On 21 Oct 1998 20:36:15 -0500, ver### [at] aolcom (=Bob) wrote:

>My casio digital camera came with Spin Panorama to create these and I've made 
>a few. Turns out it takes just 8 photos mended together, not 12 to 36 as was 
>mentioned. The lens being so wide angle on my camera that the perspective 
>warping is quite noticable (forget about trying anything even slightly up or 
>down from level) but I guess a narrower angled lens would help prevent it. 

For those that don't know, an actual panoramic camera *must* be kept
*level* to provide the most realistic looking images. These cameras
are *very* expensive, with many professional photographers opting to
merely lease one, unless they happen to specialize in panoramic
photography. My point is that even the best equipment used by the top
professional photographers exhibits the property of not letting one
tilt the lens up or down - it's simply the nature of things. 

If one wants to show more area either above or below the horizon line,
this can be accomplished by using a camera with a shorter focal length
lens, which gives a greater vertical angle of view. This achieves the
effect that "tilting" the camera was intended to achieve, but without
the perspective distortion. There is more sky or tall buildings
showing in such an image, for example. The actual sizes of the objects
on the negative will be smaller, but after enlarging the negative for
printing, this isn't a problem. 

As for your needing only 8 photos to make a circle, that may be true,
but the resulting panorama will not often be nearly as smooth as one
made with more photos. People use up to 36 images (maybe more?) to
minimiz/se the perspective distortion in these non-continous
panoramas. Objects very near the camera, and appearing in two
consecutive frames might not "line up" very well if the panorama is
being pieced together from a small number of individual frames. The
more frames that are used, the smaller that type of error becomes. A
proper continuous panoramic camera wouldn't have these errors at all,
since they contain the equivalent of an "infinite" number of narrow
vertical "frames". 

My next comment has nothing to do with POV renderings  of panoramas.

If you want an interesting image, try making a large 360 degree
panoramic print - roll the print into a large cylinder with the image
toward the inside - tape the ends of the cylinder together, aligning
the image at the seam - then stick your head inside the cylinder to
view it.  This is true panorama viewing.  :)

Later,
Glen Berry

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