The view from the 42nd floor of the under-construction U-Bora Towers in Dubai's Business Bay is, of course, amazing. But many people would argue that a number of buildings in the area also provide amazing views. So what's so special about this floor, in this building? Well, history was created here.
On April 23, Gerald Donovan, a Dubai-based IT specialist and amateur photographer, took the first "gigapan" panorama of the world's tallest building and its surrounding area from this spot. The 45-gigapixel collage did not just receive more than a million hits in two weeks since its upload but got His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, interested in it.
Click here to see Gerald Donovan's work
The previous record holder of the world's largest digital photograph is widely reported to be a 26-gigapixel image of Paris, which was shot in September 2009 and made available on the internet in March 2010. However, what is not so widely known is that a 31-gigapixel image of the Swiss Alps was uploaded just one week before Donovan's Dubai image was put on www.gigapan.org
The Dubai image is 472,603 pixels wide and 94,955 pixels high — a total of 44,876,017,865 pixels. However, this is not the first time Donovan's work has been acclaimed. He was the first one to showcase videos of the Dubai Fountains and window cleaners on YouTube, which have received about a million hits. His video of the full stretch of the Dubai Metro was featured on CNN.
A different angle
"Everyone takes photos of the Burj Khalifa and the Business Bay," Donovan says. "Creating this picture was more an experiment than anything else. I was basically pushing the limits of the hardware and software available. It all started because I felt one shot alone didn't do justice to a building such as the Burj Khalifa. The first one I did was from the Address Hotel. I took seven or eight photos and stitched them together. This photo was picked up by Canon for a trade show and they printed a ten-metre-high picture, even though it was a low-quality image. From eight shots I went on to 80, from 80 to 200 and so on. This one has 4,250 shots. But it has generated a lot of interest despite the fact that they are not shots of the best quality".
Donovan says he's had an interest in photography since childhood but had lost touch with it for a long time. It's only about a year ago that he has taken it up again seriously. Standing at the exact spot from where he had earlier taken the photos, Donovan explained to Unwind the process.
Tricks of the trade
"I shot with a long telephoto lens on a camera placed on a robotic tripod. You program the area you want to photograph in the camera by marking the top left and the bottom right of the picture. The software determines how many columns and rows it would need to divide the picture into. Then you wait for the camera to click and the tripod controls the camera shifts. It took three and a half hours to create these photos. By the time I finished, the camera was too hot to touch, as then we were on top of the building. Taking 4,250 photos manually is not feasible.
"Then you need to stitch them together. There's a lot of stitching software available but I've found only one that can do such a big job. The software loads all 4,250 photographs into memory and then mathematically matches repeating features in different images to work out how to stitch them together. It takes a lot of computing power and a lot of time."
When asked what else he has shot in Dubai, he says he loves the buildings here. "I tend to do a lot of architectural photography and though I seem a little fixated with the Burj Khalifa, I think Dubai has a lot to offer in terms of architectural elegance. There are some fabulous buildings, such as the Burj Al Arab, the DIFC, The Address Hotel and the Jumeirah Beach Hotel."
Donovan set up a website (www.gddxb.smugmug.com) a few weeks ago, where he has uploaded some of his other typical work. However, he has put on hold his hobby for the next few months because he's moving on to a new project in Riyadh. "One reason is the air quality here, which, between now and October in Dubai, is pretty bad.
"Living in Jumeirah Lakes Towers provides a lot of opportunity to click photos. On a good day we can see all the way to the Burj Al Arab and the horizon as a sharp line beyond.
"In the next few weeks we will barely be able to see the Burj Al Arab because of the haze and humidity. Towards the end of the year, however, I plan to do a 360-degree panorama of the city by going up in a crane when the air is clear. Till then I'll do some normal photography."
Kit cost
He does not want to put a figure to the cost of creating this photograph.
"I don't really want to add up the cost of the kit. Especially when my wife is reading this. She may demand a handbag or a designer dress in lieu. I'll just say it wasn't cheap."
He plans to exhibit his work but technical constraints hold him back. "Some have shown interest in it. The problem with such a huge picture is how do you print it? Yes, you can print it and it would be interesting to see it printed.
"Moreover, the cost of it all will be enormous. Another factor is where do you show it? It could easily go up to 150 metres in width. It wasn't a very clear day when I shot it, so I'm worried about the quality too.
"I've done another one that may be better for printing, as it was a much clearer day — it's ‘only' 18.8 gigapixels and stretches from the Meydan round to Burj Khalifa and down Shaikh Zayed Road across the creek round to the airport."
Has he done this kind of thing anywhere else? "No. Dubai is the only place and, as I said, I've gotten serious about photography only here. But I'd love to do New York."
Specifications of, and the equipment used, to create the 45-gigapixel collage
Location: 42nd floor, U-Bora Towers, Business Bay, Dubai.
Camera: 4,250 shots taken with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L zoom at 400mm.
Tripod: Gigapan EPIC Pro.
Software: Autopano Giga software and Gigapan uploader.
PC: i7-920, 12GB RAM, 2x300GB Velociraptors (not RAID).
Power and storage: "Amazingly, both the battery in the Gigapan and the one in the 7D lasted out.
My previous record from it was around 3,000 images (across two separate panoramas). All 4,250 images (.jpg only) fit into a single 32GB CF card, taking up 27.5GB."
Time: About 3.30 hours, in 37C heat Snapshots: 419
Size: 44.88 gigapixels
Field of View: 243.3 degrees wide, 0.0 degrees high
Website: www.gigapan.org
Number of hits: 1333608 views
Seal of approval
On May 12 at 5.31am, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted thus on his official Twitter page regarding Gerald Donovan's remarkable photo:
"I'd like to share with you this stunning image of Dubai, which sets a new record for the world's largest photo http://tinyurl.com/365ztmt"
