Istanbul’s largest panoramic photo unveiled

ISTANBUL

The picture is so detailed that even a person playing tennis in the field near the skyscraper can be seen using the zoom function.

A Turkish computer expert has created the most detailed panoramic image of Istanbul ever, using a total of 1,400 photographs.

Ahmet Bozdemir, a system manager at the 360tr.com website that hosts panoramic images from around Turkey, took hundreds of photographs on the roof of the Istanbul Sapphire, one of the tallest buildings in Europe.

“We did a seven-hour long shoot with an SLR camera from four different points [on the roof], photographing almost 180 degrees towards the Asian side of Istanbul, from Maslak [a neighborhood in the north of the city’s European side] to Fatih [the neighborhood including the historical peninsula to the south],” Bozdemir said.

Stitching 1,400 photographs with a computer program took 13 days and created a giant file that occupied 116 gigabytes of space.

“If you try to open this photo on a computer, it takes between five to 15 minutes. We optimized it for quick access on the web,” Bozdemir added.

At 15.9 gigapixel, the photo ranks somewhere in the middle of the global list of highest resolution city panoramas, which is topped by London with a 320 gigapixel, 360 degrees image.