360 Virtual Tours – The Virtual Tour & Panoramic Photography Co.

This beautiful church in the small Cambridgeshire village of Histon is due for a refurb…

So we were called in to photograph the before state of the church just before work begins.

Here at 360 Virtual Tours we’ve noticed a big increase in the use of virtual tours for ‘before’ and ‘after’ views of a location.  The unique views that 360 virtual tours provide are perfect for giving people a true to life view of what has changed.

Histon Baptist Church was built in the late 19th century, with an extension on the south side coming some 10 years later.  Over the years the church has been modified and modernised, with the latest work taking place this summer.  The main hall is being redeveloped with underfloor heating, new seating and stripped back wood.  The aim of the virtual tour is to provide people with a great interactive means of viewing the before and after work, as well as providing the church with a great way of marketing itself.

We’ll be back in December this year to produce 5 more tour scenes showing the completed work, but in the mean time take a look at the tour (produced using HDR techniques) by either clicking on the image above, or by visiting the portfolio.

Continue Reading

This stunning Suffolk Estate recently had 4 of it’s holiday lets created into fantastic HDR Virtual Tours.

We were lucky enough recently to spend a day at Stowlangtoft Estate.  This stunning Estate is in the heart of Suffolk, and boasts 4 holiday lets ranging from the smaller converted Shooting Lodge to the larger Coach House property.

We completed Virtual Tours for all 4 of the Stowlangtoft holiday lets.  The tours were created in using the HDR technique, to allow even tones throughout the images despite the bright, sunny day!

To view the Stowlangtoft Estate HDR 360 Virtual Tours, click on the image above.

Continue Reading

You’ll see the term HDR thrown around a lot when viewing various photography sites.  Even we throw it in a few of our marketing e-mails and on our website, so we thought it best to offer an explanation of what HDR is and how it can be used to produce a superior looking tour.

High Dynamic Range – A fancy name for photos that look good!

OK, so lets use an example.  You’re in a large room with large floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a great balcony.  Inside it’s fairly light, but there is also a lot of light streaming through the windows.  You take out your camera, and take a shot.  Chances are you’ll get one of two things happen.  1; you have a shot in which the windows are completely blown out with a white haze, but the inside looks OK, or 2; a shot in which the outside is clearly visible but inside the room is dark.

This happens because unlike your eyes, a camera cannot distinguish between extreme light and dark, and has to just deal with one at a time.  Most photographers will just find a happy medium and adjust the ISO, Exposure and aperture settings to deal with light the best he can.

HDR is a great way of dealing with this, giving great results.  It involves taking a number of shots of the same scene, but in varying exposures.  This will give you a range of shots, each one giving you a different exposure and showing the varying degrees of light in the room and outside.  These shots can then be merged together into a single photo giving you an end result that shows the highlights in the room as well as showing whats outside.

The above example is a very simplified version of what can be achieved.

A great example of how we have used the HDR technique is the King’s Fund London tour, take a look here.

Continue Reading