How to create stunning panoramic photographs with your iPhone

By Leanna Lofte, Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 a 10:49 am
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How to create stunning panoramic photographs with your iPhone

With your iPhone you have one of the best 4:3 compact cameras in the world, but what happens when the world you want to capture isn't 4:3? What happens when you come across a gorgeous scene -- the Golden Gate bridge at sunset, the Manhattan skyline at dawn, the crystal-clear island beach, the magnificent Old Port architecture, the rally that's filling the campus. You can still take a photo, or several photos, of part of it, but nothing can really compare to capturing the full breadth and majesty of such an image all in one shot.

Enter the panorama.

The difference between wide angle and panorama

There's a fine line between what separates a photograph taken with a wide angle lens and a panoramic photograph. We're not going to get into the nitty-gritty details, so for the sake of simplicity, we'll say that a panoramic photo is one that has a wider field of view than the human eye, is at least twice as long as it is tall, and was created by using software (in our case, apps) to stitch together multiple images.

You've probably seen panorama's displayed and showcased at various places -- they're long and skinny and commonly have cityscapes, landscapes, and sports stadiums as their subject. The iPhone's built-in camera does not have the ability to take panoramic photographs (at least not yet), but there are many affordable apps in the App Store that do offer this functionality.

My personal favorite iPhone app for creating panoramic photographs is AutoStitch Panorama. The reason I like this one so much is because it lets you stitch any arrangement of photos. You're not limited to stitching photos to the left and right of each other -- you can also go up and down. It also supports high resolution creations up to 18 megapixels.

How to take a great panoramic photo with your iPhone

While the software will take care of the stitching, it can only do as good a job as your images allow. There are several things you need to do to make sure the photos you take will come together into an amazing panorama, including maintaining a steady camera position, taking sufficient pictures, keeping focus and exposure consistent, and leaving enough room to crop the final image.

Pivot the iPhone around the camera lens

The biggest key to taking good panoramic photos is to make sure you don't shift the position of the iPhone while taking the photos. What I mean, is to imagine that there's a pole sticking out of the bottom of your iPhone, centered under the lens) and that the only motion you're allowed to do is to spin the pole so that the iPhone rotates. Since panoramic images are created by stitching multiple photos together, it should make sense that any shift of the camera's position will lessen the quality of results.

To prevent shifting your iPhone as you pan across the scene taking photos, I recommend holding your iPhone in the landscape position with two hands. To increase stability, you should also press your elbows against your torso. As you take the photos, do not to twist your body or move your feet. Place your left thumb and forefinger below and above the lens. Position your right hand similarly about the home button. The only movement you want to make is with your right hand. Keep your body facing the same direction and just rotate the iPhone with your right hand -- pivot about your left hand.

The easiest types of panoramas to take are of landscapes or big open spaces. Since everything is far away, there's plenty of room for error. The app you use for stitching will still be able to produce great results even if you shift the camera more than you should have.

Err on the side of too many photos

Just about every iPhone app that's dedicated to panoramic photography will advice you to make sure that you have at least 30% overlap between your adjacent photos. Unless you're using an app that overlays the previous image while taking the next one, I recommend overlapping a little more than 30% to play it safe. I say this for two reasons: 1. you may not be correctly estimating 30%, and 2. the more photos you have, the better chance you have at completing a nice precise stitch job.

Use AE/AF lock to keep a consistent exposure and focus

If your scene has a lot of dark and light elements, of if you're close to something you want in focus, make sure you trigger the AE/AF feature of the iPhone's camera. To do this, simply hold your finger down on the screen until the blue focus box starts pulsating. When you release, "AE/AF Lock" should appear on the screen.

Give yourself room to crop

Make sure that you give yourself enough room to crop your your final image. In the photo above (a panorama of the school I teach at), I made sure to capture enough of the sky and grass to give me the flexibility of cropping it exactly how I wanted when the stitching was done. First, I cropped it like this, applying the rule of thirds to the horizon and giving the interesting sky the spotlight.

But it's common practice to critique every image that I take, and after looking at this one a bit, I wasn't happy with how the left building is underexposed and didn't feel it really added to the photo. Sure, including it makes the panorama longer, but my goal isn't to create the widest pano, but to create an interesting photograph. To further justify cropping out the building on the left, I noticed that the sky was least interesting on that part of the photo as well. Here's the final image after cropping off the left.

This is a much better photograph, in my opinion. It may not show off as much of the campus, but that's ok. I've instead brought the focus of the image to the properly exposed buildings and the interesting sky.

Panoramic macros

When I saw these mushrooms in the grass, I was dying to take photos of them, and since I was working on this panoramic iPhone photography article, I thought I'd try to get a close-up, macro-style panorama. Nearly 15 tries later, I settled on the above image.

Remember how I mentioned that if you shift the position of the lens while taking the photos that it increases the chance of a bad stitch job? This is a prime example of the truth of that statement and demonstrates why close-up panoramas are very difficult.

For each of my attempts, I took 35-40 photos in hopes of improving my results, but they still all ended up with a lot of unwanted distortion. The problem was that since I was laying flat on my stomach propped up on my elbows, keeping a perfectly steady rotation was extremely challenging. In the end, I created a platform with the knuckles of my right hand while also keeping it stable on the ground. Then I stabilized the iPhone with my left hand and used my thumb to press the volume buttons to trigger the shutter. I did my best to carefully pivot the iPhone on my knuckles without allowing it to slide around.

In the end, I got an OK panorama. You can see a lot of distortion in the background, though -- it looks like the background is moving (take a look at a larger version to better see what I mean). But I think this is something that's going to be associated with close-up panoramas.

