GigaPan brings you Gigapan images that you can explore by zooming in, zooming out, and moving the image around. This is a whole new way to look at photography, and it combines very nicely with social media.

What’s a Gigapan? Gigapans are gigapixel panoramas. They are digital images that have billions of pixels. They have a clarity that other photos simply do not, and they do not get “fuzzy” even when you zoom in to pick out the faces in the crowd.

They have several galleries for you to browse through. One gallery has images from Hurricane Sandy. Others let you explore celestial images, cityscapes, or underwater. This is definitely a website that a person can go to “just for a minute” and end spending much longer than a minute exploring.

The most interesting gallery, at least to me, is the one called “Capture the Crowd”. It has Gigapan images of several different sporting events. I’m not big on sports, so the part that captured my attention was the fact that you really can zoom into the Gigapan image in order to see individual people who were in the stands watching that game.

It’s a little weird to think about. On the one hand, these people all knew that they were in a public place, and probably realized that a television camera might pick up their image. One might assume that they consented to having their photo taken under these circumstances. If you attending a particular sporting event or concert, you could search for yourself in the crowd and then tag yourself.

On the other hand, I doubt very many of the people who went to the events know that there could be a Gigapan image of the event they attended. The incredibly clear image, and the ability to literally scan the entire crowd for someone, could make some people feel as though their privacy has been violated.

Oh, and there is the potential that your friend who went to the event with you could decided to tag you as well as himself. Those tags will connect to both of your Facebook pages, and anyone who wants to can easily find exactly where you were seated at the event.

This might not be so great for people who faked a sick day in order to get out of work so they could go watch the game. However, it is really awesome for people who want to have a unique memento that proves that they really were there!