Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Reviews, iPhone, App Store
In search of the perfect panorama
No one thinks the iPhone has a terrific, pro-level camera, but it is fine for quick snaps. One way to get an even better picture is to make a panorama, stitching multiple images together to give you a wider view, or a taller view, and more pixels.I've tried three of the apps designed to do panoramas and they all come up pretty short.
The first I tried was Pano [app store link]. It's US$2.99. This app does the best job of guiding you through the process, telling you to take the leftmost view, then another, and then if you want another image it cues you for that. You get a choice of accepting the photo, or taking a fresh one. When you are done, Pano merges the photo and you have a panorama ready to save to your phone or export to iPhoto. Some of the pictures look OK, but I noticed when I was shooting outdoors the three panels did not match very well in tone or color. There were big differences, especially in the sky. It looked a bit like the old Cinerama movies where the three cameras didn't quite match up. When shooting inside, I found the images more consistent. Steve Sande reviewed this app for TUAW back in October.
On to TripStitch [app store link]. Even at US$4.99, this was the most confusing of the apps to use. First, you can't take pictures from within the app. You must use the regular camera controls on the iPhone, then import the images into TripStitch. The problem is there is no guidance for doing that. No instructions, nothing on-screen except a '+' icon, which allows you to import the images from your camera roll. A trip to the developer web site didn't give up any secrets either. So, I took 3 images with the camera, and imported them into the program. The images just sat there. I double tapped on one of the images and saw some controls at the bottom of the screen with arrows in four directions for moving and aligning the images. There was also a cryptic animated target icon. I touched that and saw a cross-hairs and an animated reticle, but I didn't have a clue what it meant. There was an information icon which let me set auto exposure and crop the photos, but not a word about how this program works. I did manually move the images to line them up, but on the small iPhone screen it's no picnic. TripStitch does a good job of balancing the sky, but none of the images I created were worth sharing with anyone. It could be I'm missing something in how the program works, but with no info on the web site, and no built in instructions, getting this app to work well would be tough sledding.
That brings us to PanoLab Pro [app store link]. There was something in that name 'Pro' that encouraged me. The price is US$4.99. This app doesn't force me to use the built in camera controls. I can take the image from inside PanoLab Pro, or it will allow you to import from the camera roll. You can stitch vertically as well as horizontally, which most other programs don't allow. Although the program is very powerful and allows exposure settings and control of white balance, I could still see seams between the panels. A look at photos submitted by other users of the app often showed the same issues. PanoLab Pro does give you the best chance of getting the final image right, of course, because it allows more control of the merging. Even so, I really couldn't create anything I was truly excited about. If you want to give the program a try, there is a free version of this program called PanoLab, but it doesn't have all the control of the Pro version.
I spent a lot of time comparing these programs, and there may be some other ones I missed that are better or worse. Panorama [app store link] is also at the app store for US$9.99 and it got both good and bad reviews from users. I'll give it a try soon. So far, I haven't been too excited about any of the three I've tried, but PanoLab Pro comes the closest. If you take some time with the images, you have enough fine control to make them acceptable.
The quest continues.
That brings us to PanoLab Pro [app store link]. There was something in that name 'Pro' that encouraged me. The price is US$4.99. This app doesn't force me to use the built in camera controls. I can take the image from inside PanoLab Pro, or it will allow you to import from the camera roll. You can stitch vertically as well as horizontally, which most other programs don't allow. Although the program is very powerful and allows exposure settings and control of white balance, I could still see seams between the panels. A look at photos submitted by other users of the app often showed the same issues. PanoLab Pro does give you the best chance of getting the final image right, of course, because it allows more control of the merging. Even so, I really couldn't create anything I was truly excited about. If you want to give the program a try, there is a free version of this program called PanoLab, but it doesn't have all the control of the Pro version.
I spent a lot of time comparing these programs, and there may be some other ones I missed that are better or worse. Panorama [app store link] is also at the app store for US$9.99 and it got both good and bad reviews from users. I'll give it a try soon. So far, I haven't been too excited about any of the three I've tried, but PanoLab Pro comes the closest. If you take some time with the images, you have enough fine control to make them acceptable.
