Panoramas are probably one of the oldest types of photos, dating back to daguerreotypes with sweeping views of cities.
It is a format that's especially good for landscapes or if you're capturing something really large. Photographer David Bergman has done "gigapans" where he captures ultrahigh resolution panoramic shots where you can zoom in on individual details in the photos.
There have been special cameras made for panoramas, including some that had rotating lenses that would cover multiple frames of film to capture the image. But a more common way to do it is to put multiple pictures together, which is how the originals were made.
In this day, it is fairly easy to make panoramas regardless of what camera you use, especially with computers doing the stitching seamlessly.
If you have a cellphone camera, you most likely have a pano feature built into the camera. All you have to do is press the shutter button and move the camera in the direction shown on screen to capture a panorama.
The key to a successful one is to keep the camera steady, not jerking it around up or down, which will ruin the photo.
If you have another type of camera, be it a point-and-shoot, bridge, mirrorless or DSLR, there are ways to create panoramas. It involves taking a series of pictures and then stitching them together in a computer.
To get the best results, you want to shoot in portrait (vertical) orientation, as this will make assembling the panorama easier, as there will be fewer awkward edges that will have to be cropped out.
You also want to lock your exposure to ensure the pictures have a uniform look, or the finished picture is going to look awkward, unless you spend extra time balancing out exposures in post. You should have some overlap, about 10-20 percent, to make it easier to join them and avoid any gaps.
There are a few options for stitching them together.
One way is a bit more artisanal. Basically open the pictures in your photo editor and line them up, doing some cropping and masking to eliminate seams.
Some photo editors, such as Adobe Lightroom Classic, will automatically stitch the pictures together into a seamless panorama.
There are also free software options that will stitch your photos together. One of the best is Hugin, which runs on both Windows and Mac, that lets you stitch traditional 180-degree and 360-degree panoramas.
