swing lens distortion

[CraigClint@xxxxxxx]

Howdy

I'm not a swing lens or rotational camera user, but I really like a well 
crafted image made with these cameras. 

That said, and this is a very subjective opinion, I find many such images to 
be hard to comprehend. My sense of space and direction are largely befuddled 
by images that sweep more than about 120 degrees. (I've done several with my 
digital camera and stitched them together only to find, even though I was the 
person that produced the image, that they are hard to look at in with a 
conventional eye). Maybe that is the point. 

The viewer has to suspend their usual way of looking at the world and think 
in terms of linear rather than spacial/directional relationships. Not easy 
for many of us, but I'm learning, mostly from doing.

There are some folks, Fred Yake, comes immediatly to my mind, who can make 
very wide angle images that are dramatic, arresting and interesting but that 
also understandable to just about anyone even if they have no experience 
viewing swing lens or rotational panoramics.

I assume everyone here knows the IAPP website as a source of links to many 
interesting panoramic sights. (www.panphoto.com).

In short (maybe I should have just said this at the outset). The distortion 
can work for you, and can work against you. Like every other artifact of 
technology, it is up to the craftsman/artist how to make the best use of it 
for his or her own purposes.

Craig

http://members.aol.com/cspanoramx