To celebrate Wembley’s 90th birthday and The FA’s 150th anniversary, The Wembley 360 returns for The FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic on 11th May, 2013. In 2011, The Wembley 360 photo became crowned with the official title of the ‘world’s most tagged photo’ and ‘world’s largest sports photo’ at last year’s final.

Beating the 23-gigapixel monster FA Cup Final 360 from 2011 was no easy task, especially with a turnaround time of less than 24 hours to assemble, stitch and upload the 1000s of images to create the final 360 panoramic.

This year, we’re not seeking a new record in terms of image size, we’re looking to create a gigapixel panorama that will allow us to assemble the finished image just a few hours after the game.

Roger Maslin, Wembley’s Managing Director said, ‘We are delighted to once again offer fans a special memento of their day at this year’s FA Cup Final and hope the photo captures the fantastic atmosphere fans bring to Wembley Stadium. We have some very special events at Wembley this Summer with the Champions League Final and a terrific run of concerts including; Bruce Springsteen, The Killers, Robbie Williams and Roger Waters -The Wall’.

This year’s effort is again led by photographer Jeffrey Martin of 360Cities, who has come back to shoot the latest Wembley monster panorama. Time and technology march on, and since last year, the hardware and software used in creating the Wembley 360s allow for an even smoother and quicker turnaround.

The Wembley 360 is shot from opposite the players' tunnel at pitch-side using a high-end camera (Canon EOS-1D X) that allows rapid firing of hundreds of images within a few minutes, and a very long telephoto lens (Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM to be precise).

After the match, the team proceeds directly to post production and, using special software and a powerful workstation, join the images together into a single image, and then deploy it to www.wembleystadium.com/wembley360 all within a few hours. It means another night at the keyboard for workhorse Jeff Martin, but the result is a memento of a momentous occasion that fans and visitors will be able to return to for years to come.

As ever, we hope that fans enjoy the Wembley 360. See you in the crowd!