Holy moly that is a close up zoom of a camel (see my screenshot above) – and it works for other place on Google Maps too!
Yes, it turns out that you can zoom in much more deeply onto Google Maps by doing this:
- Select a location and switch to satellite view
- Zoom in as far as you can, and click “link to this page” at the top right
- Now replace the “z” parameter in the URL with a higher value, e.g. 20, 22, or 23, and wait. Some locations will now show more detailed imagery
The French Ecrans website and Geotrotter have more on this.
What fun images can you find? Please post screenshots.
Playing water ping pong.
It seems he’s looking into the camera, actually.
This is a rare zoom level 23, almost (already?) creating privacy issues people joked about earlier.
Nobody’s in the Googleplex pool.
[Thanks Frank Fuchs!]
Update: Some of the images are from Google’s Australia Day 2007 fly-over snapshots and already show this detail at level 19. This is however not the case with the desert image, and the Googleplex pool…
Update 2: Apparently, with the URL replacement trick you can’t go beyond what Google Earth offers though. [Thanks everyone in the comments!]
