Photographer David Bergman, a freelancer based in NYC, shot this 1,474 megapixel panoramic scene of President Barack Obama’s Inauguration. It is equal parts cool and creepy that this can be done.  You gotta see it for yourself and then use the tool on the left side of the frame to zoom in and be shocked.  The entire scene took about 15 minutes to shoot using a Canon G10 mounted to Gigapan Imager .  Its made up of 220 full resolution still images that were stitched together by computer software in about six and half hours.

What I like about this presentation is the way it captures so many details from that historic day.  It’s super cool to zoom in and see what everyone former President Bush, to police sharp shooters on the roof tops, to Billy Bob sitting in the audience are doing.

What I think is important to impress upon people is that this is not a single moment in time like a traditional photo.  The actions taking place in one part of the photo do not necessarily correspond to actions taking place in a different area of the stitched together image. I think the fact that this is not one single image but 220 images shot over 15 minutes needs to be explained so the average viewer understands what they are looking at.  Putting those reservations aside I think this piece of technology is awesome at helping to put web viewers at the scene.

Here is more about Gigapan from their website and an interview with the photographer from CNN.