World's largest digital image measures 44.8 gigapixels

A panorama of the dramatic Dubai skyline is the subject of the world’s largest digital image, taken last month by professional photographer Gerald Donovan.

To get the image, Donovan took 4250 individual shots with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L zoom at 400mm.

Total shooting time was around three and half hours in 37C heat .

“The camera and lens were almost too hot to touch at the end of the shoot,” Donovan said via his personal blog.

“This was only ever intended to be a technical test - I'm making no claims with regards photographic quality or artistic merit,” he added.

“It was more about exploring the limits of both the hardware and software that is available out there.”

The camera was mounted on a Gigapan Epic Pro mount and all 4250 jpeg images were stored on a single 32GB CF card, taking up 27.5 GB.

“On attempting to stitch this the first time, I was told I needed just over a terabyte of scratch space, so I had to go out and buy a 2TB disk and install that as well,” he said.

“Amazingly, both the battery in the Gigapan and the one in the 7D lasted out. I had spare camera batteries with me, so wasn't really worried on that front, but I didn't know what to expect from the Gigapan's. My previous record from it was around 3000 images across two separate panoramas,” he said.