View of Yosemite Valley, Tenaya and Merced Canyons from near Glacier Point.

By:Joel Baldwin (qumqats) on May 25, 2009
Tags: washington , watkins , royal , north , basket , sierra , dome , half , vernal , nevada , merced , tenaya , point , glacier , lower , yosemite , fall , arches , upper , panorama , ahwanee

There are many places in Yosemite National Park that are worth the trip to see. I would have to say that one of the "Must See"s is Glacier Point. It has one of the best "Bang for the Buck!" of any of the vistas in the park. The Point is a short few hundred yard walk from the parking lot. As you drive up to Glacier Point you have Taft Point and Sentinel Dome, both of which are a short 1.1 mile hike from the road, and the Washburn Point turnout. If you have the time, consider spending a day in the area enjoying these highlights.

This vista wasn't done from the public walkway at the Point. I visited the Point 3 times this summer, each time thinking I had found the perfect location for a Gigapan, only to find an even better spot the next visit, all the while determining the best time of day to start the Gigapan process. This spot is down the slope to the east quite a ways from the point and was quite precarious to get to. I considered trying to go down slope another 10 or 20 feet, but decided I was close enough to the multi thousand foot drop!

This Gigapan is comprised of 2072 images and took 2 hours 2 minutes to complete. The cliffs in the shot were not all in sunlight at the same time. The shot was started on the left when those cliffs where starting to lose their light. At this time the cliffs on the right were still in shadow. By the time the shot had progressed to the right the sun had moved enough to light those cliffs, and the left cliffs were in shadow.

This Gigapan was taken on a holiday weekend. There are people all over the place. How many can you find?
How many of the places listed in the keywords list can you find?
How many of the major tourist spots can you find.
How many trails can you find?
Can you find your favorite spot?
Do you see any rock climbers on Half Dome?
Do you see any rock climbers anywhere else?

Enjoy! :)

Date Taken: May 25, 2009
Date Added: January 25, 2010
Bookmarked: 4 times
Total Views: 1919 views
Gear: Canon SX10IS
Snapshots: 26
Size: 9.73 gigapixels
Field of View: 200.0 degrees wide, 0.0 degrees high

		January 25, 2010 12:29	Flag as inappropriate
		Que maravila de lugar, y que maravilla de foto!!!!!!! Felicitaciones. Posted by PIETROX

		January 26, 2010 17:21	Flag as inappropriate
		Great shot, many people do not understand how difficult it is to maintain image quality with larger panoramas. I have been planning shooting a very large pano and visited this area recently. Though the weather did not cooperate ; ) Did you shoot RAW orj JPEG? How did you stitch this monster ; ) There might be a slight blue cast. You can use the sunshine icon in Google earth to observe how the lighting changes as time passes. There is a slider that you can use to change the time of day and the date. You can get the sunrise, solar noon, sunset, moonrise, moonset information for larger cities at time and date. This site will also give you some weather information including the predicted wind. Though weather undergound will give you the best weather and for more locations. Use a zip code to quickly get data for the area you want. Posted by Castillonis

		January 27, 2010 00:18	Flag as inappropriate
		You might want to play with the geolocation. Each person has their preferences. If you're interested, can I suggest you try-out making the Image Distance larger, 100 or meters, or more. It was tough to fly around the image sphere while looking at it, because it is hugging the cliff so tightly. Also try making the image floor more negative to put the pano's horizon at the equator of the projected sphere. That will help unwarp the view of Half Dome. Posted by 3dof

		January 27, 2010 15:01	Flag as inappropriate
		CASTILLONIS: Shot in jpeg, SX10is doesn't support RAW, and the shot would have been unmanageable in RAW due to file sizes and card capacity. Stitched in the latest version of the Gigapan stitcher, it would have taken 3-5 days to stitch. When you have gigapans this large EVERY step takes a LONG time, photo, stitch, edit, upload. On second look the color balance does seem a bit cool. Posted by qumqats

		January 27, 2010 15:04	Flag as inappropriate
		3DOF: You seem to be talking about Google Earth settings which I don't have loaded and likely never will. The geo-location settings are all default except for FOV which I had to change from 0 in order to be able to save. Where would I find out more about these settings, their meanings, and the impact they have on Google Earth viewers? Posted by qumqats