I've had the pleasure of using the Samsung Innov8 (16GB version) for the past two weeks and thought to share some of my favourite features in the next few days on what's probably my favourite handset right now. As you may already know, the Innov8 has a superb 8MP camera that is complemented with a host of fascinating camera features. In this blog post I'll just cover panorama.

Panorama is any wide view of a physical space. It has also come to refer to a wide-angle representation of such a view — whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model. Further, the motion-picture term, pan or panning, is derived from "panorama". - Wikipedia

Getting the picture

The image below shows the standard viewing angle I would have had if I'd used the default "single-shot" mode.

Choosing panorama mode is easy. These pictures are shot at 640x480 which is the highest quality the Innov8 will allow in this mode. 320x240 is the only other option.

Here I had my starting frame from the left. It's not shown here but there are options to take pictures horizontally or vertically.

After pressing the shutter once and having moved the camera from towards the right, the Innov8 provided a guide to my next shot by indicating the direction and an orange box in the middle to which I'd have to aim for with the white box (see image). This is a very simple process. This particular image shows that I was on the 2nd of a possible 8 frames (about a 180° angle) but I chose to do 6 instead.

This is the final product, all 6 frames stitched together. I may have rushed the shot a little as you may notice if you look closely. Some parts seem to fade into each other. These variations can make some very interesting pictures. Some of the earlier shots I'd taken included "motion" shots of a person walking and he showed up in 3 frames. That's pretty awesome!

Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg

The image below is one of my favourites as it shows just how wide an angle you can capture with the Innov8 camera.

If anybody else has a Samsung Innov8 please show off your pictures on the Blog. If you're big into panorama in general (not just on mobiles) you may also want to check out 360Cities.net.

Disclaimer: I'm part of the Samsung Blog team. The opinions expressed on this blog post are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Samsung South Africa.