HANDY TIPS

TAKE PANORAMIC PHOTOS

A photo book looks best when there is consistency in the layout throughout the entire book, but some variety in the photos is desirable.

A nice change to the many “regular” photos is the panoramic photo. A panoramic photo is often taken of an impressive landscape or to provide a good overview of a surrounding area.

But how do you make a panoramic photo? You can read about it here, including some useful and creative tips!

SETTINGS

HOW TO TAKE A PANORAMIC PHOTO?

With your digital camera you can take multiple photos that overlap, you can merge these into one image afterwards with editing software. The more advanced camera often also has a panorama mode that automatically stitches the photos together for you.

These days, most phones also offer the ability to take a panoramic photo directly with your phone’s camera. In panorama mode, the camera continuously takes photos and automatically stitches them together.

Since your camera does all the hard work for you, anyone should be able to take a panoramic photo (if you have a phone with a camera with panorama mode).

SETTING UP YOUR PHONE CAMERA

Taking a panorama photo with your iphone is very simple. In fact, there is a special panorama mode on the iphone. When you go to the camera app, you can choose from several functions. You have the options to take a picture, take a video and one of the options is “pano” or “panorama” (depending on which iPhone model). The same goes for taking a panoramic photo with your Android phone. When you go to your camera you can set it to Panorama mode. In some cases you have to go to the setting menu to do this, and in some cases you can swipe left or right on your screen to switch between functions. Once you set your phone to panorama mode, you can start taking panoramic photos.

USEFUL TIPS

TIPS FOR TAKING A PANORAMIC PHOTO

1. TAKE YOUR PANOAMA PHOTO IN PORTRAIT MODE

This makes the photo taller, capturing more of the sky and foreground than when holding your phone horizontally. (see examples below)

When taking a panoramic photo with your phone, you often already have the phone held in the portrait position, but this tip certainly applies to taking panoramic photos with your digital (DSLR) camera as well.

Panoramic photo in portrait mode (portrait)

Panoramic photo in landscape mode (landscape)

2. FIND A NICE LOCATION

The most important thing when taking a panoramic photo is to find a beautiful location where there are interesting elements across the entire width of the photo, with the main focus on the center of the photo. Also consider how far you want the photo to extend. You can spin around in a full circle, but if there is little of interest behind you or if there are only other tourists, then it’s not worthwhile.

3. ADOPT A STABLE POSTURE

Stand with your legs slightly apart so that you stand firmly. Holding your arms against the sides of your body gives you another slightly more stable position for holding your phone.

4. A STRAIGHT HORIZON

A very important tip. Make sure you keep the horizon straight in your photo. If you tilt the phone too much up and down while rotating, you may find that parts of the bottom are missing (or are black) and sometimes parts of the top are missing. Your camera does provide a guideline for this.
Besided that some parts will be missing, it is just very distracting in a photograph if the horizon is not a straight horizontal line. Often you only notice this afterwards, after you have taken the (panoramic) photo, and you are not aware of it at the moment you are taking the (panoramic) photo.

5. TWICE THE SAME PERSON IN 1 PANORAMIC PHOTO

Sometimes it gives a very funny effect if 2x the same person is in 1 photo, for example both left and right in the photo.
Start by taking the panoramic photo. Once you have turned past the person you pause for a moment. You just stand still and wait. At this moment, the person walks behind you and steps into the picture from the other side. From then on, continue taking the panoramic photo and rotate past the person again. He/she is now pictured on both the left and right!

See a more detailed explanation here.

6. TURNING AWAY FROM THE SUN, OR TOWARD THE SUN

On a sunny day, keep in mind where the sun is and where you start your panoramic photo (whether you turn away from the sun, or turn toward the sun). If you start at the sun the camera will measure a lot of light, so the further you turn away from the sun the darker the picture will become. In fact, many parts will be too dark (underexposed).
If you end with the sun and thus turn toward the sun, the camera will measure less light at the start of the picture, and the closer you get to the sun the picture will actually become too light (overexposed).

Therefore, always take a panoramic photo from both left to right, and right to left. That way, you can always check afterwards to see which photo turned out best.