365-Gigapixel Panorama of Mont Blanc Becomes the World’s Largest Photo
Say hello to the new largest photo in the world. An international team led by photographer Filippo Blengini has published a gigantic panoramic photograph of Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. This new record-holding image weighs in at a staggering 365 gigapixels.
Here’s a 100% crop of climbers on the distant mountain face near the center of the frame:
Some details on the photo and project: the 5-member team spent two weeks in late 2014 on the snowy peaks at an altitude of 3500 meters (~11,500 feet) braving -10°C temperatures. Using a Canon 70D DSLR, a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8 II IS, and a Canon Extender 2X III on a special robotic mount, they captured 70,000 photographs in every direction over 35 hours of shooting.
Post-processing and stitching the 46 terabytes afterwards took 2 months, and the resulting 365-gigapixel photo would be as large as a soccer field if printed out at 300dpi.
Here’s a short behind-the-scenes video showing how the photo was made:
You can experience the full 365-gigapixel photograph for yourself through an interactive viewer on the project’s website.
P.S. There’s technically one photo that’s (much) larger, but it wasn’t even taken here on Earth. In 2014, NASA published a panorama of the Moon’s surface that was captured over four years by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. That image is 681 gigapixels.
Image credits: Photographs by Filippo Blengini/In2White
