Megapixels? No. We’re talking GIGApixels!

Unless plans change at the last second as they frequently do, this week's edition of the all-singing, all-dancing Ross-shire Journal will feature a panoramic view of Dingwall and the surrounding area taken from the top of the Macdonald Monument last Saturday during Doors Open Day.

At the time, that was the largest panorama I'd ever created, weighing in at around 53 megapixels. If you click the thumbnail to view the larger version then what you'll see is still only about 5% the resolution of the full version.

It took a fair bit of work to stitch that panorama together as it was created from a series of 17mm vertical frames, so there was considerable wide angle distortion. It's preferable to create panoramas from telephoto images, and that's exactly what I did for this next image which is a proof-of-concept for a much larger project. This image isn't meant to be of any great interest or artistic value, it's only an illustration of what can be achieved. This one is 137 megapixels but that's small compared to where the project is heading, which will be in the gigapixel range.

When you click through to the larger version of that one, what you'll be seeing is less than 2% the resolution of the full version.