This set of photos from President Obama’s inauguration is proably the most interesting I’ve seen. The geek in me would also like direct you to this picture, taken with the GigaPan, and this picture, assembled from 613 individual photos with photosynth. If you can’t figure out what the big deal is about the gigapan shot, zoom in… and then keep zooming.
I’m not as impressed with the photosynth as I thought i would be. I was watching CNN all weekend so I heard all of the hype. Maybe I just don’t get it.
I think the photosynth is great. You are not scrolling through 613 photos at various times during the event, you are shifting through the layers of 613 perspective different perspectives of one historic moment. All these people uploaded their photos independently of one another and the program assembled them appropriately. I like seeing the wide shot and clicking through to close-up shot of a particular point in the original image taken at the exact same time. It is not as impressive as the gigapan, but in time it could be amazing. A lot of new cameras have gps capabilities (usually through an add-on.) What if you could upload your random photo and the program match it with others with the same time stamp and location and create some sort of patch work panoramic.