In the summer of 2014, I was asked to produce a large 11.7mx1.3m panorama for head quarter of the Administrative Data Research Centre for Scotland. This was quite an exciting project and required some technical research.

The initial brief was to produce a panorma showing trees. This turned out to be very tricky given the aspect ratio and angle of view. You would end up with a lot of tree trunks. Access to exciting landscapes was also somewhat limited due to time constraints and lack of transport. I ended up producing a number of panoramas looking over Edinburgh, North Berwick, Roslin Glen and the Borders.

The ADRC team selected a view of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill. I think the selection is very fitting. The photo shows various aspects of our social activities in the environment: a city with its residential areas, public buildings, touristic sights, the University, industry and parks, shipping on the Forth, walkers on Arthur's Seat, power generation. It is now also a historic document as it still contains Cockenzie Power Station before its demise.

Panormaa View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill V
Farr InstitutePanorama installed

Below are the other panoramas shot for the project that were not selected. My favourites are the Avon Aqueduct and the Roslin Glen panoramas. On one of the visits to the site we got access to the roof of the building. I used the opportunity to take the pictures for the view showing the new Royal Infirmary and Craigmillar Castle. The forest panoramas, Rosling Glen Powder Mill and Avon Aqueduct, are exposure fused from a set of three exposures to increase the dynamic range. I prefer to use exposure fusion over HDR as the results do not look as artificial.

beach mosaic from Barns Ness
Panorama of the Avon Aqueduct near Linlithgow
Edinburgh Roofscape seen from the roof of the National Museum of Scotland
Panorama View from the Roof of the Bioquarter, Little France, Edinburgh
Panorama of North Berwick Beach II
Panorama of North Berwick Beach I
Panorama of the Rolling Borders Hills
Scott's View and the Eildon Hills Panorama, Borders
Panorama of Roslin Glen
Panorama showing Powder Mill in Roslin Glen
View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill IV
View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill III
Panorama of the Hermitage of Braid Woods, Edinburgh
View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill I
View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill II

The required size corresponds to an aspect ratio of 9:1 and angles of view

focal length horizontal angle of view (DX) vertical angle of view (DX)
35mm 37.26° 339.21°
50mm 26.56° 239.4°
105mm 12.82° 114.7°

Given the 11.7mx1.3m and a minimum resolution of 300dpi the complete image needs to have a size of 138189 X 15354 pixels. My camera has a resolution of 4928 X 3264 pixels. So, even at full resolution and without doing multi-row panoramas I needed to scale the image up by a factor of 3.12. The end result although somewhat enlarged worked out really well. It is great to see the large image and to be able to walk right up to it to see small details such as people standing on top of Arthur's Seat.

Processing the images was quite an effort. It took between 4 and 12 hours to stitch each panorama.

I would like to thank Richard Lass-Evans who provided transport for the Borders Trip and made it a great day out. He also helped with the beach mosaic. I would also like to thank Chris Place who did the beach mosaic processing.