Tahina Goes 360 with Panoramas

Part of the plan for our trip is to share our experiences in exotic locations using photos and videos online. A popular new photographic technique is immersive 360 panoramas. It allows you to view a location like you are there looking in every direction. After writing about the world's largest collection of 360 Panoramas being added into Google Earth by 360Cities.net, I decided this is something we needed to do for our trip. Watch this video of what the experience is like in Google Earth:

The founder of 360Cities, Jeffrey Martin, has been helping me get properly set up for this type of photography. He put me in touch with the most popular makers of panoramic tripod mounts and related camera accessories: Nodal Ninja. Their equipment has been fine tuned to meet the needs of panorama photographers and have great features to enhance the process of making the photos. They were kind enough to help make sure we had a proper set up for our needs.

Taking the photos involves taking several photos in a circle from your tripod using the special tripod mount and a fisheye lens. You then take a shot up and a shot down. Then you need software to take the photos, stitch them together, and project them into a format for showing in a 3D sphere. Jeffrey also helped me get the software from PTGui.com. Once processed, you can upload the photo to 360Cities.Net and put it on the map, or share it on a web site.

So, for the last couple of days (while we're waiting for weather) I've been getting a crash course in taking 360 panoramas. Here's the first example showing Tahina at our marina yesterday morning (make sure you view it in full screen, or go to the site and follow the Google Earth link):

Tahina at Joyner Marina in USA

Pretty cool huh? I'd like to thank 360Cities.net's Jeffrey Martin, and the fantastic support from both Nodal Ninja, and PTGui. You'll find all three listed on our partners page soon.