British photographer and filmmaker Geoff Tompkinson has worked for National Geographer and GEO, among other media companies. In recent years, he has been one of the pioneers who has been developing timelapse photography. Tompkinson has taken it even further and developed a technique he calls Hyperzoom. The technique is so exciting that it is almost as amazing as the scene in the movie Blade Runner where the detectives zoom behind a corner.

Tompkinson’s objective was to establish a technique that lets the viewer (or camera) travel from a place to another. For instance, you spot an object on the other side of a lake, and the camera takes you over the lake right there where the object is. The viewer (with the camera) can even travel through windows and doors if they happen to be on the way.

When Tompkinson filmed in a village of Hallstatt in Austria (you can see the result in the video below), he had 15 pre-planned positions for his camera. When photos taken in these positions are carefully merged into a hyperlapse video, the result is simply amazing – a Hyperzoom video.

It can take a whole month to produce a high quality 90 second Hyperzoom video. Thousands of photographs are edited and merged into one image stream that creates the illusion of movement.

Geoff Tompkinson reveals a couple of secrets to DW how he creates his amazing hyperzoom video films:

You can view Tompkinson’s other hyperzoom videos at his home page.