panoramas are also weird
- September 20th, 2013
- Posted in random coolness
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I played more with the panorama function on iOS 7 last night. It appeared to assume that you’d stand in place and turn, which is how most people do it, but I wanted to see how it would work if you didn’t do that, but instead scooched along in a straight line, to the side.
It really doesn’t expect you to be doing that. Check these out and click for larger:
Turning in place
The above looks pretty much right. I’m not practiced with it and the light could’ve been brighter, but you get the idea. Items look the correct size and shape, really, and the seaming is handled very well.
Now check it when you don’t do what they expect and slide from left to right:
Scooching left to right
Look how wibbly and bent things get! Particularly the compost bin – that’s the silver cylinder on the countertop. Is that cool or what? I suspect there’s some insight into their algorithmic assumptions here.
So, yeah. Not built for this purpose.
Oh, the stand-in-place version is cropped, because it came out to a higher total vertical resolution for some reason – 2468 pixels high. The slide version used I think the whole width, or close to it, and came out to 8627 horizontal. That’s a pretty high resolution pan. It is kind of noisy, tho’; I’d like to see how it does in good light. I suspect it’s optimised for outdoors.
I should try that with my phone’s camera-I’ve done panoramas with film cameras, but not digital ones. I wonder if you could do a “star wheel” with a digital camera?
With a film camera, it’s easy. Wait for a clear, low humidity, starry night, point the camera straight up with the shutter open, and wait for a few hours (use slow film-like 25 ASA-you might think a fast film for low-light situations, but we’re talking hours long exposure time). Looks great if you get a fixed reference in the shot (like trees or something). Then you get the circular streaking effect(maybe a meteor streak as well,or a plane). I did this in high school with an old 620 roll film camera I paid 50 cents for at a yard sale.
I really haven’t experimented with my phone’s camera all that much.
Digital SLRs support all the features of film SLRs, so I’m sure you could. All you need is the ability to hold the shutter open, after all. And digital SLRs support wide ranges of ISO sensitivities, so.
Even my just-short-of-DSLR pocket Canon G9 supports most of that. I’m not sure there’s a way to keep the shutter open indefinitely, though. I should check.