Wide angle vs Pano vs crop

[Lonnie]

Looking at the photos in MPC#49 got me thinking (I think it's one of the best MCP's in a long time!) What is the difference between the three? I didn't want to cunt up that thread, since there are some great images in it.

So I read what wiki sez....

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic_photography[/ame]

and still didn't think I had a solid view of what it is. In your opinion, is it a really wide field of view like 120+ deg, or is it simply a photo that has been cropped wide relative to it's height? Or is it something else. I have a few ideas, but didn't want to bias the group.

What is YOUR opinion?

L

PS. Thanks to Provo for getting me thinking about all of this.

[gunit130]

I can (most people probably) usually tell the difference between a crop and a panoramic. Most panos seem like they're stiched in PS.

I prefer the panos that are multiple shots most times. But depends on the subject.

If it's a really cool shot that would look even cooler cropped so that it appears like a pano, then that's cool too.

[jm2e]

1:2 to 1:3 dimensions?
That's what I thought.

[Lonnie]

1:2 to 1:3 dimensions?
That's what I thought.

This one has been croped to a dimension of 1:3 but was shot at 200mm on a full frame camera. The field of view is only 12.3 Deg. Is it a panorama?



I selected this pic simply because it was the first one I found that I had shoot a 200mm...

[smmokan]

I think of panoramic shots more as scenics- like the "panoramic view" you get at the top of a mountain.

Personally, I don't care much for them (but there were some great shots in the MPPC) because there's not much of a place for them in real life. Hardly anyone makes prints of an image that size, you never see that aspect ratio in magazines, and in most cases they're cropped that way because the original aspect ratio didn't look good enough to keep.

[Hugh Conway]

Hardly anyone makes prints of an image that size, you never see that aspect ratio in magazines, and in most cases they're cropped that way because the original aspect ratio didn't look good enough to keep.

panoramic cameras don't crop and the reason you don't see many shots, many prints or many in magazines (remember fold out spreads?) is $, nothing more, nothing less

[jm2e]

This one has been croped to a dimension of 1:3 but was shot at 200mm on a full frame camera. The field of view is only 12.3 Deg. Is it a panorama?

Based on one definition, Yes.
What if you'd taken it with a 400mm lens and stitched a bunch of frames together?Would this be "macro-pano"? ie. the panoramic view of an insect or rodent.
If the definition of panoramic is that it's a scenic from the top of a mountain, then why can't you just submit a 3x5?
What if you took a portrait with a panoramic camera? Would the camera malfunction?
I iz good with queeestions....not such good with answers.

[Lonnie]

Jm2e,

that's why I am leaning towards the definition "An image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye – about 160° by 75°". Which means depending on the lens you are using you would either have to crop or stitch to make a panoramic.

That means if you are using a 28 mm lens with a 65.5° on a FF camera, you'd have to stitch 2-2.5 images together. On a 50mm field of view would be 39.6° so that's 4 imges. My 16 mm gets me about 100°.

I am not a fan of the 1:2 or 1:3 ratio being a "panorama". To me it's simply a croped image.

[Tippster]

My submission was shot with a 16mm lens, then cropped. I do think Panoramas should be of landscapes or wide subjects with the excess headroom and foreground cropped. Basically what a panoramic camera does natively.

I don't think there's a hard & fast rule, however.

[Lonnie]

I do think Panoramas should be of landscapes or wide subjects with the excess headroom and foreground cropped. Basically what a panoramic camera does natively.

^^I agree with this, but I might not be right.....

I don't think there's a hard & fast rule, however.

This is why I started this thread. Looking for other opinions...

[smmokan]

If the definition of panoramic is that it's a scenic from the top of a mountain, then why can't you just submit a 3x5?

That's not what I said. I said "like" the view you get from the top of a mountain- in other words, what Lonnie described- something wider than the standard field of view.

Either way, it doesn't really matter... it's all just for sake of argument.

[Tippster]

I also don't think you can have a vertical panoramic photo.

