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134 The “Recording” (Camera icon) Menu Settings

Figure 5-4: Comparison between Wide and Standard Panorama sizes. Both started
from the same point; it’s just a matter of how long the sequence goes.

parameter set to “Wide” at all times, which (according to Sony) covers 226
degrees around the photographer. If I ever want it smaller, I’ll just crop it
later on my computer.
You may find that panorama mode is a little temperamental. Like it might
complain if your speed isn’t just right. Or it won’t complain but will just
leave a giant grey rectangle near the end of your panorama sweep. Why is
the camera so fussy?
Well, it turns out that the camera starts aligning and stitching the images
together while you’re still shooting. In fact, if you look very closely at the
dark grey horizontal bar in the lower half of the display, it is kind of like a
progress bar – it gets longer the more you sweep, and if it’s getting longer
at a constant pace then you know you’re sweeping at the right speed. If it’s
having too much trouble making the ends of adjacent pictures match up, it
will stop the process and complain, saying something about it can’t create
the panorama, and sometimes it will also give you a specific thing you can
do to fix the problem, such as shoot more slowly or more quickly.
(Sometimes it doesn’t.) It is a process that takes practice.
Another thing to watch out for is subjects that move while you’re
panorama-ing. (Hey, that’s a word!) For a moving subject can appear in
more than one adjacent frame and look quite un-natural. Figure 5-5 has
some real-world examples.

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