I’ve been shooting panoramas or “panos” since I first picked up a camera. Back in the old days, to share the panoramic views I was so fortunate to witness, I had three Kodak slide projectors aligned so when projecting, the three images of the pano would come together on the screen into one photo. Sharing the wonders our vision brings to us with others is the heart and soul of photography! But carrying around three projectors to share the pano was never practical. Then came digital and the internet making sharing the pano much, much easier. But the taking and assembly of panos up until a year ago was still a challenge. Now, it’s literally a snap but many don’t seem to realize this, at least that’s what the emails I’ve received in the last week indicate.
In more than one email came the question, “What gear did you leave at home to take all the gear to shoot your panos?” Actually, I own no pano gear any longer, got rid of it years and years ago because the assembly of panos is so simple. You can see above the three individual images used to create the pano at the top. I literally grabbed my D5 / 24-70VR and walked out to the balcony of our room at O’Reilly’s and clicked them off. I then opened them up in Photoshop and since they are Nefs, they opened first in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). I then selected the three files, then selected Merge Pano and I was done. You’re probably wondering what about a tripod and pano head? Used none, shot handheld. What about the overlap? Ya, there is some but that was dedicated by the pano not the assembly. What about unwanted items? We’re in Photoshop, answer that question? The bottom line is, our vision takes in much more than our cameras in one click. The times when this translates to a pano that we can plan on in advance are far and few, so we take them on the fly. That’s what makes today’s technology so cool, we can have fun and take advantage of the spontaneity of the moment to make the pano. And that’s really important because we need to use the pano to tell stories.