In the following article, we introduce some great professionals who offer a glimpse behind the scenes.

The term is popping up more and more: virtual tour. In Hungary, this online marketing tool is becoming increasingly well-known, and more and more business owners and marketing professionals are using it to showcase their businesses online. In 2018, several private individuals and entrepreneurs already hold the Google Trusted Photographer qualification. These are the professionals who have already created numerous virtual tours and to whom you can confidently entrust the execution of your business’s virtual tour. Most of these professionals are members of the Facebook 360Pro group, where they share their knowledge and experiences with each other. We asked several users from the group which of their previous works they are most proud of and what their goals are for 2018.

 

Attila Kertész

Attila Kertész is a true photographer, working full-time in the profession for many years. He first started dealing with panoramic images for his own amusement, but today he is also a recognized expert in this field.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
The smell of photo lab developer and fixer hit me at the age of 11, and I’ve been photographing and developing ever since. I’ve been earning my living with this full-time since 1994. I had my own studio and a colour manual lab, but today I only maintain my studio. I mainly photographed on 6×7 slide film with Linhof Technique and Mamiya RB 67. But early on, already in 2000, I completely switched to digital technology. My main area of photography is applied photography, specifically interiors and studio still life photography. In 1999, I was admitted to the photography section of the Hungarian Association of Creative Artists. For a time (1996-2006), I also dealt with wedding and graduation photography, but today this area is of no interest to me.
I created my first spherical panorama in 2004, but for years I only worked on it for my own amusement, as Google has only recently provided opportunities for their display. In fact, I’ve only been earning money with it since 2009. I created the first panorama tours for Dunaautó Zrt and Biwak Kft’s websites in 2012.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I am most interested in photographing interiors. But I am also proud that I can create unique, 160-megapixel spherical panorama images of car interiors almost completely free of stitching errors. See last year’s models on the Suzuki factory website.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
I am most proud of the panorama tour of the natural beauties and architectural heritage buildings of 16 Zemplén settlements, commissioned by the National Institute of Culture, which also included a half-hour screening.

What equipment do you use?
I currently photograph with a Pentax K1 full-frame camera and a Laowa 2.8/12 mm prime lens. I always shoot in raw and, of course, process the images with Photoshop.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
By spring 2018, I will have completed a four-season spherical panorama tour of a charming Bükk excursion spot, which will present very interesting time-lapses as spherical panoramas taken from the same location.

László Nagy

László Nagy has been creating virtual tours for a year, having become acquainted with this activity as a marketer. He strives to provide comprehensive services to his clients, so in addition to online tours, he also deals with marketing activities such as local search engine optimization.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
I created my first online tours a year ago.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I can’t choose between the two, I love both, as both present different challenges for me.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
I am most proud of my work for Kiss Gumi, a tyre service and dealership in Maglód, who, supplemented by other marketing activities, achieved 100,000 online visitors in one year, which is an incredible achievement. I write more about this work here.

What equipment do you use?
I use DSLR cameras and Samsung cameras for creating the tours. For post-production, I use Photoshop, Krpano, and GoThru programs.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
The big challenge for me this year is to make virtual tours more widely known to business leaders and marketers, thereby dynamically assisting appearances, for which I can provide a plethora of complete online marketing tools. Just like in the case of Kiss Gumi. My goal is to work with companies that have a national network. Presenting their premises can be a huge opportunity to increase awareness and popularize their activities, for example, for the banking sector, pharmacy chains, or retail chains found in shopping malls.

Gergely Ráki

Gergely Ráki lived in England for ten years, but three years ago, when the first virtual tours appeared on Google Maps in Hungary, he thought Hungarian businesses also needed this, so he moved back home and has been working on it ever since.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
I started dealing with this three years ago, essentially from the moment the “interior view” service launched in Hungary.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I don’t have a favourite; the whole process is important to me as a whole, as I always move from the outside in.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
The Aria Hotel in Budapest. The building itself is beautiful, and I took the most panoramic photos inside one building there. This hotel won the title of “World’s Most Beautiful Hotel” on Trip Advisor.

What equipment do you use?
A DSLR camera and an 8mm fisheye lens are my most important tools. A panoramic head is also an essential accessory for creating panoramic images.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
More and more competitors are appearing who work with lower quality and, of course, at cheaper prices, so I see it as a challenge to bring quality to the forefront in virtual tours. In addition, I have started dealing with 360-degree product photography, which will provide very practical solutions for webshops.

