Pano

Pano is a pretty simple application for the iPhone designed to take several pictures, piece them together, and form one panoramic shot. Now, the final image isn’t perfect, but it’s adequate for both the price of the application as well as what it’s attempting to do.

Firstly, it’s extremely simple. You start the application up, let it boot, and then you take your first picture. The icon showing the rectangles lets you choose whether you will be moving your camera vertically or horizontally to take your panoramic. I like horizontal more, simply because I’m usually more focused on what is happening in front of me rather than trying to take in a great height of something.

Once you’ve taken that first picture, line up the translucent afterimage with the real image on your camera (basically moving it to the side), and then take the next one. You keep doing this until you’ve got everything you want, and then you hit the check mark. It takes a moment to render, as it places all the images into one coherent line, and then you’ve got your panoramic

The AI in the application to make your picture is pretty decent. It’s by no means perfect, and you’ll wind up with a few odd angles, particularly if there are a lot of angles in the area you’re shooting, but in all, I couldn’t find much to complain about. It didn’t look wrong, just a tad off.

As far as actually using this application for journalism, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a way to employ it. The situation would definitely have to warrant it, and unfortunately (it really is, because this thing is nifty), that that just doesn’t come around too often. Still, if you find yourself pretending you’re a tourist to write a feature about something, consider this before you head out.