Panoramas as substitutes for wide angles

In addition to creating traditional panoramic photographs, you can use apps like AutoStitch to give the illusion of having a wide angle lens. I'm going to use my desk as an example for this. Here's a photo of my desk from the view of me sitting in my chair.

Horrible photo. It's way too close and cuts off a lot of stuff on my desk. Why don't I back up, you ask? Ok, I will.

Better. This photo does show off more of my desk, and I could've backed up further to show even more, but it's still not giving the look that I want. When envisioning a photo of my desk, I pictured one of those wide angle photographs that actually have some distortion to the photo. I mean this is a photo of my desk for crying out loud -- it needs something special to make it interesting.

That's where thinking of this as a panoramic project comes in. Only instead of creating a long and skinny image, I'm going to stitch a bunch of photos together from all directions, and give it a traditional crop. Here's what I got before cropping -- and I did this while sitting in my chair, the same position as the first photo.

Now we're getting somewhere! Lastly, I rotated and cropped the stitched image to an 8"x10" and got this.

Bingo. This is exactly what I was imagining what an interesting photo of my desk might look like. It has the feel of a wide angle lens, yet I didn't need any fancy gear and a DSRL -- just a $2 app and my iPhone!

Now go out and shoot!

Your assignment this week is create some killer panoramic photos and share them with us in the iMore photography forum. Make sure you also let us know which app you used to stitch your panorama!

How to get more help with iPhone photography

Leanna Lofte

App and Photography Editor at iMore. Mother, wife, and math instructor. Follow her on Twitter @llofte and send her apps to consider for review at iosapps@imore.com

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There are 20 comments. Add yours.

Martin says:

Thanks, Leanna, for a great little review and tutorial! I usually shoot panoramas with my Sony a77, but I just might have to add this app to my 4S--looks like it would be lots of fun when I don't have the DSLR behemoth handy!

Duvi says:

I use Microsoft's PhotoSynth. It works well.

Not says:

By shifting the phone line you are in the hands photo above, you are doing exactly what you're telling people not to do. The lens of the iPhone is at one side of the phone, not in the middle, you cannot use the middle of the phone to pivot like that as it changes the length of the point where the lens is from the subject matter. This may not make a huge difference on large landscapes, but it does when it comes to objects that are closer. The best way to take panorama pics is to actually keep your camera and hands exactly in the same location and just rotate your torso from your hips as you snap pics. This way, it's a perfect semi-circle rotation that the camera will see. What you're doing in that first picture is completely wrong.

Ron says:

So let me get this straight. You're complaining about pivoting the camera with an offset lens as in the photo where the lens might move fractions of an inch in each of the 35 to 40 photos? And your solution is to hold the camera out in front of you and pivot your whole body rustling in moving the whole camera that is about 18 inches from your body several inches per photo in an arc? This might be ok for large landscape panoramas where you're going to get distortion at the bottom and crop it out but the more accurate way is to pivot the camera with the lens at the pivot point. Similar to what the article and photo describes but all you have to do is center the lens to the pivot point. Also as a note, the panorama app that I have used was nowhere near as good as Photoshop.

Ron says:

Oops...resulting NOT rustling. Duh!

Leanna Lofte says:

I was trying to describe exactly what you just said. holding the lens side of the phone still while using your right hand to pivot around your left hand.

Not says:

Yes, then this would be correct. If you hold your right hand and fingers in the same place and use that as the pivot point, then yes, it will be the correct way to do it. The photos you took of the example throw off the description a bit, but the most important thing is that the pivot point is centered where the camera lens is located on whatever device you use. That is A MUST for this technique to work properly.

Leanna Lofte says:

yeah, the angle of the photos does make it confusing. I just realized that I was instructing to have the lens on the left, but then in my photos, the lens would actually be on the right. I'll fix that.
EDIT: I updated the photo and the description. Better?

Leanna Lofte says:

The best way is to mount you iPhone to tripod and pivot with the tripod. You need to mimic being a tripod. Rotating you torso moves the lens A LOT. This is bad.

Inappropriate Response says:

+1 for photosynth, I have Autostitch as well, but find I use photosynth more.

Aimiff says:

All your articles about iPhonography are great! Thanks for all the tips :))

Jay says:

SCHROOOOOOOOOOOOOMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want some!

Billy says:

Hmm.. kinda fish eye thing eh

MJay says:

There is actually a better app that takes out all of the manual process and makes it simple. It's called 'Panorama 360 Camera' for 99c and I think you guys should check it out(including you Leanna). After all that's what an Iphone is known for "doing things simple". :)

OMMBoy says:

You mentioned in one of the paragraphs under the mushrooms that you used your thumb to press the volume buttons to trigger the shutter -- does the app you recommended (Autostitch Panorama) not have an auto-shutter feature? I think this would be quite beneficial to iphoneographers experimenting with panoramic photography as it would minimize any chance of misaligning the shot, especially when hand-holding the phone. Have you checked out the 360 Panorama app? It has an auto-shutter feature...
I've really been enjoying your iphoneography series -- keep up the excellent work :)
Chris

Clubcarib says:

These photography articles have been great. I'm looking forward to more!

MIkey says:

You have an awesome desk

DJBox3r says:

I bought 360 Panorama last night and that one uses an auto feature. You hold it still to take a photo. I am still just learning how to use this app but will also try what Leanna has suggested also.

best books to learn how to draw says:

I do consider all the concepts you've offered to your post. They're really convincing and will definitely work. Still, the posts are very short for beginners. May just you please prolong them a little from next time? Thanks for the post.

sheila t says:

does the i phone 4 have a timer on it I just got it and love it but i like to take pics with a timer