SEPTEMBER 2003 – Panorama photo shot from Dante’s View across the Death Valley National Park, California. Photo © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
The drive from Las Vegas back to California crosses the Death Valley National Park. Exciting, but also (a little bit) scary because the warnings could not be overlooked: Death Valley is not an amusement park and it can be dangerous to leave the popular trails. The heat is immense during the day, and you can easily drink a full gallon of water during your stay in the park.
But then it is also an exciting spot, because it is probably very different to everything you have seen before. We had been driving all the way up to Dante’s View, a spectacular viewpoint that offers an incredible view across the valley. The white area in the center was the Devils Golf Course, a huge area of rock salt transformed by nature into countless jagged spires. And needless to say, this place has nothing to do with a golf course at all. The name derives from the saying that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.”
It was really hot on that day in 2003, and even the short walk from the parking lot to the actual viewpoint was an exhausting excercise. We were happy when we could enter the car again and cool down for a while. Our next destination was the Devils Golf Course before continuing to Stovepipe Wells for another rest.
I composed this panorama image from two individual slides to get the image size of 53 MP which was huge back in 2003.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | 22-SEP-2003 |
| Location | Death Valley National Park |
| Camera | Canon AE-1 Program |
| Lens | FD 50mm f/1.4 |
| Image Source | 2 x Fuji Slide Film |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 12505 x 4284 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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