Hi,

It depends what you mean by "trickery" ;-) - it's a real photo alright. Certainly there was some cleaning up done in photoshop - any "perfect" photo has been "cleaned up a bit". But is it "trickery"? I don't think so. "Ninja master", maybe ;-)

This type of "fully spherical" panorama is made from multiple pictures - there is literally no other way to create a *completely* spherical image, than by joining more than one photo together. This one was done handheld with no tripod, and thus it was probably a lot more work than usual getting all the images to line up perfectly. But in principle it's exactly the same as using a panoramic tripod head and a tripod (along with SLR camera and fisheye lens).

If you want to read more about how these images are made, you can do so on our page: http://www.360cities.net/panoramic-photo-tutorials/how-to-get-started-on-panoramic-photography

cheers,
Jeffrey

"Geez, the guy shows up in my living room at least once a day and tells me what to buy. Suddenly he's all about privacy?"

HAhaha. +1 :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv2qLOiioPc