What is Panoramic View and How to Shoot 360-degree Panoramic Photos
Last Updated on January 8, 2022 by Peter Wood
Many people are familiar with panoramic photos and even have taken someone. But when it comes to the concept of panoramic view or panorama, it is another story. Some photographers cannot explain this concept clearly, even though they know how to take a panorama photo with their cameras. On the other hand, knowing what a panoramic view is could help you take more beautiful and professional photos. Therefore, this article will introduce what is panoramic view is simple.
Part 1: What is Panoramic View
Theoretically speaking, a panoramic view is a wide-angle view of a physical space or scenery. A famous English painter introduces this concept to describe scenery paintings, but not photos. But as camera technology and photography skill developed, a panoramic photo has already become a concept in the photography industry. Some camera brands even produced dedicated panorama cameras, like Seitz 6x 17 Digital Panoramic, Fuji GX617 Professional, Linhof Technorama 617S III, Fotoman 617 MKII-L, Horseman SW-617/Pro, and so on. If you are interested in shooting excellent panoramic view photos, you can choose a panorama camera.
Thanks to digital technology, shooting panorama photos has become a customer skill. Today, almost all advanced smartphones and customer cameras have the feature of panoramic view mode. After some settings, you have to move the camera right to left or up to down, and the camera will take and stitch the photos together automatically. Then you get the panorama picture. The process of taking panoramic view photos seems easy, as the introduction above. However, sometimes the panoramas taken by panorama mode are low quality. So you have to lose the details to exchange panoramic views. At this time, you may need to take raw images with your camera and stitch them manually.
Part 2: Tips to Take Panoramic View Photos
Some tips could help you take a perfect panoramic photo with your camera. To take 360 images, you should follow a process to get the desired file. Just learn more detail as follows.
Camera Position
Most people will take horizontal 360-degree panoramas with their cameras, while the best way is to roll your camera 90o and take the photos in portrait position. This way could eliminate the distortion in the output.
Lens
When we talk about panoramic view, the wide-angle lens may emerge in your mind at once. Panorama usually requires photographers to keep a distance from the subject. But if you keep too far away from the object, the details will be lost. So you may need a lens to bring you close to the subject. But not get too close. A standard 50 mm lens is competent with a panoramic view. Not to mention wide-angle lens will make the panoramas distorted.
Accessories
When you take panoramic photos, you have to move the camera horizontally. Easy said than done! If you cannot hold the camera stable when you move it, there will be distortions in the panoramas. Therefore, you need a tripod or a level indicator.
Other modes
A camera usually has multiple modes, while panorama is just one of them. Some cameras support other modes in panoramic views, like exposure mode and focus mode. You can explore the potentials of the panoramic view cooperated with other modes.
Part 3: Best Program to View Panorama
After shooting a panoramic view photo, you may want to look at it before share online. A panorama picture is usually large with a unique aspect ratio, so not all photo viewers, like Windows Photo View, are suitable to browse it. At this time, you may need an alternative viewer. And WidsMob Viewer is one of the best choices. Here are the basic features of Photo Viewer include:
1. It is compatible with Mac OS X includes the latest macOS version.
2. It utilizes an algorithm to load and switch photos. So users enjoy a fast and seamless viewing experience.
3. User could open all panoramic photos in a folder in batch.
4. Photo Viewer could read most photo formats and RAW files.
5. It allows users to view panorama photos in unbelievable high resolution. So you can enjoy the details in your panoramic view.
6. This photo viewer provides multiple viewing modes, such as full screen, library, thumbnail, EXIF, and slideshow. Users could appreciate the panorama photo in different viewing modes.
7. It also has editing tools for panoramic view photos, like rotation, crop, flip and convert, and multiple adjustment options.
8. When you organize panoramic photos by data or name, Photo Viewer is also a tool.
Conclusion
You may understand what a panoramic view is and its history after reading. So when you take panoramas next time, you will become more confident. This article also introduces some tips when you take panoramic photos. The position of the camera is severe when you shoot. And you can try to use a standard lens to shoot panoramic view pictures; that could avoid distortions produced by a wide-angle lens. Accessories are also helpful when taking panoramic photos. And you can try to utilize multiple modes in panoramas. If you want to share more details about your comments about the panoramic view, you can add them now.