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Ed Barth has a love for broad, open vistas, and he uses his art to share the sense of beauty and expansiveness that he experiences everywhere, especially in nature. Though Ed has always tried to show the wonder he sees in the world through photography, it wasn't until the advent of digital photography and software merging programs that Ed has felt he could truly convey the beauty he sees even in "ordinary" places. This page will show you what makes Panoramic Digital Photography unique and how it can be used to create images which are unavailable to standard format cameras. Through a series of images and text you will be guided to a richer understanding of the possibilities available with these techniques. 
This is a single image of a lake as seen though a standard 35mm lens. The image, while lovely on its own, does not begin to convey the broad, expansive beauty of the calm water and autumn shoreline. 
A wide angle lens can be used to broaden what is included in an image. An extreme example of a wide angle lens is a fisheye lens. The problem with both is they distort the view. Nearby objects appear to "grow" and distant objects "shrink". This can be used to create dramatic effects but is not true to what a person sees when they are standing there. The image above was taken with a fisheye lens. Notice how the shoreline appears curved. Overall a fisheye lens gives a distorted, bubble-like version of this scene; a poor window on such an idyllic lakeside setting. 
Most of Ed's art is created by hand-merging between 5 and 25, sometimes more, individually composed photos. Instead of settling for just a glimpse of this idyllic autumn scene as viewed in any one of the photos above, Ed combined all nine photos to create a seamless expanse stretching along 3/4 of the lake's shoreline. Because the images are taken with a standard lens there is no distortion of the view. The final image can be seen at 
The Flume, in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, is a narrow gorge with a waterfall flowing into it. Rather than limiting the observer to a thin sliver of this breathtaking, yet narrow pass, Ed includes 180 degrees of the view by carefully hand-merging five individual photos, including ones taken 90 degrees to the right and left of center. The final image can be seen at |