Panoramic photos, with aspect ratios such as 1:3, deliver impressive visual impact. The viewer’s eye can sweep admiringly across the ultra-wide image, drinking in all that delicious detail. It’s hard to fully enjoy them on social-media platforms primarily geared to square or vertically oriented images. But on a wide-screen, or in large-print form, they look sensational. The question is, what’s the best method of taking panoramic photographs?
I recently highlighted the large-format photography of Nick Carver, a California-based professional photographer. He uses a 6×17 large-format view camera to capture spectacular panoramic images on film. I found Nick’s dedication to his craft inspirational, leading me to think more broadly about taking panoramic photographs.
Not everyone is willing to invest the time required to take panoramic photos on film using a view camera. But, there are more accessible, albeit less immersive, approaches available to us. I found it helpful to think about this subject broken into three distinct categories: specialised cameras, lenses, and software.
Specialised cameras
Nick’s Shen Hao view camera (shown below, ©Shen Hao) is designed specifically for panoramic photography.
It captures a 6×17 format image directly on an enormous negative. With such a camera, the photographer can precisely adjust the relationship between the lens and ground-glass viewer/film cartridge.
Those in the know refer to these as the front and rear standards, respectively.
Thus, using rise, tilt, and swing manoeuvres, the camera can capture the entire scene free of distortion, with all vertical and horizontal lines appearing exactly as they should.
I have never used such a camera, nor even been close to one. However, I suspect a photographer might have used one to catch me in my college days, while rowing on the River Cam. I am the third rower from the right — number six in this eight-man crew — in the photograph below. Those were the days.
Since the photographer was producing panoramic photographs in 1979, on film, with an aspect ratio around 1:3, I suspect they might have used a view camera. If it was actually taken on a medium format, or 35mm camera, it would represent a mighty crop!
Let’s swing
But there are several other camera types that can directly capture panoramas, albeit without the absolute control of perspective provided by a view camera.
For example, swing-lens cameras, including Widelux (image left ©Widelux) and Noblex brands. In both cases, when you press the shutter button, a rotating lens projects the image onto a curved strip of film.
The sweep of the lens is enormous, and so the field of view of these systems is vast.
In fact, some manufacturers fitted the cameras with handles or indents on each side to avoid the photographer’s hands appearing in the image.
Although they represent fascinating creative tools, swing-lens cameras come with numerous drawbacks.
Firstly, they are film cameras, where you have to thread the film through a finicky set of rollers while loading. When you close the rear door of the camera, the film is pressed onto a curved surface, so that light passing through the rotating lens hits the film at 90-degrees.
Distortion
Further, the resultant image is distorted. Objects in the centre of the frame appear larger and closer than those at the edges of the frame, and straight horizontal lines appear convex.
Here is a video, from Nick Carver, whom I mentioned above, exploring the Noblex swing-lens camera.
School photo
I am from a generation of Brits who experienced what was euphemistically referred to as a ‘selective education’ system. This entailed sitting an examination at age eleven (The Eleven Plus), the results of which determined whether you would attend an academically-oriented or vocationally-oriented secondary school. The former were referred to as grammar schools and the latter as secondary-modern.
Anyone attending grammar school back then (the 1960s in my case) might have witnessed this swing-lens concept in action — on a grand scale.
In order for a photographer to capture our entire school cohort of almost a thousand pupils and teachers, he lined us up in a gigantic semicircle. The camera/lens, placed at the centre of the semicircle, then slowly rotated through a 180° arc, capturing a crisp image of the lot of us.
The photograph above was taken in 1967. I am sitting in the front row, at the centre, just to the left of the gap in front of the headmaster, Mr. Norris.
It is not the case in this image, but on subsequent occasions, a few enterprising youths ran from one end of the line-up to the other as the camera rotated. As if by magic, they appeared twice, at opposite ends of the photograph. This must be one of the oddest quirks of taking giant panoramic photographs.
As you might be able to see on the school emblem, our motto was NIHIL SINE LABORE – Nothing Without Effort. Not a bad philosophy for life.
XPan aspect ratio
Rather than employing a rotating lens approach, several manufacturers produced cameras which captured panoramic images using a stationary lens. Thus, the Hasselblad XPan, an interconvertible lens rangefinder camera, exposes a huge, panoramic, 24×65mm negative. It occupies almost twice the horizontal length of a regular 35mm (24×36mm) negative.
The Hasselblad XPan (originally developed by Fujifilm, and sold as the TX-1 in Japan), is no longer in production. Used models are highly sought after. We recently treated Macfilos readers to a superb article from Mike Amos, illustrating the types of image possible with this format.
