Panoramic photos were the realm of the professional with the time and funds to create gorgeous super wide angle shots. In the digital age, it’s not only simple to create panoramic images on your home computer, it has become increasingly easier thanks to advances in software.
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| Beautiful Tokyo at night |
This is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio. While there is no formal division between "wide-angle" and "panoramic" photography, "wide angle" normally refers to a type of lens, but this lens type does not necessarily image a panorama. An image made with an ultra wide angle fisheye lens covering the normal film frame of 1:1.33 is not automatically considered to be a panorama.
Taking panaromas can be fun. Find yourself a nice scene, and work along the bits you want , in rows or columns. Most software wants about 20% overlap at each side. The software should help fix exposure variations for you, but it will help a lot to avoid wide variations in brightness. Take care to hold the camera still and level - a tripod will help greatly, but a steady hand can work just fine. If you do have a digital camera, review the images before leaving the scene!
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| Panoramic Tokyo by night |
Try and avoid things being very close to the camera - this will make any camera movement between shots VERY obvious, and ruin the results. Remember to rotate around the camera position, not just turn in a circle holding the camera. Unless you have a VERY good flash, avoid this when taking panoramas - any unevenness will be VERY obvious in the blended images. Windy days can cause problems, as trees, flags, and other things bend in the wind and change position. I was pleasantly surprised that ripples on water do not seem to have this problem - both the packages I have used can make effective joins on water, without obvious blurring or other soft image effect.
It's a shame to spoil a sequence of 24 images because your finger was over the lens for 1 of them! If you really want that photo, try taking two complete sets of images - perhaps with different overlap areas. This is particularly recommended if circumstances are difficult, e.g. bad light, long exposures, many moving people. Experience it.