The quest continues.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Steve said 6:15PM on 1-13-2009
I've tried these three, and deleted them all except Pano, which works as well as can be expected given the hardware involved. And I've actually gotten some terrific pictures with it, as have others - see the flickr pano group. As long as you can remember that the pics are taken with the iphone camera, the results can be really good.
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John B. said 6:29PM on 1-13-2009
I'm with you, Steve. I've tried Pano and PanoLab and Pano is much better IMO. I suppose PanoLab is more versatile, but Pano is just simpler and easier to use. I couldn't sit there with PanoLab and line up all my photos. It's just too tedious and the merging never looked as good.
Leo M. said 9:37AM on 1-14-2009
I agree. Pano has given me the best results hands-down.
Think Adrian said 6:36PM on 1-13-2009
It's hard to avoid seems due to the different perspective of each photo you take. Even with a tripod it's very tricky to get it right with a standard camera.
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JD said 6:51PM on 1-13-2009
I've tried a bunch of them, and the results of Panorama are still the best. Its stitches are nearly seamless, and balancing across pictures is quite impressive. You can now add onto either side, though alas, it doesn't have the cool add-anywhere interface that PanoLab (I think) has. But the pictures are great -- give it a try soon and add it to your overview.
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JD said 10:46PM on 1-13-2009
For an example for Panorama, here's a picture I took just yesterday:
http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sunsetwx2.jpg
(click the picture for full size).
This was taken very casually (and therefore a few of the shots are a bit blurry with hand-shake), but only took a few seconds for nearly 10 shots, stitched together pretty darn seamlessly.
scott said 2:35PM on 1-14-2009
@JD
that is an amazing picture...you took that with the iphone's crappy camera?
and used an iphone app to make it?
i dont see any hand shake in it to me...great job
Todd Sieling said 7:03PM on 1-13-2009
Ditto on the props for Pano. I gave PanoLab Pro a shot at first (also pulled in by the pro label), but had to give up on it for stability and ease of use problems. Pano has produced shots that well surpassed what I would have expected, and has proven very easy to use.
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aawil40 said 7:25PM on 1-13-2009
I've only tried pano but their latest update did help with the blending points quite a bit. It seems like the most important thing is to get it perfectly lined up when you take the pic. It's not perfect, but I've been pretty happy playing around with pano. A better aligned logo would be nice too.
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required said 7:37PM on 1-13-2009
Do these only allow merging images that are side to side or do they support image grids like three across and three down (nine images into one wider angled one)?
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scott said 7:38PM on 1-13-2009
The nodal point changes when you move the camera, in order to take true panoramic pictures you need a tripod that changes the camera angle at the lense
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3239/2767895754_19a42d47e5.jpg
im no photographer but this is my basic understanding of it, maybe a photographer will explain better. This is probably the case with the iPhone, especially as the device is being manually rotated holding it.
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Lungkisser said 7:55PM on 1-13-2009
This post could have used some images for comparisons sake, not that we couldn't look them up ourselves, but still.
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rawhead said 8:42PM on 1-13-2009
For a post talking about different pano software, it is staggeringly lacking in images.
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Doug said 9:21PM on 1-13-2009
There's a flickr group for Pano users. Lots of sample pictures there:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/iphonepanoramas/
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Jaboojoo said 3:13AM on 1-14-2009
Great tip for viewing panoramas on iphone: Get the Ken Burns Slideshow app (http://bitwink.com/kenburns) and when adding your panorama photos *customize* the pan and zoom so that you start zoomed in on the left of the image and finish zoomed in on the right. You need to increase the duration to 10+ seconds for it to be smooth but its a great way to show off your *successful* panoramas on your iphone :)
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Jasper said 5:52AM on 1-14-2009
I tried a lot of different pano apps for the iPhone, but never tried PanoLab Pro.
I really like the messy result the free PanoLab app gives me (check out 4 pics of mine at http://www.flickr.com/photos/photoshoq/tags/panolab/).
Pano really gives the best result and matches the different shots very nicely. Some examples at http://www.flickr.com/photos/photoshoq/tags/panoapp
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R(k) said 1:08PM on 1-14-2009
Like many others I also give props to Pano. Given the less than stellar cam the iPhone has, the app really does a great job. (Man, Apple totally dropped the ball on the cam, can you imagine what we could be doing if it was actually good?!)
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