Create panoramic photos easily with in-camera stitching

Ever wanted to create a panoramic photo? The beauty of panoramic shots is that you can capture a really wide view, great for nature photos, and architecture. Several new cameras (and some older ones) make it really easy by doing all the work for you. All you have to do is take a few photos while panning the camera horizontally or vertically, and the camera will automatically stitch them together to form a beautiful wide or tall panorama.

Many cameras have a panoramic mode, but only some perform the stitching in camera for you, instead of requiring you to run some software on your computer. In fact, there is a group dedicated to in-camera stitched panoramic photos on flickr.

Boston Skyline by soelin, using a new mirrorless Sony NEX-5. The Sony NEX-3 also does in-camera panoramas.

185 degree Panoramic lobby by Debs (ò‿ó)♪

185˚ Panoramic lobby by Debs (ò‿ó)♪, using a Sony DSC-TX5.

Cph lakes panorama by extractor2000

Cph lakes panorama by extractor2000. Taken with a Sony DSC-HX5v.

sea panorama by blumblaum

sea panorama by blumblaum. Taken with a Fujifilm S1000fd.

montblanc by mako10

montblanc by mako10. Taken with a waterproof Pentax W80, presumably the newer W90 also does automatic panoramic photos.

dusk by heiwa4126

Dusk by heiwa4126. Taken with a Kodak V705, an older camera known for its dual lens system, seems to be very popular for panoramic photos!

Bridge Under The Freeway

Bridge Under The Freeway also by heiwa4126. Taken with a Kodak V705

Low light and shallow depth of field Canon S90 photos

Canon Powershot S90
The Powershot S90 from Canon is what we call a pro-digicam, its a compact point and shoot with full manual controls, and high end features like a wide f/2.0 aperture, and a large sensor great for high iso low light shooting.

Following are some photos that caught my eye, especially since they were taken with a tiny point and shoot rather than a big DSLR.

'Ghosts' by alexbrn, showing a pattern of light from stained glass
  • f/3.5
  • 28mm
  • 1/100s
  • 80 ISO

Ghosts by alexbrn. The color and light in this photo are really unique, nice eye to catch that.

'Heaven' by aurelien, concert photo
  • f/2.8
  • 35mm
  • 1/40s
  • 500 ISO

Heaven by aurélien. Concerts present a challenge because they’re so dark, but the lighting is also an opportunity for photos like this. The photographer took the shot at 1/40s (almost as slow as you’d want to go hand-held), risking blur, and even with a slow shutter speed like that needed to use a relatively wide aperture of f/2.8 and higher than normal ISO of 500 to get a good exposure.

'New Grassn' by koocbor, great example of shallow depth of field
  • f/2.0
  • 28mm
  • 1/320s
  • 80 ISO

New Grass by koocbor. Notice how only the grass in the front is in focus, and everything in the background is blurred. The photographer achieved this narrow depth of field using two techniques: a wide aperture of f/2.0 (only available on a few cameras), and by getting close to his subject while keeping the background distant.

'Escalator' by tetradtx, a low-light wide-angle photo
  • f/2.0
  • 28mm
  • 1/30s
  • 200 ISO

Escalator by tetradtx. The perspective in this photo really draws you in. Again, another low light shot, taken without a flash. The photographer used a wide aperture again of f/2.0, and a slow shutter speed of 1/30s to get a good exposure. The photo is very sharp, impressive if they didn’t use a tripod. The shot was taken at 28mm, which although isn’t as wide as some cameras is still fairly wide and is responsible for creating the wide-angle perspective you see.

Learn more at Snapsort

Fujifilm announces new 15x travel zoom: Finepix F305EXR (aka F300EXR)

This has been a busy week for new camera announcements. Following Panasonic’s stream of new cameras, both Fujifilm and Samsung have announced a number of new models.

Fujifilm’s new F305EXR (called the F300EXR in Europe I believe) looks like a very competitive travel-zoom camera. The F305EXR packs an incredible 15x zoom into a very compact body, while still achieving the widest angle lens out there of 24mm, (compared to the 28mm of the Canon SX210). It also features a high resolution 460k dots large 3″ screen.

The F305EXR faces stiff competition among other travel zooms, most importantly the ZS7 from Panasonic and Canon’s SX210 IS.

Fujifilm F305EXR vs Panasonic DMC-ZS7

  • The F305EXR has more zoom (15x vs 12x)
  • The F305EXR higher ISO sensitivity, hopefully indicative of lower noise at high ISO
  • The ZS7 features optical lens image stabilization, which likely will allow you take photos at even slower shutter speeds without blur than the F305EXR’s sensor shift image stabilzation
  • The ZS7 also has a built in GPS, great for geotagging photos

See a detailed comparison of the F305EXR vs the DMC-ZS7 at Snapsort.

Fujfilm F305EXR vs Canon SX210 IS

  • The F305EXR higher ISO sensitivity, hopefully indicative of lower noise at high ISO
  • As mentioned above, the Canon SX210 IS doesn’t have a very wide lens, only 28mm, unlike the ultra-wide 24mm of the F305EXR
  • The F305EXR has a much higher resolution screen than the SX210, making it much easier to see the quality and focus of your images as you take them
  • Similar to the ZS7, the SX210 has optical image stabilization built into the lens, whereas the F305EXR has sensor-shift image stabilization

See a detailed comparison of the F305EXR vs the SX210 IS at Snapsort.

Source: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/f/finepix_f300exr/

New compact f/2.2, 1080p HD, Lumix DMC-FX700 with touchscreen from Panasonic

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700

This is starting to look like a Panasonic news blog. It looks like Panasonic accidentally leaked details of 4 new cameras on its tech support website, and has now pulled those pages, but they are still available in google’s cache. I previously covered news of the new f/2.0 pro digicam LX5 (replacement for the LX3) and
two new 24x super-zooms.

The new Lumix DMC-FX700 has some hot features including a 3″ touchscreen, a huge and bright f/2.2 aperture, full 1080p HD video, and blazing fast continuous shooting up to 10fps.

The FX700 looks like a replacement for the FX580, but with 1080p video instead of 720p, a wider aperture (f/2.2 instead of f/2.8), addition of a touchscreen, and faster continuous shooting. See a full comparison of the FX700 vs FX580 at Snapsort.

The FX700 looks like a good competitor to the Canon S90 and an alternative to Panasonic’s own LX3, if you’re looking for a small camera with a wide aperture. See FX700 vs S90 and FX700 vs LX3.

New super-zooms from Panasonic: Lumix DMC-FZ100 and DMC-FZ40

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ40
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100

Along with the leak of the LX5, Panasonic has also accidentally leaked news of two new super-zooms, both featuring huge 24x zoom, the Lumix DMC-FZ40 (aka DMC-FZ45 in europe) and the Lumix DMC-FZ100.

These look like replacements for the DMC-FZ35 and DMC-FZ28, both with only 18x zoom. Both of the new super-zooms shoot RAW which is a great feature for those looking to correct white balance or fix exposure in post production, and shoot HD video.

Key differences:

  • The FZ100 shoots full 1080p video, whereas the FZ40 only shoots 720p
  • The FZ100 has a higher resolution screen (460k dots vs 230k dots), but, the FZ40 features a touchscreen, which is the first ever super-zoom with a touch screen we’ve seen
  • The FZ100 also shoots stills at a blazing 10fps, it looks like the FZ40 will do as fast as 6fps perhaps with some resolution limitations

Detailed comparisons at Snapsort:

Also, checkout the full lineup of Panasonic super-zooms.