Gábor Szeleczky

Gábor Szeleczky entered the world of virtual tours just over a year ago. It is a joyful feeling for him when the finished image truly conveys something of the atmosphere of the location, the everyday lives and emotions of the people living or working there.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
I have been doing this since October 2016.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I love both, for different reasons, but in December I prefer indoor photography.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
We completed the tour of the Praktiker store on Váci út in just under 3 weeks. This was the biggest challenge. The most atmospheric work was done at Pave Bike&Coffee.

What equipment do you use?
I work with a semi-professional Canon 80D DSLR camera. The program I use varies. Sometimes we only created panoramas with Google Street View’s own image stitching tool, but we have also tried several other professional programs.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
I would like to create more detailed images and spend more time on photography, as I didn’t have much time last year due to my daily work. I also want to upgrade my optics technically, and I am very interested in 360-degree video creation.

Romulus Lóránd Szinte

Romulus Loránd Szinte is a marketing expert at Profit Online, but he has already proven his knowledge at numerous large companies and businesses. He entered this world as a marketing professional with 17 years of experience, and he held the first marketing seminar in Hungary. Since 2016, he has been an official Google photographer.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
For over 1.5 years, as that’s when my Iris360 camera arrived from England.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I prefer exteriors, because natural light is best for the camera I use. However, interiors also have their advantages, for example, there are no passers-by walking into the photo.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
We photographed a dental centre in Sopron, that project was very successful. My strangest commission was at a cemetery in Dorog, where I photographed a new funeral service.

What equipment do you use?
I use a Samsung 360-degree camera and a large Iris 360 camera. In addition, I use Gothru and Krpano programs to complete my work.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
More and more people are noticing that the neighbouring shop or business has a virtual tour, and this gives many a competitive advantage. Since we are about 3 years behind the West in the use of online tools, there is still a lot to do in this area. In the past year, Google Maps has also developed a lot, but it is not yet at a point where everyone can easily use it.

Gergő Szuromi

Gergő Szuromi said even during his high school years that he wanted to be a successful entrepreneur who managed his own time. “Today I know that flexible working hours don’t necessarily mean more free time (in fact, quite the opposite!). But the most important thing is that I can do work I love and put my heart and soul into. That’s why I think I can call myself a lucky person,” he says about himself.

How long have you been involved in photography and virtual tours?
In 2011, I created my first spherical panorama image. I remember it was very rudimentary back then: with many stitching errors, and the result was incredibly slow to produce. Despite this, this attempt remained a positive memory, and after that, I tried to find and master all information related to panorama photography. I launched MagicView in July 2014, and I can say, perhaps without bias, that we have managed to stand out from the beginning thanks to the outstanding image quality.

Do you prefer photographing external or internal spaces?
I love challenges, so I prefer extreme conditions. Most photographers find it difficult to photograph a dark interior with poor lighting, where strong external light filters in. We all have in our minds the terrible, so-called blown-out image detail, which is a photographer’s nightmare. But thanks to special processing, even this challenge is not an obstacle.

Which of your works are you most proud of?
It would be difficult to single out one work from the nearly 500 completed projects. There is always a favourite among the most recent works – currently, that’s Caviar & Bull. From a professional perspective, this is a typically challenging location, as the evening atmosphere is characterized by subtle lighting and sometimes stronger ultraviolet light.
If I had to highlight one work from the past three and a half years, it would be one of the country’s largest gyms, the Scitec Gold Fitness Club. After the virtual tour was completed, I received a lot of positive feedback (even from competitors) and I owe several new inquiries and photo shoots to this work. This was the first (and last – since then we have prepared for the huge number of visitors!) time that after publication, so many people viewed the presentation that there was a brief server outage.

What equipment do you use?
I have tried several types of equipment from various manufacturers, but I have committed 100% to Canon. I also tried using the increasingly popular 360-degree cameras, but I have to say: this technology is not yet ready for professional use. It will certainly take a few more years for it to even come close to the image quality provided by DSLR cameras.

What software do you use?
The first step in image processing takes place in Photoshop. This is perhaps the program that no photographer can avoid. The rest of the processing workflow has been solved with custom-developed applications.

What will be your biggest challenge in 2018?
I believe the biggest challenge in 2018 will be to continue to serve the increased number of orders with relatively short deadlines and the accustomed outstanding quality – just as in previous years. To achieve this, it is inevitable that we will expand with a new colleague in the first half of the year.