Largest photographs in the world

Most of the photographs that are claimed to be the largest are stitched from smaller images. The Legacy Project photograph made in Irvine, California, is an exception to this in that it was made as a single exposure on a seamless piece of sensitized fabric using a building as a huge camera.

Print

The largest seamless photograph made in a single exposure was made using a Southern California jet hangar transformed into a giant camera. The most recent claim to the largest image stitched together was by the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Negative

On 3 August 2015, the longest photographic negative was measured 79.37 m (260.4 ft) wide. This negative was created by Esteban Pastorino Díaz (Spain) by driving 32.8 km (20.4 mi) on the 2nd Ring Road (Beijing). Esteban Pastorino Díaz also holds the previous record, a negative measured 39.54 m (129.7 ft) wide. He used a custom-built panoramic slit camera on 13 June 2010. The negative is a panorama of major streets in Buenos Aires, Argentina, captured by the slit camera while mounted on the roof of a moving car.^[1]

Largest seamless example

Orthorectified negative (bottom) and positive (top) representations of The Great Picture, partially obscured by two people.

Name of project/picture: The Great Picture
Claimed by: The Legacy Project; (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain (photographer), Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada)
Photograph of: control tower and runways at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Orange County, California
Dimensions: 32 feet (9.8 m) high x 111 feet (34 m) wide (9.75h X 33.83w meters). Aspect ratio is 3.47:1.

On July 12, 2006, six photographers (Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada), unveiled what is currently the world's largest camera and photograph.^[2]

The 3,552-square-foot (330.0 m²) photograph was made to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography. It was taken using a decommissioned Marine Corps jet hangar (Building #115 at El Toro) transformed into the world's largest camera to make the world's largest picture. The hangar-turned-camera recorded a panoramic image of what was on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura" or pinhole camera. An image of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station appeared upside down and flipped left to right on film after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door. The "film" is a 32 feet (9.8 m) by 111 feet (34 m) piece of white fabric covered in 20 gallons (75.71 liters) of light-sensitive emulsion as the "negative".

After exposing the fabric for 35 minutes the image was developed by 80 volunteers using a giant custom-made tray of vinyl pool liner. Development employed 600 gallons (2271 liters) of black-and-white developer solution and 1,200 gallons (4542 liters) of fixer pumped into the tray by ten high volume pumps. Print washing used fire hoses connected to two fire hydrants.^[3]

Largest example assembled from multiple pieces

Sea Containers House decorated for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee.

For the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a 100 m × 70 m (330 ft × 230 ft) print of a photograph of the British Royal Family during her Silver Jubilee was erected in front of the Sea Containers House in London while the building was under renovation.^[4]

Name of project/picture: Unknown (Grand Hall diorama background)
Claimed by: Canadian Museum of Civilization
Photograph of: Canadian Aboriginal forest
Dimensions: 112 m (367 ft) (W) x 15 m (49 ft) (H)
Photographers: Rob d'Estrube assisted by Dirk Heydemann of Destrube Photography of Victoria B.C. Canada

The scene was originally produced on 6x6 cm transparency film shot with a Hasselblad 80mm lens in many overlapping sections. 80 rolls of film were used over several sites with this scene being finally chosen. The site is the estuary of Nasparti Bay at the base of the Brooks Peninsula on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Shot^{[clarification needed]} in 1987 or 1988 to be ready for the opening of the museum in 1989. The installation is actually two scrims of identical size, one behind the other in mirror image to give the viewers a 3-dimensional experience while walking beside the diorama.

Within the Canadian Museum of Civilization, one wall of the massive Grand Hall is composed of a scrim covered by a photo of a forest. The photo is about 100 by 15 m (328 by 49 ft).^[5]

Conventional digital photograph (panorama)

The following are the digital photographs that have held the record for being the largest in terms of pixel count, beginning with the largest in chronological order (note: large digital images out of chronological order or lacking milestone significance are moved to acknowledgment section).

Moon surface 681 gigapixels (2010-2013)

Photograph of: Moon's Northern polar region
taken from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera
Year: taken over four years, from 2010 through 2013, published 2014
composed from 10,581 images^[6] ^[7] ^[8]

Largest photographs in the world

Contents

Print

Negative

Largest seamless example

Largest example assembled from multiple pieces

Conventional digital photograph (panorama)

Moon surface 681 gigapixels (2010-2013)

Calblanque, La Manga, Mar menor, and golf club 401,725 gigapixels (October 2015)

Mont-Blanc 365 gigapixels (June 2015)

London 320 gigapixels (February 2013)

Electron Micrograph of a Zebrafish Embryo 281 Gigapixels (August 2012)

Shanghai 272 Gigapixels (December 2010)

Arcachon 228 Gigapixels (Octobre 2015)

Sevilla 111 Gigapixels (December 2010)

Hamburg 100 Gigapixels (August 2015)

Sugar Loaf 92 Gigapixels (September 2010)

London 80 Gigapixels (November 2010)

Arches 77 Gigapixels (September 2010)

Budapest 70 Gigapixels (2010)

Corcovado 67 Gigapixels (July 2010)

Vienna 50 Gigapixels (July 2010)

Marburg 47 Gigapixels (July 2010)

Dubai 45 Gigapixels (May 2010)

Swiss Alps 31 Gigapixels (April 2010)

Paris 26 Gigapixels (March 2010)

Gigapixel Dresden 26 gigapixels (2009)

Prague 18 Gigapixels Spherical Panorama (December 2009)

Largest season image in the world - Ilmenau (Germany) 18 Gigapixel (2009)

Yosemite-17-Gigapixels/Glacier Point (2008)

Udaipur 16 Gigapixel Image (2014)

The Last Supper (2007)

Harlem 13 Gigapixels (2007)

Parete Gaudenziana (2006)

Gigapix (2004)

Unknown title (2003)

Portrait of a Coral Reef (1999)

References

External links

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