Nikon D700 used to capture London panorama

London Panorama
A 24-time lapse video of London was shot using three D700s on top of the London Eye

A 24 hour time-lapse 360 degree video has been shot from the top of the London Eye using three Nikon D700 DSLRs.

Produced by Spherical Images, the video was shot using three Nikon D700 cameras back to back, later stitching the resulting images together using Kolor Autopano Giga software.

The video, which is roughly 90 seconds long and comprises of a series of 3000 panoramic images, shows London transformed from day to night, and can be viewed on a special website which allows visitors to change the angle of view.

18 hours

According to Henry Stuart, Director of Spherical Images, it took 18 hours to process all of the images together into the panoramas. The video itself also proved problematic, "Each frame was nearly double the size of HD as a lot of what is being played is behind, above or below where you are looking," he told us.

"It crashed the video editor's computer a few times."

To create the panoramas that comprise the video, Stuart made a template to stitch from the first image and then applied the settings on all the images that followed.

Each of the Nikon D700 cameras was fitted with a fish-eye lens in order to capture the widest amount of the scene possible.

Shot during the London Eye's maintenance week, the video is available to view via the Spherical Images website as well as via Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices that have been installed in each of the London Eye capsules.

Amy Davies

Amy has been writing about cameras, photography and associated tech since 2009. Amy was once part of the photography testing team for Future Publishing working across TechRadar, Digital Camera, PhotoPlus, N Photo and Photography Week. For her photography, she has won awards and has been exhibited. She often partakes in unusual projects - including one intense year where she used a different camera every single day. Amy is currently the Features Editor at Amateur Photographer magazine, and in her increasingly little spare time works across a number of high-profile publications including Wired, Stuff, Digital Camera World, Expert Reviews, and just a little off-tangent, PetsRadar.