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Panoramic photography

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Panoramic photographyis a technique ofphotography,using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongatedfields of view.It is sometimes known aswide format photography.The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wideaspect ratio,like the familiarletterboxformat inwide-screenvideo.

While there is no formal division between "wide-angle"and"panoramic"photography," wide-angle "normally refers to a type of lens, but using this lens type does not necessarily make an image a panorama. An image made with an ultra wide-anglefisheye lenscovering the normal film frame of 1:1.33 is not automatically considered to be a panorama. An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of thehuman eye– about 160° by 75° – may be termed panoramic. This generally means it has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high. The resulting images take the form of a wide strip. Some panoramic images have aspect ratios of 4:1 and sometimes 10:1, covering fields of view of up to 360 degrees. Both the aspect ratio and coverage of field are important factors in defining a true panoramic image.

A panorama ofSydneyfeaturing (from left) theSydney Opera House,the central business district skyline, and theSydney Harbour Bridge

Photo-finishersand manufacturers ofAdvanced Photo System(APS)camerasuse the word "panoramic" to define anyprintformat with a wide aspect ratio, not necessarily photos that encompass a large field of view.

History[edit]

The device of the panorama existed in painting, particularly inmuralsas early as A.D. 20 in those found inPompeii,[1][2][3]as a means of generating an immersive 'panoptic' experience of avista,long before the advent of photography. In the century prior to the advent of photography, and from 1787, with the work ofRobert Barker,[4]it reached a pinnacle of development in which whole buildings were constructed to house 360° panoramas,[5]and even incorporated lighting effects and moving elements.[6]Indeed, the careers of one of the inventors of photography,Daguerre,began in the production of popular panoramas anddioramas.[7]

The idea and longing to create a detailed cityscape without a paintbrush, inspired Friedrich von Marten. von Marten created panoramic daguerreotype by using a special panoramic camera that he created himself. The camera could capture a broad view on a single daguerreotype plate. In complete and vivid detail, a cityscape is laid out before the viewer.[8]

The development of panoramic cameras was a logical extension of the nineteenth-century fad for the panorama. One of the first recorded patents for a panoramic camera was submitted byJoseph Puchberger[9][10]inAustriain 1843 for a hand-cranked, 150° field of view, 8-inchfocal lengthcamera thatexposeda relatively largeDaguerreotype,up to 24 inches (610 mm) long. A more successful and technically superior panoramic camera was assembled the next year by Friedrich von Martens[11]inGermanyin 1844. His camera, theMegaskop,used curved plates and added the crucial feature of setgears,offering a relatively steady panning speed.[7]As a result, the camera properly exposed the photographic plate, avoiding unsteady speeds that can create an unevenness in exposure, calledbanding.Martens was employed by Lerebours, a photographer/publisher. It is also possible that Martens camera was perfected before Puchberger patented his camera. Because of the high cost of materials and the technical difficulty of properly exposing the plates, Daguerreotype panoramas, especially those pieced together from several plates (see below) are rare.[12]

An 1851 panoramic showingSan FranciscofromRincon Hillby photographerMartin Behrmanx.It is believed that the panorama initially had eleven plates, but the original daguerreotypes no longer exist.

After the advent ofwet-plate collodion process,photographers would take anywhere from two to a dozen of the ensuingalbumen printsand piece them together to form a panoramic image (see:Segmented). This photographic process was technically easier and far less expensive than Daguerreotypes. WhileWilliam Stanley Jevons' wet-collodionPanorama ofPort Jackson,New South Wales, from a high rock aboveShell Cove,North Shoresurvived undiscovered until 1953 in his scrap-book of 1857,[13]some of the most famous early panoramas were assembled this way byGeorge N. Barnard,a photographer for theUnion Armyin theAmerican Civil Warin the 1860s. His work provided vast overviews of fortifications and terrain, much valued byengineers,generals,andartistsalike. (seePhotography and photographers of the American Civil War)[citation needed]In 1875, through remarkable effort, Bernard Otto Holtermann andCharles Baylisscoated twenty-three wet-plates measuring 56 by 46 centimetres to record a sweepingview of Sydney Harbour.[14]

Following the invention offlexible filmin 1888, panoramic photography was revolutionised. Dozens of cameras were marketed, many withbrand namesindicative of their era; such as the Pantascopic, (1862)[15]Cylindrographsurvey camera (1884),[16]Kodak Panoram(1899),[17][18]Wonder Panoramic(1890),[19][page needed]andCyclo-Pan(1970).[20]More portable and simple to operate, and with the advantage of holding several panoramic views on the one roll, these cameras were enthusiastically deployed around the turn of the century by such photographers as the American adventurerMelvin Vaniman,who popularised the medium in Australia where it was taken up by bothPictorialistand postcard photographers, such asRobert Vere Scott,[21]Richard T. Maurice (1859-1909), H.H. Tilbrook (1884-1937),[22]and Harry Phillips (1873-1944).[23]

View from the top ofLookout Mountain,Tennessee,Albumen prints, February, 1864, by George N. Barnard
Panorama ofSydneyfromLavender Bay,1875, byBernard Otto HoltermannandCharles Bayliss
Center CityPhiladelphiapanorama,from 1913.

