It's disappointing: after the tough ascent of some rugged mountain, the pictures of the fantastic view from the summit turn out to be boring. The solution lies in the panorama photograph.
From the simple surface panorama of up to 360 degrees to the spherical panorama, there are all sorts of exciting options. But it requires a steady hand and the right equipment. Here's an overview.
The principle: "Basically you take several photos which are combined afterwards into one," explains professional photographer Clemens Conrad. It's important that the edges of the photos overlap, at best by around 30 per cent.
"With a fish-eye lens of almost 180 degrees width you only need two to four pictures," Conrad says. The smaller the angle, the more pictures are needed to cover the whole area.
Software and apps: Some cameras offer panorama settings and you can download an app for a smartphone if the device doesn't have the capability built in.
"The camera is panned across the panoramic scene like a camcorder," Constanze Clauss from Germany's Photo Industry Association says. Guidelines or grids show which areas need to be scanned. "Most apps also highlight if the smartphone is being accidentally moved up and down," says Dieter Brors from German computer magazine c't.
PC software: You can also get special software that allows you to stitch the pictures together on a PC. While an app does the merging automatically, with these programmes you can intervene manually to fix mistakes.
"You can also save 360-degree panoramas as interactive panoramas that you can view them on a PC with special viewers such as QuickTime VR or Java Viewer," says Brors. The viewer can rotate the image in all directions and zoom into it. A VR headset can amplify the effect still further.
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