[Slickcraft]

From 8/20/2010 edition:
http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll...865/-1/CITIZEN

Spectacular views
Alton:

By HARRISON HAAS
Friday, August 20, 2010
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This photograph shows a section of a Gigapan photo taken from atop Mt. Major in Alton. At bottom right is the entire photo shrunk to show the entire scale of the actual photo.
(Courtesy Photo/John Banks)

Capturing the decisive moment in photography requires precision and timing.

For software engineer John Banks, who spends his time on Lake Winnipesaukee for two weeks out of his summer, he leaves it up to a special device that can take thousands of photos and mold them into one, high-resolution, panoramic photograph.

Each summer, Banks vacations in the Lakes Region to get out of Baltimore for a few weeks to take in the sights and to get away from work. He runs a web business and owns winnipesaukeecam.com, a website that has two webcams, one facing Mount Major and the other at the Big Lake. In addition to the cams, he has three images that are referred to as Gigapans, which are collections of photos "stitched" together to make one large image.

The most recent Gigapan image that Banks took is from the summit of Mount Major, overlooking the entrance to Alton Bay and Rattlesnake Island. Using the Gigapan unit he acquired a few years ago, he programmed which angles he wanted the camera to shoot and left it for an hour as it captured the images.

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HARRISON HAAS/CITIZEN PHOTO John Banks sets up the equipment he uses to take Gigapan photos around the lake.
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"It's very easy to set up," said Banks. "You mount the camera and set the position you want it to go and it does the rest."

The Gigapan unit harnesses a digital camera on a robotic camera mount. A small "arm" is positioned over the shutter release button to depress the button to take a photograph. After setting the angles and range of view, the unit will take pictures while moving the camera gradually to capture the entire area that was programmed.

At the end of his Mount Major shoot, there were 1,100 photos encompassing a 240-degree span across the horizon. The photos were uploaded to a computer where they were aligned in order and "stitched" together by overlapping certain areas of the photos with one another.

Through a special program, he touches up the photos and makes them fit for publishing on the Internet or on paper, a process that takes more than a day to complete.

"From the top of Mount Major, I can take a Gigapan that will allow me to zoom in and see individual houses on the other side of the lake," Banks said.

The art of shooting and editing images has become a hobby for Banks but it takes a lot of time and effort.

He first heard of the technology after seeing a Gigapan that had been done during the last presidential election.

"They had a Gigapan online which had the entire crowd of over 100,000 people in the photo," said Banks. "It zoomed way out into the crowd and you could actually see individual faces on it."

After seeing the image, Banks became intrigued because he knew there was no camera in the world that could capture the images in a single photograph that the Gigapan had captured in several thousand photographs.

The unit allows photographers to capture a 360-degree perspective of any area using basically any digital camera. Banks has done about 30 Gigapans but he has released only a few.

While on vacation here this summer, Banks said he had taken around five Gigapans and he plans to do many more just for hobby purposes.

"It's very unique; it's becoming easier for more people to be able to do it," said Banks.

In the Lakes Region, he has taken Gigapans of the Alton Bay docks, the Route 11 scenic overlook and other areas around the lake. Some other ideas he has in mind include doing a Gigapan on top of Mount Washington, Castle in the Clouds and perhaps around the Lake Sunapee area.

"It's just for fun," said Banks. "If someone really wanted one, we could make it available, but it won't be for profit."

If the images were printed out in full size, Banks said, they could be printed 10 feet wide by 20 feet in length at full quality.

He said there are new versions of the Gigapan unit today which allows photographers to use telephoto lenses.

For now, he will continue testing and creating images for his website, at www.winnipesaukeecam.com.