That all is fine by me. I've made panos with iPhone and AutoStitch - it works great, that's what's important.

For a person to go and *purchase* dedicated panoramic software, he has to be quite involved in the whole process and with deep interest in photography in general. There are many, many times more casual users than prosumers. So I can assure you that AutoStitch will sell much more $2.99 copies than APP, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm not sure, I think I detect some gloomy, depressed mood in your posting. I see no reason for that as there's nothing changed. This data in DT.UK is not something new. 40% of all interviewed use their mobile to shoot casual photos. Those 40% did not have a film camera back in the day and maybe even 40% of the others too!

In conclusion, I'm quite optimistic about the latest technological developments and I don't think any business will be hurt by users using what they find convenient, on the contrary - that creates new opportunities!

even my fish have their own twitter account http://twitter.com/Fish_chat and webcam http://www.photosbykev.com/fishcam/

but I am a old geek who loves gadgets and gizmos

fma38 wrote:

Andrew, I don't even *own* a mobile phone

Long may you retain your sanity.

FWIW I don't own the one I use. It actually belongs to my 90 year old mother who has never been able to use it, my late father and my mother having been persuaded by some slick salesman that thay needed a mobile phone - 'in case of emergency' or some such justification - some years ago.

Last edited by mediavets (2010-03-18 14:24:54)

Fisheye for Iphone: http://www.focus-numerique.com/news_id-1866.html

Mediavets  wrote:

Or perhaps those same mobile phones with cameras will soon all have built-in pano stitching too?

Some existing phone like HTC top models can stitch 3 images as a single one.

Mediavets  wrote:

expect that pano photography will become dominated by rather low quality partial panos shot on mobile phones and posted on social networking sites, and linked to sites like Google maps and Bing maps.

First camera phones results were fuzzy, colors were not pleasing at all and exposure was quite random but in my opinion nobody can know which improvements are possible and wich ones will be actually available. This is a rather unusual kind of product where a feature that only a very low percentage of users would ask for is funded by the very large amount of not yet interested users...

In January 1839 Arago said about not still available daguerreotype: Chacun pourra s'en servir (everybody will be able to use it.) A downright lie that peoples wanted to believe and which came true only many years latter, when Kodak succeeded in selling cameras to ladies and children. Even as an art, photography survived easily.

I often sing in my bathroom but music survives that easily, too.

Andrew, I understand what you're saying, although my experience is a bit different - I guess a result of my younger age. My own father would heartily agree with most of your points. To each his own...

Such sentiments, however, do not explain (at least not to me) why should you be worried about "the beginning of the end of pano photography for non-professionals"? What do you care about that lot? You say you don't understand them and don't want to be a part of this crowd.

In my opinion, with the rise of powerful mobile hardware (snapdragon and the likes) and software (android, iphone os, etc) and the advent of better and better sensors for mobile devices (MT9F001 from Apatina, for example), panoramic images captured via mobile communication devices will likely hugely increase in numbers. I can see using a phone's camera in video mode, making a quick swipe around and getting an interactive panorama of the environment, for example. Or taking many photos from a party or a family gathering around a table and browsing them in a photosynth fashion. Or video panoramas...

So I'll be thankful if you care to elaborate on your concerns; if not - the post still remains a very nice and respectable rant

[bo] wrote:

I can see using a phone's camera in video mode, making a quick swipe around and getting an interactive panorama of the environment, for example. Or taking many photos from a party or a family gathering around a table and browsing them in a photosynth fashion. Or video panoramas...

Seems Sony has already implemented such a feature - which they call Sweep Panorama - in a compact so can only be a matter of time before it appears in Sony Ericsson mobile phones I suppose:
http://www.sony.co.uk/article/id/1240556784154

Last edited by mediavets (2010-03-18 15:25:53)

[bo] wrote:

Andrew, I understand what you're saying, although my experience is a bit different - I guess a result of my younger age. My own father would heartily agree with most of your points. To each his own...

Such sentiments, however, do not explain (at least not to me) why should you be worried about "the beginning of the end of pano photography for non-professionals"? What do you care about that lot? You say you don't understand them and don't want to be a part of this crowd.