Panoramic cameras and methods[edit]

Stereo Cyclographe[edit]

A camera with combined two-fixed focus panoramic camera in one mahogany-wooded box. The lenses were eight centimeters apart from each other with an indicator in between the lens to help the photographer set the camera level. A clock motor transported the nine-centimeter-wide film along with turning the shaft that rotated the camera. The camera could make a 9 × 80 cm pair that required a special viewer. These images were mostly used for mapping purposes.[24]

Wonder Panoramic Camera[edit]

Made in 1890 in Berlin, Germany, by Rudolf Stirn, the Wonder Panoramic Camera needed the photographer for its motive power. A string, inside of the camera, hanging through a hole in the tripod screw, wound around a pulley inside the wooden box camera. To take a panoramic photo, the photographer swiveled the metal cap away from the lens to start the exposure. The rotation could be set for a full 360-degree view, producing an eighteen-inch-long negative.[24]

Periphote[edit]

Built by Lumiere Freres of Paris in 1901. The Periphote had a spring-wound clock motor that rotated, and the inside barrier held the roll of film and its take-up spool. Attached to the body was a 55mm Jarret lens and a prism that directed the light through a half-millimeter-wide aperture at the film.[24]

Short rotation[edit]

A 1900 advertisement for a short rotation panoramic camera

Short rotation,rotating lensandswing lenscameras have a lens that rotates around the camera lens's rearnodal pointand use a curvedfilm plane.[25]As the photograph is taken, the lens pivots around its rear nodal point while a slit exposes a vertical strip of film that is aligned with the axis of the lens. The exposure usually takes a fraction of a second. Typically, these cameras capture a field of view between 110° and 140° and an aspect ratio of 2:1 to 4:1. The images produced occupy between 1.5 and 3 times as much space on thenegativeas the standard 24 mm x 36 mm35 mmframe.

Cameras of this type include theWidelux,Noblex,and theHorizon.These have a negative size of approximately 24x58 mm. The Russian "Spaceview FT-2", originally an artillery spotting camera, produced wider negatives, 12 exposures on a 36-exposure 35 mm film.

A negative from a 35 mmswing lenscamera

Short rotation cameras usually offer fewshutter speedsand have poor focusing ability. Most models have a fixed focus lens, set to thehyperfocal distanceof the maximum aperture of the lens, often at around 10 meters (33 feet). Photographers wishing to photograph closer subjects must use a smallapertureto bring the foreground into focus, limiting the camera's use in low-light situations.

The distortion of architectural subjects is severe when using a rotating lens camera

Rotating lens cameras produce distortion of straight lines. This looks unusual because the image, which was captured from a sweeping, curved perspective, is being viewed flat. To view the image correctly, the viewer would have to produce a sufficiently large print and curve it identically to the curve of the film plane. This distortion can be reduced by using a swing-lens camera with a standard focal length lens. The FT-2 has a 50 mm while most other 35 mm swing lens cameras use a wide-angle lens, often 28 mm.[citation needed] Similar distortion is seen in panoramas shot with digital cameras using in-camerastitching.

A digital camera image ofFranklin D. Roosevelt East River Drivemade with aSony Cyber-shot,showing faults (discontinuities) caused by objects in fast motion during image capture. The panorama isstitchedfrom multiple exposures taken while the camera is manually rotated.

Full rotation[edit]

360-degree panoramic projection of theVLTsurvey telescope[26]

Rotating panoramic cameras,also calledslit scanorscanning camerasare capable of 360° or greater degree of rotation. A clockwork or motorized mechanism rotates the camera continuously and pulls the film through the camera, so the motion of the film matches that of the image movement across the image plane.Exposureis made through a narrow slit. The central part of the image field produces a very sharp picture that is consistent across the frame.[citation needed]

Digitalrotating line camerasimage a 360° panorama line by line. Digital cameras in this style are thePanoscanand Eyescan. Analogue cameras include theCirkut(1905),Leme(1962), Hulcherama (1979),Globuscope(1981), Seitz Roundshot (1988) and Lomography Spinner 360° (2010).

