On Feb 1, 2006, at 6:52 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
As to the aesthetics of viewing panoramas ... in general, I find most presentations for anything with a more oblong proportion than about 4:1 very difficult to view on any flat screen in a still- image representation.
3:1 is about my limit, but not just for viewing difficulties. I just don't find ultra-mega-wide formats to be aesthetically pleasing as everything ends up being squashed into one dimension. When I was shooting pans a few years ago I found them very difficult to compose. Last time I went out with a panorama mask in the finder I ended up shooting everything full-frame.
The 360-degree viewers that people use are good in a way: they show you a scrollable cropped version of the full image which also loops around at the edges. It's a little closer to "being there".
The dynamic cylindrical presentation works pretty well for me, although I'd like to be able to slow it down. It's equivalent to making a very very large/long print and mounting it in a circular display, walking around inside it.
For this particular one you can click on the image and drag it back and forth. I found that by accident (and I do like that feature).
- Dave http://www.bluemoon.net.nz/ http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