In my opinion, with the rise of powerful mobile hardware (snapdragon and the likes) and software (android, iphone os, etc) and the advent of better and better sensors for mobile devices (MT9F001 from Apatina, for example), panoramic images captured via mobile communication devices will likely hugely increase in numbers. I can see using a phone's camera in video mode, making a quick swipe around and getting an interactive panorama of the environment, for example. Or taking many photos from a party or a family gathering around a table and browsing them in a photosynth fashion. Or video panoramas...

So I'll be thankful if you care to elaborate on your concerns; if not - the post still remains a very nice and respectable rant

Concerns?.......I guess some ill-defined sense of unease at what I've referred to as 'deskilling' and 'dumbing down' of the 'huddled masses'.

As technologies become more sophisticated they seem to become less accessible to 'ordinary people'.

For example when I was a teenager motor vehicles wrre still relatively unsophisticated and 'comprehensible' to the 'lad in the street' just by observing the bits and pieces from which they were assembled. And disassemby/reeaasembly required nothing more than few 'everyday' tools. My friends and I tinkered with such vehicles and had a lot of fun at little expsnse (vehicle insurance was relatively cheap back then). Today this just isn't the case, the electronic 'black box' management sytems that control so many functions in the modern vehicle are inaccessible and 'incomprehensible' to all but a very few techs at the manufacturer.

As a result, increasingly, people do not expect to understand how a modern vehicle - and so many other modern appliances/gadget and gizmos - work. How many people today service their own vehicles? How long will it be before it becomes illegal to service your own vehicle unless you are some licensed and registered vehicle specialist?

There was a time when people did a lot of the maintenance of their properties or had a handy neighbour assist them - now it's illegal for anyone but a qualified and registered electrician to do electrical work in a kitchen or bathroom, or for anyone but a licensed and registered gas fitter to do anything with gas cookers, gas fires, gas heaters and boilers (for each of which they require separete training and qualifications).

A film camera in days gone by was a readily 'comprehensible' device - a digital camera isn't.  Likewise a landline phone vs. a mobile phone.

In days gone by - and not so long ago - it was worth understanding how things worked because 'things' were relatively expensive, and unreliable, and it was likely that you would have to fix them yourself.

Nowadays it isn't worth understanding how things work because 'things' are inexpensive (so frequently not considered worth repairing), and so complex that they are not capable of being repaired by anyone but a highly skilled technician using a lot of very specialised and expensive equipment.

So my feeling is that we are becoming 'deskilled' and 'dumbed down' because we are now so reliant on sophisticated and 'incomprehensible' technologies with the result that our lifestyles, communities and societies are increasingly lacking in resilience. As we have seen it now only takes, for example, a relatively little unexpected snowfall as in the UK this last winter to cause 'chaos' - transport links fail, supermarket food distribution systems fail, fuel distribution systems fail and so on; and it isn't long in such situations before the 'huddled masses' are out on the streets looting shops.

Understanding how things work and knowing how to do things provides one with a sense of autonomy and accomplishment - when it's all done with inaccessible and incomprehensible technologies whose workings are understood (and controlled) only by a tiny technological 'elite' where does that leave the 'huddled masses'? I guess it (technology and technological novelty) is increasingly used to keep them 'entertained' and hence to discourage them from giving it all too much thought? Avatar as today's equivalent of the provision of bread and circuses to keep the Roman populous quiescent?

Last edited by mediavets (2010-03-18 22:33:46)

mediavets wrote:

Gordon wrote:

I assume that is the way some technologies take off is that the masses have low quality then get bored with it, then they see what high quality is like and say YES please, I'll have some more of that. On the face of it if more people have access to basic panos and understand the concepts behind it , I feel that they will eventually become converts to high quality panos and eventually become the new users and innovators in this field.

But my contention is that they won't understand the concepts behind it. Increasingly hardly anyone in modern western industrial societies understands how anything works. As Arthur C Clarke stated "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Careful Andrew,
Big Brother is watching.  ;^)

I'm sure that panorama photography, in one form or another, will continue to evolve as digital photographic technology improves, and other necessary hardware and software also undergo technological advances.  There will certainly always be a difference between the requirements/needs/desires of vacation/family photography, advertising photography, scientific documentation, and photography for the sheer joy of exercising the right side of one's gray matter (although these categories are not mutually exclusive).  The remainder of the topic (the social changes brought about by new technology), relevant as it may be, is a real hot potato, and may best be discussed in another forum.

BTW - I have no cell phone, do not use "social networking", and haven't owned a television for more than 30 years.  I guess that makes me another grumposaur.