This Surreal ‘HyperZoom’ Time-Lapse Looks Like One Continuous Shot

Photographer Geoff Tompkinson has been working on a new time-lapse technique that he calls the “HyperZoom.” By matching up shots from camera zooms and pans, Tompkinson takes us on seamless journeys through locations that look like one long continuous shot.

His new video above is a HyperZoom video that explores Hallstatt, Upper Austria, a beautiful historic town that’s listed as a Unesco World Heritage site.

As if on the back of an invisible insect we fly around the sites of this wonderful town in one continuous journey passing through buildings to emerge in different parts of the town, finally ending up on the new viewpoint from Rudolfsturm perched high above the ancient town square. Those of you who know Hallstatt, as well as anyone who watches the video carefully, will appreciate that I have applied a little artistic licence to the geometry of the town in order to seamlessly link the locations.

“This technique enable almost limitless zoom with full resolution whilst at the same time enabling the camera to travel with the zoom to ever new locations,” Tompkinson tells PetaPixel. “The result is a seamless visually continuous flight through a location, in either timelapse or real-time, in a way that’s never been seen before.”

Tompkinson shot the photographs over a two day period, but spent much longer than that in post-production, editing together sequences to create what you see above. While he’s mum about his exact process, he says HyperZooms are the result of a “complex pre-planned four-dimensional After Effects jigsaw puzzle.”

Here are a couple more examples of Tompkinson’s HyperZoom technique:

You can also find more of his work over on his website.