Panoramic views

Regular readers of this blog might remember a posting I did last November, called Holiday Snapz, where I discovered the cool option on iPhones called "Pano". This allows you to take panoramic shots of sweeping views from beach headlands, lofty mountaintops, etc etc. Back here in our tiny little garden, we're a bit short on sweeping, majestic panoramas, but the iPhone's "Pano" option is perfectly good for taking some very wide angle shots, and that's what I was fooling around with this morning. Here's the results, but first, a little "how to".

To use the "Pano" option, just open up your iPhone's camera, and swipe the options ('time-lapse'; 'video'; 'photo'; 'square'; 'pano') so 'Pano' is selected. Notice in the photo above that you hold the camera upright, in portrait mode. Once you click the big white button on the screen, move the iPhone smoothly from left to right (you'll be amazed how wide the sweep is). Apple helpfully provides a line and an arrow, which moves as you do your pan shot. The idea is to keep the arrow following the line. Messages will pop up on the screen if you get it wrong. Any time you want to end the pano, hit the white button again. I find that if you use the full width of the panorama the image is weirdly distorted, so my preference is to use only about 50-70% of the panorama's full width. There is some distortion but it isn't horrible.

I found it so easy to use that even the first panorama I did last November came out fine. Practise for 5 minutes and you should be a wide-angle expert.

Anyway, on with the show. These photos are quite big (40cm across) so if you click onto the photos they will come up bigger for you on screen. 

General view of the garden this morning. Incredible how very
different it is from the one at the top of this blog, with the 'Garden
Amateur' heading in it, which is now 3 or 4 years old.

Eggplant, lemon grass, basil, frangipani, oregano and parsley.
The frangipani is getting so much bigger!

Succulent patch, geranium land, the newly planted native
patch with a groundcover grevillea and westringias behind.
The terracotta pot is home to a thriving bay tree.

Native patch, curly parsley in front, salvias behind, then mint
and a potted Thai lime on the right. And gnomes aplenty!