In-camera panorama stitching

Today a reader posed an interesting question. “…isn’t a panorama a replacement for a wide-angle lens without the problem of perspective exaggeration you get with ultra-wide angle lenses?”

I’ve never thought of it in those terms but yes it is. A couple of fames stitched together will in fact increase your horizontal field of view (HFOV). The key is that it needs be very fast and easy to stitch the frames together for this approach to make sense.

The concept of fast and easy panorama stitching got me thinking. There are cameras on the market now that have features that aid in shooting panoramas and some actually stitch the panorama in the camera.

In-Camera-Stitching

• HP Photosmart R927 – stitches up to 5 frames together


• HP Photosmart R707 – stitches up to 5 frames together


• HP Photosmart R817 – stitches up to 5 frames together


• Kodak EasyShare V570 Dual Lens - It stitches up to 3 frames together

Camera assists shooting panoramas

• Nikon CoolPix 4800


• Nikon CoolPix 5200

These lists are probably not a complete, these are the ones I found in the first 5 pages of a Google search for “in camera stitching”.

Thanks Eric in California for getting me thinking about panoramas in this light.