We have previously discussed the Gigapan system:

Gigapixel images

And a world record photo taken with the Gigapan system:

World record #86 – the world’s largest stitched image is 17 gigapixels

Now there is a new photo containing 26 gigapixels that is claiming the record. The creation of the image is described here:

You can see the image here:

dresden-26-gigapixels.com

You start with a very high-end camera – a Canon 5D mark II. Each image it takes is 21.4 megapixels. You attach a 400 mm telephoto lens and take 1,655 images with the camera using a gigapan robotic camera mount. Then you stich all the images together into a single image. According to the link, it took a huge amount of processing power to stitch all the images together:

The converting of 102 GB raw data by a computer with a main memory cache of 48 GB and 16 processors took 94 hours. With a resolution of 297,500 x 87,500 pixel (26 gigapixel) the picture is the largest in the world.

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