Fixed lens[edit]

Fixed lenscameras, also calledflatback,wide vieworwide field,have fixed lenses and a flat image plane. These are the most common form of panoramic camera and range from inexpensiveAPScameras to sophisticated 6x17 cm and 6x24 cmmedium formatcameras. Panoramic cameras using sheet film are available in formats up to 10 x 24 inches. APS or 35 mm cameras produce cropped images in a panoramic aspect ratio using a small area of film. Specialized 35 mm or medium format fixed-lens panoramic cameras use wide field lenses to cover an extended length as well as the full height of the film to produce images with a greater image width than normal.[citation needed]

Pinhole cameras of a variety of constructions can be used to make panoramic images. A popular design is the 'oatmeal box', a vertical cylindrical container in which the pinhole is made in one side and the film or photographic paper is wrapped around the inside wall opposite, and extending almost right to the edge of, the pinhole. This generates an egg-shaped image with more than 180° view.[27]

Because they expose the film in a single exposure, fixed lens cameras can be used withelectronic flash,which would not work consistently with rotational panoramic cameras.

With a flat image plane, 90° is the widest field of view that can be captured in focus and without significant wide-angle distortion or vignetting. Lenses with an imaging angle approaching 120 degrees require acenter filterto correct vignetting at the edges of the image. Lenses that capture angles of up to 180°, commonly known asfisheye lensesexhibit extreme geometrical distortion but typically display less brightness falloff thanrectilinearlenses.[citation needed]

Examples of this type of camera are: Taiyokoki Viscawide-16 ST-D (16 mm film),[28]Siciliano Camera Works Pannaroma (35mm, 1987[29]),HasselbladX-Pan (35 mm, 1998),Linhof612PC,HorsemanSW612, Linhof Technorama 617, Tomiyama Art Panorama 617 and 624, andFujiG617 and GX617 (Medium format (film)).

Thepanomorphlens provides a full hemispheric field of view with no blind spot, unlikecatadioptriclenses.[citation needed]

Digital photography[edit]

Digital stitching of segmented panoramas[edit]

Example of a segmented panorama. Taken with aNikon Coolpix 5000and stitched withPTgui.

With digital photography, the most common method for producing panoramas is to take a series of pictures and stitch them together.[30]There are two main types: the cylindrical panorama used primarily in stills photography and the spherical panorama used for virtual-reality images.[31]

Segmented panoramas, also calledstitchedpanoramas,are made by joining multiple photographs with slightly overlapping fields of view to create a panoramic image. Stitching software is used to combine multiple images. Ideally, in order to correctly stitch images together withoutparallaxerror, the camera must be rotated about the center of its lensentrance pupil.[25][32][33]Stitching software can correct some parallax errors and different programs seem to vary in their ability to correct parallax errors. In general specific panorama software seems better at this than some of the built in stitching in general photomanipulation software.

TheGiza PyramidsinCairo, Egypt
TheWillamette Riveras it passes through westernPortland, Oregon,withMount St. Helens,Mount AdamsandMount Hoodin the background

In-camera stitching of panoramas[edit]

Somedigital camerasespecially smartphone cameras can do the stitching internally, sometimes in real time, either as a standard feature or by installing asmartphoneapp.

A 270-degree panorama stitched "in-camera". Many modern digital cameras can automatically stitch a sequence of images shot while the camera ispanned(moved horizonally).
Apanningsmartphone camera captures moving vehicles with stitching anomalies.

Catadioptric cameras[edit]

Lens- and mirror-based (catadioptric) cameras consist of lenses and curved mirrors that reflect a 360-degree field of view into the lens' optics. The mirror shape and lens used are specifically chosen and arranged so that the camera maintains a single viewpoint. The single viewpoint means the complete panorama is effectively imaged or viewed from a single point in space. One can simply warp the acquired image into a cylindrical or spherical panorama. Even perspective views of smaller fields of view can be accurately computed.

The biggest advantage of catadioptric systems (panoramic mirror lenses) is that because one uses mirrors to bend the light rays instead of lenses (like fish eye), the image has almost no chromatic aberrations or distortions. The image, a reflection of the surface on the mirror, is in the form of a doughnut to which software is applied in order to create a flat panoramic picture. Such software is normally supplied by the company who produces the system. Because the complete panorama is imaged at once, dynamic scenes can be captured without problems. Panoramic video can be captured and has found applications in robotics and journalism.[citation needed]The mirror lens system uses only a partial section of the digital camera's sensor and therefore some pixels are not used. Recommendations are always to use a camera with a high pixel count in order to maximize the resolution of the final image.

