The Advantage of Panos Versus Wide-Angle

I’ve had people ask me why we even do panos, and wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot a wide-angle lens and crop it like a pano? Well, there are three big advantages to shooting a pano over a wide-angle, but to me, the first is the most important: (1) panos make big things look big and help maintain their scale, while wide-angle lenses push the scene farther way, making big mountains look smaller, huge arches look regular, and tall waterfalls look small. Panos keep that sense of scale and bigness. Plus, there’s (2): panos have really high resolution, and you can print them at huge sizes because you’re combining a bunch of high-resolution photos into one image. Lastly, (3) shooting a pano can capture more of a scene than a wide-angle lens. You can make your panos as long, tall, or wide as you want. You can do multi-row panos (see page 94), and even panos where you combine multiple wide-angle lens shots, so you have more options on how to capture the scene you’re standing in front of. There’s also a bonus reason: (4) people love panos. The viewing public loves to see a printed pano in person, because that’s something you just don’t see every day (for a tip on printing, see page 98).