Forget Megapixels! How about Gigapixels?

Want to see what kinds of images a gigapixel camera might take? Here is an incredibly detailed "photograph" of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. It consists of 196 separate photographs taken with a 6 megapixel digital camera, and then stitched together into one seamless composite. The complete image measures 40,784 x 26,800 pixels in size! When originally posted (in Dec 2003) it was the world's first gigapixel image. Since then there have been other attempts: (1) a 2.5 gigapixel panorama of Delft (an article about this project can be found here), and the Gigapxl project.

Max Lyons, the original gigapixel image creator, is -- apart from his technical prowess (he is the developer of a wonderful stitching program called PTAssembler) -- quite an accomplished photographer, specializing in stitched panoramas. Here is a samping of his beautiful work. Finally, and not to be missed (!), here is a shot of Max standing next to a huge print of his gigapixel Bryce Canyon image (shown at the 2004 Photo Marketing Association Annual Show).