A Superb Book on Panoramic Cameras by Brian Polden

During a recent conversation with Garry Alexander about the Electropan Panoramic camera, he recommended an extraordinary book on panoramic cameras. Intrigued, I immediately ordered it from a UK-based vendor. I’m delighted to report that it’s a truly remarkable resource—easily the best, most comprehensive book on this subject that I’ve encountered so far.

At around 550 pages, this hefty volume delves deep into the history and technology of panoramic cameras, from photography’s earliest days to the present. It’s packed with photographs, cutaway diagrams, and an impressive wealth of well-researched details on countless panoramic camera models. For anyone who’s serious about panoramic photography, this book by Brian Polden is absolutely essential. We owe him our thanks for creating such a valuable contribution to the community.

Because the book is quite extensive, I anticipate needing at least a month to go through it thoroughly. Once I’ve done so, I’ll be writing a comprehensive review on it.


Meanwhile, I want to acknowledge Garry Alexander for alerting me to this gem. Garry maintains an excellent website dedicated to panoramic cameras (among other interesting cameras), and he’s also deeply involved in mechanical automata, another topic that fascinates me. If you share a love for mechanical marvels like I do, I highly recommend visiting Cabaret Mechanical Theatre to explore more of Garry’s interests.


The book was published in 2019 and there are only a few resources discussing it. You can have look at the table of contents from the Publisher's site. 

A glimpse on Seitz's Roundshot series of pano cameras as mentioned in this book can be found from Seitz's web page


I purchased my copy from PostScript in the UK, and their service was commendably quick, delivering the book across the Atlantic. I’m very pleased with their professionalism and would highly recommend them.

Self published books on panoramic photography

I'm surprised to see so many books on panoramic photography available from  self publishing sites like blurb.com  or lulu.com

Some simple search phrases like 'panoramic photography' or 'panorama' can yield you a great many hits. Otherwise search by the name of your favorite panoramic camera or format like 'xpan', 'noblex', 'widelux', 'horizon 202','6x17' etc.

A convenient way to know about other panoramic photographers and their artworks.

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.

"Hot Shots" book preview

Here goes a video preview of the book 'Hot Shots' by Kevin Meredith which I mentioned  in an earlier post. In this video, you can preview almost all the photos that appear in the book.

A book I stumbled upon

Yesterday I found the book "Hot Shots' by Kevin Meredith in my local book store. An excellent book filled with so many good pictures. Almost every picture has unique element(s) of composition plus rich vibrant colours and tells an engrossing story. Any serious photographer who would like to improve his/her creative compositional skills should get a copy. Priced at less than $20 this is a very good investment indeed.

Kevin has a flickr account and you can see some of his excellent art-works here