Panorama: Camera Orientation & Capture Seqence

The orientation of the camera and the sequence of capture (the order in which you take the photos) will affect the resulting panorama. If the camera is held in the landscape format (horizontal) the resulting panorama will be rather narrow in relation to the other dimension (height vs. width for the example above). Changing the camera's orientation to portrait (vertical) will increase that dimension (the height in the example above).

This is an example (above) of capturing the image with the camera in the landscape orientation. Only 3 images will fill the desired width, but not much height.

Turning the camera into the portrait orientation (above) requires 5 photos, but the pano will have considerably more height. This is my default camera orientation for panos.

This series of stitched photos (above) is the starting point for the image at the top of this blog entry (it is a view of Molde, Norway from the varden). It is made up of 7 individual photos taken with the camera in the portrait orientation. This extra height gave me more headroom for cropping. 

It is possible to take vertical panos. Use the orientation illustrated above. Use landscape or portrait orientation based on the subject matter. Use all the other rules about aperture, focus, lens, etc.

Although it may not end up as a pano, Multiple images can be stitched into a large rectangle as well. Above is a suggested capture sequence.

More panorama thoughts tomorrow.