolution enables very exciting uses: printing on large supports (the image can be printed on a 6500 sq.ft support whilst keeping an excellent quality!) or online viewing with absolutely amazing deep zooming capabilities.

Gigapixel panoramas ? A habit for Kolor

This is not the first world record achived by Kolor and partner photographers. In August 2006, American photographer Gerard MAYNARD collaborated with Kolor to produce the world record at that time: Harlem 13 Gigapixels. You can have a look at the image and zoom in to see the smallest details of Harlem: http://www.harlem-13-gigapixels.com

Stay tuned!

The project is to be acheived during this summer. You will be able to see the image on the website www.paris-20-gigapixels.com. Visit regularly that website to learn more about the project and be among the firsts to see this beautiful image.