July 19, 2009

I begin by admitting there is an art to good panoramic photos. Art is one of the best, actually. Oh…"Art" is my dad, a fair geek in his own right, and a darn good photographer (although not as good as my cousin Shlomit). He constantly amazes me with some of the panoramic shots he’s done, as well as his choices of locales.

Take this panoramic shot of the Great Wall of China, for example. It’s absolutely gorgeous. If you look at his collection, you tend to wonder how he orchestrated entire towns to stop moving so that he could take his shots.

I made my first (and last) attempt at a panoramic with my old Canon. I’d have it still if someone hadn’t decided to burglarize my house and take it for himself. The camera made it fairly simple, with a nifty panoramic mode so that all you had to do was move slightly and line up your view with the right most bit of the previous shot.

This is what I came up with:

We won’t even mention the half a guy standing off to the left or the column on the building to the right that looks like it’s trying to run and hide from my camera. Perhaps it was the wrong shot for my first attempt, but most of those people were standing stock still just staring at the Eiffel Tower. And I’m relatively certain the buildings were not actually moving.

I’ve been playing more and more with my iPhone as a camera, since as a totally hobbyist photographer, I think it does a nice job. The added lenses I got recently have given me some extra flexibility, but I like to be able to play more with it. 

After watching the really cool youtube video, I purchased Mosaica for my iPhone. My father was not impressed. After the novelty wore off, neither was I. You can see for yourself here. I’d include it on the page with the others, but it doesn’t just give you a photograph, so that’s a big loss.

Today I discovered Pano, another iPhone app. It does panoramics that are much closer to what you get from "real cameras." I think with a little practice, I might gain some proficiency with this. Only a few minutes in the back yard gave me a panoramic that (I think) is much better than the one I took in Paris – even if the subject is far less exciting.

Dad remains unimpressed, and his response to my second attempt using Pano was to send me his latest actual panoramic photograph. (Sarcasm all mine, not his.)

I’m at a disadvantage here, but I’m not aiming to compete. I just think it’s really cool the way I can do panoramics without much effort on my iPhone. And while they may not be anywhere near the professional quality my father does, they’re quite above average for what amounts to a camera phone.

You can purchase Mosaica in the iTunes store for $0.99. Pano is also available in the iTunes store, at the slightly  higher price of $2.99.

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