Panoramic camera
A panorama camera is a special type of camera that enables panoramic recordings with the largest possible angle of view and a wide format.
Historical notes
One of the first special panorama cameras was constructed by Friedrich Martens in 1845 . The camera had a swivel lens and a cylindrically curved plate. The first recordings were made in Paris in the format 1: 3. Other designs and improvements came from Sutton, Johnson, and Ross. The use of rigid glass plates was initially problematic, a problem that was gradually resolved with the introduction of sheet film and roll film.
Its first practical applications included battlefield photography for mapping and artillery. It is also worth mentioning the related art form that was created around the same time as the painted panorama pictures and the later cinema formats ( IMAX and observatories ). Special electronic line scan cameras were initially found in the air reconnaissance and space probe areas (e.g. the Mars probe Viking ).
While the painted panorama art gradually became rare due to the effort involved, panorama photography achieved a technically useful status, which with the spread of digital cameras and image processing programs (computer image montage or stitching ) was also possible for laypeople without special equipment.
Types
A number of techniques for panoramic photography can be roughly distinguished today:
- different types of pinhole cameras
- Camera with rotating lens drum and slit diaphragm in front of a curved, static film plane
- a rotating camera with a film moving behind the slit
- Line scan cameras (electronic)
- Cameras with a wide-angle lens or fisheye (less than 360 °)
- Cameras with at least two fish eyes or several wide-angle lenses (360 ° or VR camera)
- Cameras with special mirror lenses (360 ° horizon image via mushroom mirror)
- Cameras with recording formats of great width (with wide-angle lens)
- Assembly of various sector images in the laboratory, with scissors or computer (stitching)
Large-width images can of course also be obtained by trimming extremely large prints in another method, but the loss of quality and effort outweighs the problem.
The greatest opportunity for experimentation, if all the problems that arise, are perhaps offered by the pinhole camera due to the simpler structural possibilities and the possible distorted film plane.
Line scan cameras constructed separately can also be found in extended aerial photography. The methodical transition to analog or digital serial image recording is fluid here too.
Selection of types that are common today
Today's panorama cameras for 35mm films include, for example, the Hasselblad X-Pan , the Hasselblad X-Pan II , the Noblex 135 series from the Kamera Werk Dresden GmbH or the Zenit Horizon 202 (120 ° angle of view). In the medium format , cameras from Linhof and Fuji in the format 6 × 12 to 6 × 17 cm are offered, as well as the Noblex 150 series and the Noblex 175 from the Dresden camera factory . With the Roundshot system from the Swiss company Seitz Phototechnik AG , 360 ° panoramas are possible using a rotating camera (small and medium format). Large format panorama cameras up to a negative format of 8 × 20 inches a. the Austrian company Lotus View Camera .
There are also special digital panorama cameras such as the Eyescan M2 metric (10,000 pixels vertical resolution ) or the Eyescan MM1 (2,650 pixels vertical resolution ), which work on the principle of the line scan camera and generate 360 ° images. Another digital model is the Spheron panorama camera (5,000 pixels vertical resolution ) or the Karline from Dr. Clauß Bild- und Datentechnik GmbH. The company started specializing in panoramic robots in 2003 .
From several individual recordings from conventional analogue or digital cameras, it is now quite easy to assemble a "seamless" panorama image by assembling images on the PC using special software. This process is called stitching . In order to get the best possible results, it is advisable to take pictures with a panorama robot (also known as a VR head). This ensures that fixed angular steps and precise camera work are adhered to, which makes stitching a lot easier later.