A panorama should add value

Monday 19 May 2025, 20:02 by Nando Harmsen | 2,757 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You can create a photo with a field of view of up to 360 degrees. This is a panorama, made by stitching several photos together. Use this technique when it adds value.

When you're in a beautiful place, everything around you may be worth photographing. A panorama can be a way to capture everything around you. You divide the entire view across several photos, which you merge later.

Aim for around 30% overlap, and keep your camera in a vertical position. This allows you to capture 180 degrees, 270 degrees or even a full 360 degrees. But that doesn't mean it produces a better photo.

As much as 360 degrees in one image. There's a lot in it, but you lose the details. The horizon is in the middle, and it lacks an exciting composition.
For much photography, a wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle lens is already too much. With a panorama, you take it one step further. You do get a photo with enormous resolution, but if you don't do much more with it than display it on a screen, that isn't much use.

A panorama is often a very narrow, long image, with everything shown even smaller than with an ultra-wide-angle lens. It does give you an overview, but it often lacks a good composition. As a photo, it is therefore often not very exciting.

A panorama of around 270 degrees. There's a lot in the frame, much of which doesn't really add value to the photo. You have to ask yourself how necessary a panorama was.
Use a panorama only when it adds value. And you don't have to go all the way around. More isn't better. Also pay attention to the composition. Where do you start and where do you finish? Do you have something in the foreground, or can you use leading lines?

Instead of a panorama, a single image with a beautiful composition can say more than showing as much as possible. So be critical when making a panorama.
Instead of a panorama, it can be worthwhile to capture everything in several photos. Separate photos that together show more than one single narrow, long photo.

So be critical when making a panorama. Only do it when it genuinely adds value.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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2 comments

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 20 May 2025 at 11:30 | reply
To create panoramas, I increasingly use a telephoto lens and the camera in portrait orientation. I find the advantage that a telephoto lens does not render things as reduced as a wide-angle lens. You also see more detail and the photo does not become too narrow when you have to crop away some of the top and bottom. That way I can show a bit more than the usual field of view with the camera in landscape orientation. I usually use 3 to 5 photos to put the panorama together.

I took the 'panorama photography' course and it certainly made me wiser. It is highly recommended.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Sunday 25 May 2025 at 10:12 | reply
A panorama with a telephoto lens delivers exactly the same result as a wide-angle lens (provided the angle of view is the same). It is just as small in the image. With a panorama, you only have more resolution at your disposal. So you can zoom in more.

Translated from Dutch.

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