Re: Panorama debate

[Robert Erickson <cirkut8@xxxxxxxxx>]

Aspect ratio has nothing what so ever to do with being
panoramic! My universe has an aspect ratio of 1:2 -->
180 degrees heaven to hell by 360 degrees around. If I
were to limit myself to just everything that I can see
in every direction on the surface of the earth and all
of the sky above this would have an aspect ratio of
1:1. The PPC logo is based on a satellite image of the
entire planet earth. The aspect ratio is 1:2

How can you say that including everything in every
direction is NOT panoramic? This would be a mistake.

BTW- You can not say that being panoramic is based on
the number of degrees viewed. I have one of Bob's
Circus train prints that is 4 inches high by 17 feet
long. Only 1 degree of view is represented but over a
long period of time as the train passed by. 

Bob

--- "Curt Miller,EMW" <cmiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It was a glorious and cold winter afternoon here in
> the Berkshires so I went
> out with my 4x5 to make a landscape image in the
> waning afternoon sun down
> in Stockbridge...sort of a Christmas present to
> myself.  While I was doing
> this, it dawned on me that a definition for
> "panoramic" did indeed exist.  
> 
> I don't remember where I read it or to whom an
> attribution should be made
> but the definition becomes clear when the reasoning
> is spelled out.  It goes
> something like this:  a panoramic is an image where
> the aspect ratio is
> greater than a certain factor (I think between 1:2
> and 1:3).  The reason is
> that the brain requires us to "read" or scan the
> image from one side to the
> other (or top to bottom) because, unlike with an
> image which aspect ratio is
> below this threshold, we can't capture all the
> information in one look.
> With a "regular" picture, we can.
> 
> This said, any camera which produces an extreme
> aspect ratio (relative to
> the above) is a panoramic camera and the image it
> produces is a panoramic
> image.  This includes cameras and images made with
> those $8 disposables.
> I'm very comfortable with this.  Even though the
> image I made today with
> fine grain film will have 30 times the information
> as the negative produced
> by the disposable, it's not necessarily a more
> valuable image (or, if you
> must make parallels, if I had made the image with a
> 4x10, I'd have 60x the
> information...).  I think this is what irks people:
> that the quality of the
> image must somehow be directly proportional to all
> of the inputs, economic
> or other.  
> 
> It really doesn't bother me in the least that some
> other guy with his EOS
> Rebel and $89 zoom lens considers himself my peer as
> a photographer
> (...could be he's even better, huh?).  What counts
> is the finished product,
> the judgement of which will be amazingling
> subjective (assuming a certain
> base level of technique is applied to its creation).
>  I really enjoy the
> work of some contemporary 35mm photographers, David
> Alan Harvey and Ralph
> Gibson to name two.  I've talked with both recently
> about technique and
> feeling for an image and it really comes clear to me
> that it's really about
> capturing on film that which is seen in the mind's
> eye.  We might like the
> results or not but we can't criticize the equipment
> with which they were made.
> 
> I've got to go develop some sheet film.
> 
> Regards,
> Curt
>
=========================================================================
>                        Curt Miller, M.P.A.
>                   Classic Photography by Miller
>               B&W Fine Art Photography and Printing
>                        Using Minox to 4X5
>               Co-founder of "The Berkshire Archive"
> 
>                        Elizabeth Mei Wong
>    Birding with Women Outdoors at
> http://www.women-outdoors.org/
>            or with Berkshire County's Hoffman Bird
> Club
> 
>           Pittsfield, Massachusetts - In the
> Berkshires
>
=========================================================================
> 
> 



=====
Robert Erickson, cirkut8@xxxxxxxxx
http://members.tripod.com/cirkut8/links.html
http://www.panoramic.net


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