Nokia 'Arc of Wonder' Brings Bullet-Time to Smartphones
Seriously, just watch. (But keep some Dramamine handy.)
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Its sales might not rival those of the iPhone 5S or Samsung Galaxy 5, but the Nokia Lumia 1020 is the smartphone of choice for serious camera nerds. Just one of these 41-megapixel shooters can satisfy a bevy of on-the-go photographic needs, all but replacing the traditional point-and-shoot. But what about 50 of them?
A team at Nokia recently assembled exactly that many Lumia 1020s into a 300-pound, man-sized arc. Why would anyone do that, you ask? To create some really incredible bullet-time style shots of "living moments" in New York City, of course.
Built in collaboration with filmmaker Paul Trillo, the “Multi Lumia Arc of Wonder” captures some pretty amazing images. Trillo used a clever stitching technique to turn the simultaneously captured stills into short video clips that make it look like a single camera is rotating around a given subject. The result is as indescribable as it is psychedelic.
The team lugged the rig around New York City to capture fleeting images of city life—a girl on a razor scooter, people sitting on a park bench, a man dancing in a public square. In the resulting video, each 180-degree "arc" rotates directly into another, creating an ever-changing cavalcade of urban imagery.
“The Multi Lumia Arc of Wonder combines smart technology to demonstrate the power of Lumia imaging, and the results are stunning,” said Costas Syrmos, head of Nokia’s creative lab.
Though the massive apparatus used to position the phones was custom-built for the project, the team used off-the-shelf consumer tech to operate it, including a Microsoft Surface tablet and Windows/Windows Mobile apps. In total, the filmmakers captured some 30,000 images from around the city to complete the 1:40 video.
Via: Nokia Conversations