Robert D Feinman

Lots of point-and-shoot cameras now come with a panoramic setting. This give the illusion of a wide field of view, but in reality just crops off the top and bottom of a regular image.

Here is a conventional image done with a normal lens on a medium format Rolleiflex camera. The image is 6cm by 6cm.

Here is the same scene taken with a Noblex swing-lens panoramic camera. The image is 6cm by 2.4cm.

There are slight perspective difference due to the fact that the first image was taken at waist level and this one at eye level.

Just to emphasize the difference here is the same image with the normal image outlined in yellow.

Of course if the first image had been taken with a wide angle lens the comparison would not have been quite as dramatic.

Even so, it's obvious that true panoramic images really are different.

With digital images it is possible to stich together a series of conventional images to produce panormaic image, but that's another topic.