I’m guilty of it as many people are, thinking of Panorama apps as software to use on the iPhone to get images that go all around… a big circle image. Actually, they are great to get very wide images too, and DMD Panorama on the iPhone makes the process quick and easy.

For a period of time, there was a group of camera from the major makers that used APS (advanced photo system) film cartridges. With these camera, three image formats where possible (from Wikipedia):

– H for “High Definition” (30.2 × 16.7 mm; aspect ratio 16:9; 4×7″ print)
– C for “Classic” (25.1 × 16.7 mm; aspect ratio 3:2; 4×6″ print)
– P for “Panoramic” (30.2 × 9.5 mm; aspect ratio 3:1; 4×11″ print)

The camera and film came available about the time I was building a house that would be the first in the area of many houses. Every couple days, I could snap a shot out a corner window and get a wide image of the houses being built around me. It was much better than taking a bunch of images and trying to keep things in order over time.

For the iPhone, I have covered DMD Panorama before, the need came up for an inlet shot that one or several images wouldn’t do a good job with. The beauty of this particular app is the little Ying/Yang parts that come together as you turn so you know when the automatic shot will be taken. There is no ghost image that you have to line up the edges of the previous/next shot to. Just launch the app, aim the iPhone, click ‘Start’, and turn as a relatively quick speed (I generally slow a bit as the half circles are just coming together), then hit the finish button when you have the whole wide image captured. All done, wide angle image is sent to your iPhone photo library directly from DMD Panorama and you can move onto the next shot. No visit to the film developing shop needed. The image can actually be automatically pushed up to a hosted Web site to share with friends so there is no need to email the big image, just a link.

This is the bay, done automatically with DMD Panorama, which took three shots. The original export show was over 3200 pixels wide.

Reminder of how that ying/yang interface looks and works: Quick and easy panorama photos with the iPhone