Google Business Photographer Explains How He Shoots Street View Indoors
It’s obvious that Google is interested in mapping just about everything that is mappable via Street View, but even our future overlords they need some help on occasion. Although the company is willing to send employees with trekker backpacks to many an exotic location, when it comes to taking a virtual tour of local businesses, the search giant hires on “trusted photographers.”
One such photographer recently sat down with Tested and told them all about the process of becoming a Google Business Trusted Photographer and taking Street View indoors.
Where Google’s employees have the help of a capable trekker camera backpack that does most of the work automatically, Google trusted photographers must use their own gear. In Jeremy Powlus‘ case, that means attaching an 8mm lens to his Canon 7D (only certain cameras and lenses are allowed), setting it up on his tripod, and getting to work.
Once he enters a business, he goes about capturing three bracketed exposures in four different directions as he moves through the building. Photographing a business normally takes less than two hours, after which he has to go home and stitch together the resulting photos into as many 180° by 360° panoramas as it takes to tour the whole shop.
Post-processing takes the most time, but even with bigger businesses, he can usually have photos uploaded and live on Google Maps within two weeks of shooting an assignment.
To hear more about the process, be sure to watch the video at the top. And if you’d like to become a Google Business Photos Trusted Photographer, you can learn more about the program requirements and apply by following this link.
(via Doobybrain)