In the digital age, the so-called XPan crop has been incorporated into medium format cameras by both Hasselblad and Fujifilm. Owners of these cameras can choose the 24×65, or XPan, aspect ratio from among the options in the camera’s settings.
The image seen through the viewfinder, and captured by the sensor, is in effect a crop. However, for a camera possessing a 100 megapixel sensor, the resultant, cropped 24:65 image still yields a high-resolution, 50-megapixel photograph.
I was fortunate enough to borrow a Hasselblad X2D II medium-format camera last year, and so was able to try out the XPan format. It made such an impression on me that I was determined to find a way to do more of it. However, I has no intention of adding another camera system to my photography world. The solution?
Specialised lenses
As I have written about several times (in this article, for example), back in the 1950s, film-makers introduced panoramic, wide-screen formats to compete with television. To continue employing the same cameras and 35mm film stock that they always had, they turned to specialized lenses to achieve their wide-screen aspirations.
These anamorphic lenses squeezed a wide-screen scene onto a conventional film frame. When projected with the appropriate lens, a de-squeezed, correctly proportioned image appeared on the screen. You can find more information about the anamorphic process here.
Anamorphic lenses can be used with modern-day, mirrorless digital cameras. They are primarily aimed at video recording, but they also offer yet another approach to taking panoramic photographs.
I now own two anamorphic lenses: a 35mm 1.33-squeeze Super-35, for use on an APS-C camera, and a 35mm 1.6-squeeze full-frame Saturn lens. Both are from Sirui, a member of the L-Mount Alliance. I have written several articles about the Super-35 lens; you can find links in the table below. It yields an approximately 1:2.4 de-squeezed final image from a photograph shot at a 16×9 aspect ratio.
We will shortly publish an article about a project I undertook with the 35mm Saturn lens, as well as share my impressions of its performance. Meanwhile, I have included a few examples in this current article.
Anamorphic pros and cons
As a means of taking panoramic images, anamorphic lenses have a lot going for them. Various brands manufacture reasonably priced lenses of different focal length for most camera mounts. So, you do not have to invest in a dedicated camera system — just pop the anamorphic lens onto your existing camera.
While these lenses usually exhibit some pincushion distortion, which can be corrected to a degree in post, they do not suffer from the extreme distortion of the swing-lens systems referred to earlier. And, because they capture a scene in a single exposure, they can handle moving subjects.
However, the workflow involved in processing anamorphic images is a little more involved. After making initial edits in, for example, Lightroom, you need to export the image to Photoshop to de-squeeze it. That step is straightforward.
Anamorphic lenses are geared primarily to video recording and, as a result, they typically do not have clicked aperture rings. This takes some getting used to, but is not insurmountable.
Specialised software
Modern computational photography has advanced to the point where a series of overlapping images of a scene can be stitched together to create a panorama. Many smartphones even have this feature built in.
Panoramas can be created from high-resolution images using Photoshop. Landscape photographers, in particular, use this technique, stitching together a series of overlapping images taken using a tripod-mounted camera.
A benefit of using a sophisticated software package, such as Photoshop, is that artefacts from the stitching process can be easily corrected.
Photographers can even create panoramas from a series of hand-held shots, thanks to the image-stabilisation technology built into modern cameras. In a recent article, Claus Sassenberg argued that the narrower field of view of a Leica Q3 43, compared to the Leica Q3 28mm, is not an issue because he can generate wide-angle panoramas by stitching images together in post.
The approach seems an attractive option for panoramas of scenes involving stationary subjects — such as landscapes. I don’t see how it could be used for situations where there are moving objects in the frame, such as cars.
Conclusion
Hopefully, as you can see, if this is a corner of the photography world that is of interest to you, there are many approaches to taking panoramic photographs.
Devotees of film photography have the edge here, because of the ability to capture panoramic images on a large film negative. Since there is no such thing as a panoramic sensor, digital photographers have to rely on cropping, anamorphic lenses, or stitching images together.
Whichever approach you choose, you can be sure of producing an image which is a refreshing departure from the quotidian 4×3, 3×2 or 16×9 images with which we are all familiar.
They might not be social-media-friendly, but so what! Let’s not be bound by the limitations of viewing images on smartphones.
If it’s not already obvious, my preferred approach is to use an anamorphic lens. If it’s good enough for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, it’s good enough for me. You do not need a dedicated camera, you can shoot digital, and you can capture moving subjects. As long as you have a subscription to Photoshop, you are in business.
Please let us know in the comments if you enjoy taking panoramic photographs, and if so, which technique you prefer.
| Sirui Super-35 1.33-squeeze anamorphic lens | Sirui innovators in anamorphic lenses |
| Shooting anamorphic on the Leica TL2 |
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