Book Review: Panoramic Photography by Joseph Meehan

This is possibly the first book dedicated to the techniques and equipments of panoramic photography. First published in 1990, this book contains a plethora of information on film based panoramic photography.

Most panoramic cameras available at the time of publication, including swing lens, flat back and slit scan designs were discussed at length. These include some interesting handmade and made-in-small-scale cameras like the "pannaroma" ,"cyclops" or "liparirama". Comparisons of the field of view of a large number of panoramic cameras were provided too. This was done by taking photographs of the same scene by using  different panoramic cameras.

There were also voluminous discussions on compositional techniques( a topic which is not very often talked out) for each category of panoramic cameras.

The book assumes that the reader does not have any prior knowledge of basic photography techniques. So, a full chapter was dedicated to films, exposure and use of filters in the context of panoramic photography.

A full chapter is devoted to alternative panoramic techniques. These include strip photography, panoramic assemblage, multi projector panoramas etc.

There is a small discussion on panoramic conversion of a nimslo stereocamera by Andrew Davidhazy complemented with astounding examples of photos taken by the converted Nimslo. One of it appears (in a much smaller size:the Hungarian Parliament building) in Davidhazy's website.

The last chapter (but not the least) was on preservation, printing and presentation of panoramic photographs, covered in a concise but adequate way.

I found this book to be very useful for panoramic film photography and would be quite happy to recommend anybody who wants to get introduced to the same subject.

This book is out of print now but an used copy goes dirt cheap on amazon. Most likely your local library will also have a copy.