[Lonnie]

I also don't think you can have a vertical panoramic photo.

Ok, now you are melting my brain. I'm sitting here trying to think of an example. What about a series of shots across ecliptic of the night time sky, sort of like a planetarium?

edit: Something like this ??

[Noonan]

I also don't think you can have a vertical panoramic photo.

I was wondering about that - my MPC entries were all stitched together - I did a vertical shot (3 pictures stitched) of the AFA chapel but I didn't enter it since I sort of interpreted the panorama as horizontal

[DeutschBag]

For me, it's one of those things, 'you know it when you see it'. I wouldn't consider the shot of the pumpkin patch to be a pano. It's needs to be something that is more wide-sweeping, taking in a vantage that the human eye and brain normally wouldn't or couldn't process with a simple gaze.

I disagree with smmokan too - I see a lot of printed panos on office walls, in doctors offices, hospitals, businesses, etc... They seem to be pretty popular and prolific in my area in Germany. They are good wall fodder if you're in to that type of thing. I dig good ones. Some are just, ehhh....

Here's a stitched pano I took in Cseky Krumolv, Czech Republic. No tripod used, overly bright light, blah, blah, blah but it will give you an idea of a comparison from the same vantage.

Pano:


Single full-frame image:

[Lonnie]

I wouldn't consider the shot of the pumpkin patch to be a pano. It's needs to be something that is more wide-sweeping, taking in a vantage that the human eye and brain normally wouldn't or couldn't process with a simple gaze.

Agreed...

Edit:And the simple fact that we have computers and software that CAN stitch these together is amazing to me....

Edit2: I would also like to thank provo for this topic. I have thought more about this MPC than any other in a long time....

[Tippster]

Good point on the milky way, Lonnie. Maybe a working definition of a Panoramic would be anything you need to move your head/eyes to see fully?

[Lonnie]

Maybe a working definition of a Panoramic would be anything you need to move your head/eyes to see fully?

I think that might be a good one. Here's what I wrote on the subject on NSOP (I didn't start that thread).

I think of a pano as holding my arms out as wide as I can and then what is encompassed between them. My eyes cannot fully take in that scene without me turning my head (Well I might be able to using my peripheral vision, but it's difficult...)

[jm2e]

I think all valid points and for sure this has been a great MPC.
One more arguement: since photography is all about perspective, let's rethink deutchbag's photos above. If you're standing right in front of one of those wide old castles, wouldn't you have to move your head to see the whole thing? So, you can have a legitemate pano if you're right up close and stitch a bunch of shots together, but not if you back up to shoot then crop?
As a side note, I don't know shit about post processing, so I wouldn't have been able to enter the MPC if not for the crop exception. Now I'm way more motivated to learn it!

[Lonnie]

So, you can have a legitemate pano if you're right up close and stitch a bunch of shots together, but not if you back up to shoot then crop?

I think that's a valid point, which takes of back to the field of view/turn your head answer....

[Todds]

There was a recent thread over at dpreview where someone heavily cropped shots taken with the Nikon 10.5. He called them "one shot panos". I'd say they qualified as Panos (low res)
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=35373357

The panos I've taken were all stitched but I think a cropped shot could qualify. I guess it's mostly about aspect ratio.

Printing panos isn't a big deal and if you keep them than 48" x 12" you can buy cheap frames. I have a printer that can print 100" x 12" and have a few panos hanging at home and at work.

[DeutschBag]

jm2e - I think you'd get some crazy, crazy distortion doing that. It may look pretty cool, though! Again, it's really is one of those "I know it when I see it" type things, and I'm sure there are many different defintions for a pano out there. I guess I'd mostly regard a pano image being something like 'a sweeping vista covering a large area'. That's just me though

Also, if you have Photoshop CS3 on (maybe earlier versions - not sure), stitching photos together is fairly simple. I'd like to try more of them. I just need to remember to take my damn tripod for a better result! After a couple of runs through the software, you can generally get something fairly pleasing. They are fun to play with!