There are even inexpensive add-on catadioptric lenses forsmartphones,such as theGoPano microandKogeto Dot.

Vertorama[edit]

Vertical panoramas
Jebel Jaison the border between Oman and United Arab Emirates
Saint-Jean-Baptiste de BastiaChurch,Corsica

A vertical panorama orvertoramais a panorama with an upright orientation instead of a horizontal. It is created using the same techniques as when making a horizontal panorama.[34]

Artistic uses[edit]

Strip panoramas[edit]

Ed Ruscha'sEvery Building on the Sunset Strip(1966) was made by photographing building facades contiguously as seen from the back of a pickup truck traveling a 4 km length of the street. In the ironically 'deadpan' spirit of his work at the time, he published the work in strip form in a foldout book, intended to be viewed from one end or the other to see either side of 'The Strip' in correct orientation.[35]

Preceding Ruscha's work, in 1954, Yoshikazu Suzuki produced an accordion-fold panorama of every building on Ginza Street, Tokyo in the Japanese architecture bookGinza, Kawaii, Ginza Haccho.[36]

Joiners[edit]

Panograph of Hyde Park in Sydney by Night
Panograph of Hyde Park in Sydney by Night

Joiners (for which the termspanographyandpanographhave been used)[37]is aphotographictechnique in which onepictureis assembled from several overlapping photographs. This can be done manually with prints or by usingdigital image editingsoftware and may resemble awide-angleorpanoramicview of a scene, similar in effect tosegmented panoramic photographyorimage stitching.A joiner is distinct because the overlapping edges between adjacent pictures are not removed; the edge becomes part of the picture. 'Joiners' or 'panography' is thus a type ofphotomontageand a sub-set ofcollage.

ArtistDavid Hockneyis an early and important contributor to this technique. Through his fascination with human vision, his efforts to render a subjective view in his artworks resulted in the manual montaging of 10x15cm high-street-processed prints of (often several entire) 35mm films as a solution.[38]He called the resulting cut-and-paste montages "joiners", and one of his most famous is "Pearblossom Highway", held by theGetty Museum.[39]His group was called the "Hockney joiners", and he still paints and photographs joiners today.

Jan Dibbets'Dutch Mountainseries (c.1971) relies on stitching of panoramic sequences to make a mountain of the Netherlands seaside.[40]

Revivalists[edit]

In the 1970s and 1980s, a school of art photographers took up panoramic photography, inventing new cameras and using found and updated antique cameras to revive the format. The new panoramists includedKenneth Snelson,David Avison,Art Sinsabaugh, and Jim Alinder.[41]

Digital stitching[edit]

