When do we get realtime Panoramic processing?

Lately I am more interested in snapping interesting indoor and outdoor panoramic photos with my iPhone than lugging around a heavy and conspicuous DSLR. (I live in a dangerous city.) It is frustrating, however, that a ***telephone*** can stitch up a panoramic photo on the fly at 5 MP while I have to struggle with a $3000 DSLR, taking a zillion stills, hoping they overlap, and running through messy software to create a composite.

When is Canon going to offer this in a DSLR? I want to make a panoramic with a 200mm lens on the fly! Wake up Canon!

Pretty sure several of the 4/3 mirrorless cameras can do this.

Lots of P&S cameras can do this as well, it's just a matter of time before there is some sort of panorama mode. Look how long it took GPS and WiFi to start being integrated into DSLR's... it's been on P&S cameras for quite a while.

I guess I just see it as a consumer-level feature.. You can get the same (and probably better) results stitching together in a variety of programs once you're back at the computer.

I guess I'm trying to envision a scenario where this would be valuable.. let's say your SLR does this, and you stitch a pano.. then what? Unless you have a 6D, you've got to go back to the computer anyway to get the images off the card.. and honestly, if it was something I was going to put my name on and upload for the world to see, I'd rather stitch it myself and review to make sure everything is OK.

I'm not trying to argue the point, I guess I just don't understand what the real benefit of being able to do this in-camera would be?

Because casual panos are a pain in the butt to deal with in post and file management.

The A77 does this, probably the A99 also. Blast away some frames, stitch the pano, done. Yeah it's JPEG, but for a quicky it's nice.

Also, iphone's stitching is pretty darn good.

Not every pano taken is going to hang in some national museum.

I had a Sony a580 that had this feature built in, it was pretty nice and worked well. I was surprised that the T4i that I just got did not have this feature.

cputeq007 wrote in post #15535710
Because casual panos are a pain in the butt to deal with in post and file management.

The A77 does this, probably the A99 also. Blast away some frames, stitch the pano, done. Yeah it's JPEG, but for a quicky it's nice.

Also, iphone's stitching is pretty darn good.

Not every pano taken is going to hang in some national museum.

What do you mean, panos are a pain in file management? Just develop a management system and stick with it.

I'm still very much the enthusiast/amateur, but I didn't buy a DSLR and expensive lenses for 'quickies'. That being said, it is true that there are cameras that do stitching quite well, I've had a Kodak V705 which did it and I took great panos with it in the time. Shame they're already too low-resolution for my iMac's monitor

cputeq007 wrote in post #15535710
Because casual panos are a pain in the butt to deal with in post and file management.

Preparing for a nice pano is easy.
Shoot your scenery with 1/3 overlap between the pictures.
I do not care if the pictures are level so no need for a tripod, just hand held.
I just shoot enough pictures to be sure I covered my subject.

Making a pano at my computer is very easy.
Find Microsoft ICE and install it (32 and 64 bit).

Drag and drop your (.cr2) files into Microsoft ICE.
Let it do his magic and slide the JPG quality to 100% and save the result.

Ready.

With a tripod and PP before ICE the results get better but all in all ICE does a very good job.

Until you don't get enough overlap or you find out that you forgot to lock your exposure, so then all you have to do is fly back to Hawaii and retake your pano.

itzcryptic wrote in post #15536205
Until you don't get enough overlap or you find out that you forgot to lock your exposure, so then all you have to do is fly back to Hawaii and retake your pano.

Manual mode is very practical in such situations

Apricane wrote in post #15535970
What do you mean, panos are a pain in file management? Just develop a management system and stick with it.

I'm still very much the enthusiast/amateur, but I didn't buy a DSLR and expensive lenses for 'quickies'. That being said, it is true that there are cameras that do stitching quite well, I've had a Kodak V705 which did it and I took great panos with it in the time. Shame they're already too low-resolution for my iMac's monitor

Just because a DSLR and expensive lenses can do excellent manual panos doesn't mean they should automatically be excluded from some of the more automated modes.

Not that I use them all the time, but it's not like choice is a bad thing.

If it's a nice shot then yes I'm going to do it the right way (tripod, manual, RAW, etc.).


But there have been several times where, for whatever reason, the circumstance warranted a pano of some type but it wasn't an uber-serious shot (quicky documentary shot and I happen to be carrying my DSLR, a slightly wider shot than my lens can do, etc) Pano-stitching in-camera saves me from wasting so much space on my memory card, then importing it to the computer, then stitching, etc.


This "my expensive DSLR is for nice shots only!" is the same type of logic used by the still photographers that hate movie modes on their cameras. If you don't like it, just don't use it. Easy as that.


Not that I would expect a 1DX to have an auto-pano mode, but it could certainly find a home in the Rebel and XXD series.

Unfortunately Canon is an extremely lethargic company when it comes to in-camera features.