Vertical Panorama pictures

Text and pictures © 1992-2024 Guillaume Dargaud
Last updated on 2018/10/17

"To those who have struggled with them, the mountains reveal beauties that they will not disclose to those who make no effort. That is the reward the mountains give to effort. And it is because they have so much to give and give it so lavishly to those who will wrestle with them that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again. The mountains reserve their choice gifts for those who stand upon their summits."    — Sir Francis Younghusband.

Note: all those pictures were taken with a normal camera and then assembled in Paint Shop Pro using my freeware PanoWarp.

Vertical panoramas

Left: Vertical panorama (2 horizontal pictures) of Jenny on Assembly Line, an excellent hand crack on Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

Right: Vertical panorama (2 horizontal pictures) of Jenny on Patent Pending, 5.8+ offwidth; Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

So how do you create vertical panoramas ? Well, just the same way than horizontal ones, but instea of using a cylindrical (=Mercator) or spherical projection, you need to rotate the assembled images prior to projections. Some programs allow you to do this in one step using the 'transverse Mercator' or 'transverse cylindrical' projections. Otherwise, in your panorama editor of choice, rotate your assembly 90 degrees to the side, perform all the adjustments just like if it was a horizontal panoramas (choosing either from cylindrical, spherical, etc...), produce the resulting image and then rotate it back in Photoshop.

Note that it's fairly difficult to find a subject worthy of a vertical panorama framing. It takes quite a bit of getting the eyes used to seeing things in vertical this way. Of course climbing is a pretty obvious target, but so is architecture, macro and many others.

Above: Vertical panorama (2 vertical pictures) of Max and Jenny on Walt Bailey Memorial, an excellent hand crack on Devil's Tower, Wyoming.

Above: Vertical panorama (2 vertical pictures) of Jenny on Maiden Voyage, an introductory climb in the Black Canyon of Gunnison, Colorado.

Above: Vertical panorama (2 vertical pictures) of Jenny on the 2nd belay of the Scenic Cruise, a legendary climb in the Black Canyon of Gunnison, Colorado. More B&W ?

Above: 180° vertical panorama (4 horizontal pictures) of Double Arch, Utah. The horizon is visible both at the bottom and at the top of the picture, reversed.

Above: Vertical panorama (2 vertical pictures) of Jenny finishing the 2nd pitch of Primrose Dihedral on Moses Tower, Utah.

Above: Vertical panorama (3 horizontal pictures) of Jenny below the great roof of Syke Sicle on Spearhead, Colorado.

Above: Vertical panorama (4 vertical pictures) showing the Casual Route of the Diamond, Longs Peak, Colorado.

Above: Vertical panorama of the Great Roof of the Nose of El Capitan. The difficulties here was that I took two pictures, one with a 20mm and one with a 35mm. I had to resize one of the images and crop the other to make the fit. Above: Anasazie ruins at the bottom of Grand Canyon, at the beach near Phantom ranch. Assembled from 2 quick vertical pictures.

Above: Vertical panorama (4 horizontal pictures) of the Diamond, Longs Peak, Colorado. Above: Vertical panorama (2 vertical pictures) of the Fang, a classic hard ice climb in Colorado.

Left: Jason on the Thang right after I led it. The Fang is the big column dropping on the left. 3 horizontal B&W 20mm shots taken on top of each others while belaying him.

Right: The wall dominating this Anasazie dwelling was so huge that I took two 20mm shots on top of each others and assembled them. Canyon de Chelly.

Above: Vertical panorama showing details of the Grand Canyon of Colorado (3 vertical pictures), taken from the south rim.

Above: Bridge on the Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon of Colorado, Arizona. Assembled from 2 vertical pictures. Want to learn how to do the same ? Download Panowarp and read its tutorial. It's free.

Above: This is simply a vertical picture of Ribbon Falls, on the north Kaibab Trail of Grand Canyon, cropped into a panorama. Notice that the cropping induces a drop in sharpness compared to assembled panoramas.