Wild, Wide Wedding Panoramas

Using new technology and imagination, Jensen Wedding Films offers unique perspectives to Brides and Grooms -Virtual Reality Wedding Panoramas.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon Hans Nyberg's spectacular 2004 360 degree QTVR panoramas of the Royal Danish Wedding. I was spellbound by the detail and the sheer immersiveness of the medium. I also realized that my beautiful brides and grooms would benefit from this technology.

A photographer friend heard that I was getting into Panography and referred me to a large condominium builder that need Quicktime panoramas of all their buildings. That job paid for my equipment!

I have now created over 30 of these spectacular quicktime 'movies' for our clients. You can view several of them here www.jensenvideo.com. You will need quicktime and a fast internet connection.

These Quicktime movies were created using a Nikon D50, Sigma 8mm fisheye lens, and a NN3 Panoramic head. Shots were taken 4 or 6 around and stitched using a variety of software, including photoshop. We offer the panoramic images as an add-on to our normal wedding video work. Each panoramic image takes less than 5 minutes to shoot and anywhere from 3-12 hours to stitch and finish.

Creating panoramas is addicting:) We probably break even on what we charge our clients, but they have been a great creative outlet. I never, ever though I would put down my beloved video camera for a still camera with a panoramic lens.

The image below is a flattened version of the fullscreen QTVR Panoramic image that can be seen here by clicking on the photograph:




Probably my favorite wedding panorama was shot last year at the Old Federal Bank Building in mid-town San Franciso. In addition having a fabulously beautiful room to shoot in, the dynamics of the bouquet toss made for an incredible capture. View this spectacular SF panorama here: Bouquet Toss!
Make sure you look at the bouquet suspended in the cieling!

Below is an example of a new panoramic style we are experimenting with - polar panoramas. The first image below is the regular flattened panoramic images from the beautiful wedding of Kulaya and Nine at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. (Click on the photo for the fullframe version!) Our hot steadicam operator is Scott Rodier. Images shot by our wonderful camera assistant Julie Arden.

...and just when you learned that Pluto was no longer a real planet... Below is an interesting variation of the wedding panorama shown above- a 'planet' or polar panorama.