Photospheres Across the Pacific

Photosphere showing Statendam in Hilo, Hawaii - view in
Google Maps at https://goo.gl/maps/VHbZGSRETNA2

Photospheres are a new and exciting way of capturing some of your most scenic locations on a voyage.  I've posted a few of my latest photospheres from the final voyage of the Statendam on Google Maps.  The photo above looks strange until you go to the google maps version and open it as a photosphere.  It feels like you're standing inside a bubble.  This one shows the Statendam docked in Hilo on its final voyage across the Pacific.  We joined the ship in Hilo and I presented a series of lectures across to Singapore.

The easiest way to create a photosphere is with an Android cell phone after downloading the Google camera app.  You can also use a regular camera but it takes more work stitching all the photos together into a panorama and processing the results through another app.  There's an excellent tutorial online at geojournalism.org

Taken at the entrance to Lihue harbour in Kaui, Hawaii -
see https://goo.gl/maps/LbGzYr5a28R2

This was taken at Managaha beach, Islet Managaha, Saipan... it may
not be accepted to Google Maps because of the missing piece of sky

Once you've taken a photosphere, you can upload it to Google Maps and it will be available for everyone to see.  One of the neatest things is that you can see how many views your photosphere receives - or any photo uploaded to G Maps for that matter.  One of my photospheres has had over 6,000 views in a matter of three months.

Directions for uploading photospheres are available on the Street view site.  One thing I've noticed with Google -- often unfortunately! -- is that they change things frequently... by the time you read this they may have a whole new approach to all of this... at which point you might have to search for the most recent information.

You can see fantastic photospheres that people have taken all across the planet by visiting the Street view site.