Gigapixel Photos Get You Up Close to Fine Art

We've had plenty of stories in the last year about some of the amazing gigapixel photos that people have put together to show off a city or a particularly amazing view. The folks over at PetaPixel have discovered something that uses the same tech but does something entirely different.

Instead of getting a panoramic shot of a city, a company called Hal9000 has been putting together massive images of classic works of art. The fidelity is amazing and the shots actually get you closer to the art than would be possible with the naked eye.

Each piece of art in the gallery has a description that showcases the amount of shots and what equipment was used in the making. For the 20 gigapixel version of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" for example, the photographers used 1,125 shots from a Nikon D3X. The image you see accompanying this story is a closeup of Venus' eye that reveals just how intricate the brushwork was.

Check out the gallery for more amazing shots, or to recommend artwork to be added.