Digital Photography Hacks

Get the Big Picture with a Panorama

They say two heads are better than one. When it comes to showing the “big picture,” many heads—er, shots—are definitely bigger than one.

Many people are frustrated by their inability to capture the majesty of awesome natural monuments such as the Grand Canyon. I’ve heard this phrase a dozen times: “This picture doesn’t really do it justice. It looked so fantastic when I was there.”

Bad photography isn’t the culprit here; inadequate coverage is.

Let me ask you this: if you went to the Grand Canyon and had to look at it through a toilet-paper tube, how impressive would you think it was? Probably not much. The same thing happens when you try to capture the magnificence of a vast location with single shots on your point and shoot. This doesn’t mean that you have to go out and buy a camera with a superwide lens. Instead, put the magic of digital photography to work for you.

Almost every digital camera available today is capable of creating breathtaking panoramas by stitching together a series of shots into one gigantic, seamless scene. Back in the days of film, you probably played around with this technique by taping together snapshots to make a bigger picture. One of my favorite artists, David Hockney, put a creative spin on this technique with works such as “The Brooklyn Bridge Nov 28^th 1982” and “Pearblossom Hwy.” Hockney’s works are usually referred to as photographic collages. But the concept is similar to our exploration here—taking a bunch of ...