[Tippster]

jm2e - I think you'd get some crazy, crazy distortion doing that. It may look pretty cool, though! Again, it's really is one of those "I know it when I see it" type things, and I'm sure there are many different defintions for a pano out there. I guess I'd mostly regard a pano image being something like 'a sweeping vista covering a large area'. That's just me though

Ummm... I still think my image qualifies as a "Panoramic" and it is a cropped single 16mm on a full frame camera wide angle (same as a 10mm on a crop camera,) not a stitched Photo. Panoramic cameras don't take multiple shots - they take one very wide angle shot and crop it internally.

[DeutschBag]

I'd agree too. It's a wide, sweeping vista of some stairs and some water - and it's a really nice shot. If there' is one thing I've reiterated, I believe this subject to be wide-open to interpretation.

(I deleted the rest. No need for more passive-aggressive defensiveness on this site. There's enough of that already.)

[iscariot]

Originally Posted by Tippster View Post
Maybe a working definition of a Panoramic would be anything you need to move your head/eyes to see fully?

I think that might be a good one. Here's what I wrote on the subject on NSOP (I didn't start that thread).


Originally Posted by Lonnie
I think of a pano as holding my arms out as wide as I can and then what is encompassed between them. My eyes cannot fully take in that scene without me turning my head (Well I might be able to using my peripheral vision, but it's difficult...)

I think that might be a good one. Here's what I wrote on the subject on NSOP (I didn't start that thread).

I think the problem with this definition is that if you hold your eyes or head really close to a 3 x 5 picture, you're going to have to move your head to see all of it. If you can't take in a large wide panoramic shot without moving your head, then take three big steps backward, and you will be able to take the entire photo into your field of view.

I see a problem with this definition in that the interpretation of whether a photo is a panoramic largely depends on how close to the picture you are standing; it is attempting to define panoramic as a function of relative scale which is highly variable.


I'm in the school of thought that there is no hard definition of fov angle or size/dimension specification that constitutes a panoramic.

There are some conventional characteristics that panoramic photos traditionally have in common, and one of these has been the long and narrow format (ie. wide angle) of the crop. I don't think that that necessarily fully defines a panoramic, but I think it is likely the first generalization in the collective conscious that pertains to panoramic photos. I don't think that there is a magical/threshold fov angle above which it is certainly a panoramic, and below which it is certainly not a panoramic.


FWIW: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama[/ame]

"A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "sight") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model."


I believe in the wiki definition, that "fov angle" and "wide angle representation" are different and distinct concepts with very different definitions. A perfect example of the two distict concepts is Lonnie's pumpkin photograph, a narrow fov but a photograph that has a wide angle format (sweet pic btw, I'd love a large print of that on canvas for my kitchen in the fall).

Perhaps "panoramic" is some combination of a fov perspective coupled with a format of visual presentation when used to represent physical space...although I have no hard definition of what the constants or thresholds are that you would use to populate the formula. Conversely, perhaps there are multiple independent (uncloupled) methods of arriving at a defn of "panoramic." For example a defn of panoramic based on fov (ie. fov panorama), and a separate wide angle format panorama (format panorama)?


I have seen wide fov (say a canon 10-22 lens) shots in a 3 x 5 format that I would consider panoramic, and I have seen 12.5 deg (ie Lonnie's pumpkin photo) fov shots presented in a wide angle format (ie. long narrow) that I would also consider panoramic.

So then try this: as fov angle increases the long dimension of presentation format may decrease, and as fov angle decreases the long dimension of presentation must increase in order to still consider it a panoramic (IMHO anyway). And there is obviously a hole in the middle of this definition, where the fov angle is in the middle of the range and long dimension of presentation format is in the middle of the range, that would yield a rather ordinary, non-panoramic looking photo. Additionally, As the fov or the long dimension of the presentation format approach zero, there would be a point where the picture would not make sense because it would be too small/thin (ie. the fov or format approaches a line) to be able to actually see or interpret what 3d space is being represented in the photo.