Four At Once: Volcano Quartet Erupts On Kamchatka 77
anavictoriasaavedra writes "A unique show is taking place on Kamchatka these days: Four separate but nearby volcanoes are erupting simultaneously on the Russian peninsula. A Moscow film crew has produced an awe-inspiring 360-degree video of the natural fireworks."
The video is well worth watching and panning around in. There are also a bunch of high-res still photo panoramas.
Kick-ass technology (Score:5, Interesting)
I would pay money to have this camera rig on every KCAL 9 high speed chase video feed.
Re:Dumb place to mount the camera (Score:3, Interesting)
I think he means that he probably knows that it IS mounted. But you should SEE the arm in the video but don't. I had the same question myself.
Re:Dumb place to mount the camera (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably for the same reason they don't simply hold the camera and chopper in place and rotate the world. It takes more effort to rotate the chopper, or even the camera. And even if you went to the effort, it would be incredibly difficult to rotate the chopper around the camera while moving in any direction, and harder still (because you are, after all, subject to air movement) to keep the image steady. And finally, even if you did all of the above, there are limits to how fast you can rotate a chopper.
Instead, a common solution is to have a lens that provides a 360 degree view, with various degrees of distortion. (Panomorphic lenses) [wikipedia.org] Note that in many cases it is 360 degrees around a single axis, with only a limited field of view along the other axes. Some variations use mirrors, others appear to be extreme versions of the fish-eye lens. (Example. [0-360.com])
Another solution appears to be having either a reflector or the camera itself rotate, stitching the continuous stream of images into a series of 360 degree images. ( Android phone example [google.com], mirror rotation example [ieee.org])
And yet a third solution is to simply have cameras pointed in every direction at once. (Example [petapixel.com])
Re:Open Door Policy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How the heck is the camera mounted ? (Score:3, Interesting)
The camera mount is visible in the first, second and last segments if you look into the window where the photographer is closest to the camera, and its also visible from the shadow in the third segment. You can also see him winding in the camera at the very end.
The camera(s) in use likely have overlapping fields of view that allow for the mount itself to be eliminated from the picture. Couple that with what looks like a smudgy part of the opened window / door through which the camera is sticking out (right in front of the handle) and you've got your pole mounted camera sticking out with the tripod itself simply masked out.