If you look carefully, you can find these guys (and many more)

The inauguration of Senator Barack Obama sure is one of the most important events this year. While many, many photographers (both official and amateur) have tried to capture the right frame, David Bergman has taken 220 photos and stitched them together. The result is just pure awesomeness.

The resulting image has an unbelievable resolution of 1,474 megapixels (equals 59,783 x 24,658 pixels)  is 39 times more than the amazing new MAESTRO Sensor in Leica's new S-model with its 37.5 megapixels. The camera used was a common Canon G10 compact camera, mounted on a GigaPan device.

The GigaPan system allows the photographers to take large panorama images with correct nodal point adjustments in a breeze (well, actually it still takes some time, but is a lot faster and more accurate than taking the same picture with a normal tripod).

Total cost of this setup:
409 $ Canon G10 + 279 $ GigaPan System +  about 200 $ tripod  = around 888 $ for a picture that surely will be seen, and more important greatly enjoyed, by millions of people. Bargain!

The result of this process, 220 images stitched together in about seven hours on a Mac, can be viewed here. Try to spot the brand of the camera crane, the Secret Service agents on the roof or the guy who fell asleep, it's fun!

If you want to find more about the whole process, you can read David's post about this GigaPan panorama here (hard to reach at the moment).

(Via Gadling )