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Fall River Road Panorama, Rocky Mountain National Park
Photo copyright Jim Doty, Jr.This
360 degree panoramic view is from near the top of Fall River Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. The one way dirt road, uphill all the way, begins at the west end of Horshoe Park and winds its way up the Fall River
valley to the tundra and ends at the Alpine Visitor's Center on Trail Ridge Road. The drive up Fall River Road and back down Trail Ridge Road makes a nice day long trip with stops along the way and at the Alpine
Visitor's Center. It can be done in half a day if you are pressed for time. On the left side of the photo you are watching the road as it comes uphill. On the right side of the photo, just above and to the right of
the snowfields at the top of the ridge, you can just make out the Alpine Visitor's Center. This is easier to see in the larger version of this photo. The image is digitally stitched together from 12 separate vertical photos taken at a focal
length of 17mm with a Canon 17-40mm f/4 L lens on a Canon 20D camera body. The 35mm film equivalent would be a 27mm wide angle lens. The full size image is a 160 megabyte file that prints out at 10 x 60 inches at 300
pixels per inch. The software used to stitch the image together is The Panorama Factory
from
Smoky City Design. It was able to automatically stitch this image without any manual intervention. I highly recommend this software.To give you an
idea of the amount of detail in the full size panorama, the image below is a 100% magnification,"actual pixels" crop of the hiker on the far right side of the original panorama. He is barely discernible in the photo on
this page and a little easier to find in the larger web version (link below). The four hikers in the distance are the tiniest of dots in the larger web sized version of the photo.
A much
larger version of the panoramaA QTVR movie version of the panorama
August 21, 2005
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