Exploring Panoramas at Menlo Park’s Sharon Park

I was out for a morning walk at Sharon Park this morning and wanted to try out the new panorama feature that’s included in the new iOS 6 update for Apple iPhones (panorama works with either the iPhone 4S or the new iPhone 5). I had my iPhone 4S in my pocket and took a couple of shots as I meandered around the pond.

To use the new panorama feature, you first open the iPhone’s Camera app while holding it in portrait (vertical) position. At the top of the screen – in the middle – is a button called Options. Tap that – and then select Panorama on the next screen.

The Camera will then go into panorama mode – and provide a little animation on the screen showing you how to start the panorama on the left side of the scene and then providing guidance to you as you begin a slow sweep from left to right while holding the phone vertically and as steady as you can. Don’t worry too much about the steadiness – it seems pretty forgiving in that regard. When you ready to start, tap the Camera button and begin creating your panorama. When you get to the end of the scene on the right, tap the Camera button again (or use the volume up button on the side of the iPhone) to stop.

The Camera app will then quickly stitch together the images from your scene and drop the finished image into your Camera Roll. From there you can further edit it, share it, upload it to Facebook, etc. The process is easy once you’ve done it a couple of times – and produces some beautiful results. Once again, it’s hard to believe how much power we can carry in our pockets – and use to make some beautiful photographs!

PS: If you take some panoramas yourself while you’re out and about in Menlo Park, please share them by emailing your photo to: tips@inmenlo.com – we’d love to see what you create and to share some of you your panoramas here! Here are a couple more of the panoramas I shot this morning – click on any of the images to see a larger version!