Andreas Gurskyfrequently employs digital stitching in his large-format panoramic imagery.[42]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Chambers's Encyclopaedia. (1973). United Kingdom: International Learning Systems, p747
  2. ^Grau, Oliver; Custance, Gloria (2003).Virtual art: from illusion to immersion([Rev. and expanded ed.] ed.). MIT Press. pp. 1633–4.ISBN978-0-262-07241-0.
  3. ^Ling, Roger (1991),Roman painting,Cambridge University Press, pp. 110–11,ISBN978-0-521-30614-0
  4. ^Kang, Sing Bing;Benosman, Ryad (2001).Panoramic vision: sensors, theory, and applications.Springer. p. 5ff.ISBN978-0-387-95111-9.
  5. ^Oettermann, Stephan; Bell, Rob; Flannel (Firm); Zondervan Corporation (1997).The panorama: history of a mass medium.Zone Books. pp. 237, 258, 270.ISBN978-0-942299-83-0.
  6. ^Comment, Bernard. XIXe siècle des panoramas (1999).The panorama(Rev. and expanded ed.). Reaktion. p. 61.ISBN978-1-86189-042-9.
  7. ^abHannavy, John (2008).Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography.Taylor & Francis Group. p. 364.ISBN978-0-203-94178-2.
  8. ^Johnson, William (1999).A History of Photography.Rochester, NY: George Eastman House Collection. p. 51.ISBN978-3-8365-4099-5.
  9. ^Vanvolsem, Maarten (2011).The art of strip photography: making still images with a moving camera.Leuven University Press. p. 11.ISBN978-90-5867-840-9.
  10. ^Hannavy, John (2008).Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography.Taylor & Francis Group. p.255.ISBN978-0-203-94178-2.
  11. ^Gernsheim, Helmut (1962).Creative photography: aesthetic trends, 1839-1960.Bonanza Books. pp. 30, 7n.Retrieved2 February2016.
  12. ^"Panoramic Photography".www.douban.com.douban.com.Retrieved15 December2014.
  13. ^Niven, Peter (1983)."Hand-List of the Jevons Archives in the John Rylands Library of Manchester"(PDF).John Rylands University Library.Retrieved13 February2021.
  14. ^"Holtermann panorama"(PDF).National Gallery of Australia.Retrieved18 January2010.
  15. ^Image Volume 32, Issue 1 - Page 33
  16. ^Sir Humphry Davy; Davy, John, 1790-1868, ed (1972).The collected works of Sir Humphry Davy.New York Johnson Reprint Corp. p. 724.Retrieved2 February2016.{{cite book}}:|author2=has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^Encyclopedia of twentieth-century photography.Lynne Warren. New York: Routledge. 2006. p. 1194.ISBN978-0-203-94338-0.OCLC190846013.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. ^Coe, Brian (1978).Cameras: from Daguerreotypes to instant pictures.New York: Crown Publishers. pp. 171, 175.ISBN0-517-53381-2.OCLC3730724.
  19. ^Richter, Joanne (2006).Inventing the camera.Crabtree Pub. Co.ISBN978-0-7787-2814-6.
  20. ^Photographic Science and Engineering, Volume 17, p.246. Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers, 1973
  21. ^Gael Newton, ‘Out of Sight’, inMaxwell, Anne; Maxwell, Anne, 1951-, (editor.); Croci, Josephine, (editor.) (2015),Shifting focus: colonial Australian photography 1850-1920,Australian Scholarly,ISBN978-1-925003-72-7{{citation}}:|author2=has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ^See Maria Zagala’s entry on R. T. Maurice in A Century of Progress: South Australian Photography, 1840s–1940s, Exhibition catalogue (Adelaide Art Gallery of South Australia, 2007), 135
  23. ^See Phillip Kay, The Far-Famed Blue Mountains of Harry Phillips (Leura, NSW, Second Back Row Press, 1985).
  24. ^abcGustavson, Tod (2011).500 Camera.Canada: Sterling Publishing. p. 316.ISBN978-1-4027-8086-8.
  25. ^abLittlefield, Rik (6 February 2006)."Theory of the 'No-Parallax' Point in Panorama Photography"(PDF).ver. 1.0.Retrieved14 January2007.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  26. ^"Very Large Telescope Ready for Action".ESO Picture of the Week.European Southern Observatory.Retrieved25 July2011.
  27. ^Eric Renner (2008). Pinhole photography from historic technique to digital application (4th ed). Amsterdam Focal Press pps. 129-140
  28. ^"Taiyokoki Viscawide-16 ST-D".The Sub Club.Retrieved17 March2020.
  29. ^"Pannaroma 1x3 Prototype".Siciliano Camera Works.Archived fromthe originalon 13 March 2015.Retrieved16 October2018.
  30. ^Speight, David (11 February 2020)."How to Photograph Panoramas".Nature TTL.Retrieved17 February2020.
  31. ^Ang, Tom (2008). Fundamentals of Modern Photography. Octopus Publishing Group Limited. p174.ISBN978-1-84533-2310.
  32. ^Kerr, Douglas A. (2005)."The Proper Pivot Point for Panoramic Photography"(PDF).The Pumpkin.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 7 April 2008.Retrieved14 January2007.
  33. ^van Walree, Paul."Misconceptions in photographic optics".Archived fromthe originalon 22 January 2009.Retrieved14 January2007.Item #6.
  34. ^Wyden Kivowitz, Scott (5 May 2014).Go Wider with Panoramic Photography.Pearson Education.ISBN9780133904383.
  35. ^Ruscha, Edward (1966).Every building on the sunset strip.Los Angeles, California.Retrieved3 February2016.
  36. ^Company, David (2012) 'Precedented Photography'. InAperture,vol.206, 86.
  37. ^The correct use of the term panography or panograph is for the x-ray imaging technology. SeePanography,Panoramic radiograph
  38. ^Hockney on Photography: Conversations with Paul Joyce (1988)ISBN0-224-02484-1
  39. ^"Pearblossom Hwy., 11–18th April 1986, #2".
  40. ^Vanvolsem, Maarten (2011),The art of strip photography: making still images with a moving camera,Leuven University Press,ISBN978-90-5867-840-9
  41. ^"Kenneth Snelson".
  42. ^For example: Andreas Gursky,Library1999. Chromogenic print, face-mounted to acrylic. Image:62+9⁄16by 127 inches (158.9 cm × 322.6 cm); Sheet:78+7⁄8by142+1⁄8inches (200 cm × 361 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, photographed in Stockholm's public bibliotek

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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