Taking In A Wide View

I enjoy taking panorama photographs. When I look at one it’s as if I can scan the horizon from left to right or from right to left and experience an entirety of what’s in front of me. A panorama is wonderful way to capture landscapes and scenic subjects. 

I have a couple of cameras that are able to automatically take panoramas. My cellphone camera also has this feature. The amount of detail that is recorded in a panorama is quite amazing. Keep in mind that the enlarged panoramas displayed here have been reduced in overall size to fit on your screen – about 1600 pixels wide. Most of these original panoramas are more than 10,000 pixels wide!

Below are a few panoramas that I’ve taken over the years.

Click on any of the images to view the enlarged panorama.

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Arches National Park, Utah 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Badlands National Park, South Dakota 2016 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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Cannon Beach, Oregon 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Crater Lake, Oregon 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Dantes View in Death Valley National Park, California 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona 2020 iPhone 11 Pro Max cellphone

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Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan

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Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming 2008

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Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, Montana 2021 iPhone 11 Pro Max cellphone

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Mono Lake, California 2016 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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Monument Valley, Utah 2019 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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Painted Desert in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona 2016 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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St Louis Waterfront in St Louis, Missouri 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Trillium Lake and Mt. Hood, Oregon 2017 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin 2013 Sony NEX-7 camera

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Rim of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 2017 Sony ILCE-6000 camera

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If your camera or cellphone can capture a panorama have you tried it yet? The high quality of the images will amaze you.

Written by: Arnie Lee

Photographically speaking, a panorama is a photograph that encompasses a very wide view. I like panoramas because they reproduce a scene as if I were viewing it live by turning my head from the far left to the far right. I can view the photograph in small ‘chunks’ as I scan the entire image from the left to the right.

In the past, making a panorama was a complicated, multiple step process involving capturing the images and then stitching them together whether it be done chemically in a darkroom or digitally with a computer. I won’t go into details of making panoramas using either of these two “conventional” ways. Instead, I’ll point out the ease with which a feature on certain cameras enables me to easily make panoramas in one step.

For the past two years I’ve been using several Sony Alpha series and NEX series cameras to shoot panoramas. These cameras enjoy a feature called Sweep Panorama. When this feature is chosen, you simultaneously depress the shutter and move the camera in a sweeping fashion to the right. As you do this, the camera captures multiple images of the scene. The camera signals the completion of the sweep by halting the shutter. A few seconds afterward, the panoramic capture appears on the camera’s LCD for your review. Press the PLAY button and the image is displayed from left to right – in video fashion – but is actually a single, still panoramic image.

Above, I explained that the sweeping motion is from left to right. But in fact these Sony cameras let you sweep left to right; right to left; up to down; and down to up. These cameras also capture three dimensional appearing images using 3D Sweep Panorama that can be displayed on certain compatible 3D television sets.

Here’s a few of the panoramas that I’ve taken with various Sony cameras. You can click on each of the images to see a wide view of the panorama.
 

Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

Red Rock Canyon, Nevada
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Nothing Beats The Simplicity of In-Camera Panoramas

 

When you want to take it all in, a panorama is a fun way to recreate a memorable view.

Most panoramas are made by taking multiple photos and painstakingly stitching them together with specialized computer software.

Over the years I’ve put together many such panoramas. Since I’ve made so many, I know the routine by heart. I usually build a panorama from six to ten separate images.

First I set the camera shutter speed and aperture manually so that the lighting remains constant throughout all of the images. Since altering the focus point between shots makes it almost impossible to later stitch the photos together, I also set the focus to manual and choose a focus distance for the most important part of the scene. To make sure that the horizon remains level in all of the exposures, I use a tripod and bubble level. To keep track of the images in a set, I place my hand over the lens and shoot to indicate that the next photo is the start of a panorama. After each exposure, I rotate the tripod head so that the next exposure overlaps the previous one by about 30%.
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