360° Aerial Photography
We are doing an interesting project in Lahti (LAMK a.k.a Lahti University of Applied Sciences), where we were assigned to shoot some video footage and stills images on our local outdoor possibilities.
The client did not ask for it, but I volunteered to shoot some 360° stills as well — I figured that since we already were on location it would offer some extra value and a nice touch to the work we were doing.
This is what we came up with (wait for 6 sec or click the image):
(If you want to see it on full screen, here is a direct link)
You can pan and tilt with the mouse/finger and zoom with the scroll wheel / by pinching)
The whole consists of six 360° images on a same page. We intended to add couple of more, but lately the weather has prevented any flying operations until further notice.…
We shot these images using DJIs Phantom 4 Pro’s — other models we have tried are the Mavic Pro and Inspire 1 Pro — but I feel the Phantom gives the most accurate location (i.e. no drifting in either vertical or horizontal) and the image quality is extremely good.
Images are c. 20K pixels wide each and extended to 2:1 equirectangular in post. Each image consists of three rows and eight columns plus two images for the nadir. In couple of images the pilot also shot a sky row — which makes the adding of a sky much easier (= more space for adding masking gradient).
You could shoot something like this using external apps such as Litchi or DronePan, but these are shot totally manually using the radar screen of the DJIGo4 app. Your KISS principle in action…
What I really like is the fact that this is multi resolution: it loads really fast, but the the zooming goes deep with very little loss of image data.
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Photography by: Johannes Erkkilä, Valtteri Heinonen, Johanna Jarva, Mari Kaakkola, Vilma Rimplelä and Pinja Saarela. Post processing: Kari Kuukka